Department of the GeoPhysical Sciences

Geophysical Science News

• Congratulations Hannah Bloom!

  August 11, 2022

  Hannah Bloom successfully defended her Master's thesis on August 4th titled "s-Process Molybdenum, Ruthenium, and Barium in High-Density Presolar Graphite". Hannah's committee was Andy Davis (chair), Thomas Stephan, Philipp Heck, Fred Ciesla, and Andy Campbell.

  What's next for Hannah? This fall she will be a Guest Lecturer at Wheaton College, where she will be teaching Astronomy. In the spring she will be a Guest Faculty at Elmhurst University, where she will be teaching Environmental Science (which will involve a good amount of Earth Science). Future goals include earning a full-time position teaching at the college level.

  Congrats again, Hannah!

• Art is all around us: Exploring creative works across the UChicago campus

  July 26, 2022

  Science and art, intertwined

  Ruth Duckworth’s “Earth, Water, Sky,” a four hundred-square-foot mural covers the four walls and ceiling of the entrance to the Henry Hinds Laboratory for Geophysical Sciences.

  The space is covered with over four hundred tiles with “fluid, biomorphic ceramic shapes.”

  A former faculty member who taught at UChicago from 1964-1973, the piece was commissioned at a particularly exciting time for the geophysical sciences, as the first satellite views of the earth were available, and earth science and atmospheric science were being joined together as one field.

  Check out more of the innovative art around campus right here.

• Extreme Heat Waves: Why Are They Surging? with Noboru Nakamura

  July 12, 2022

  It’s not your imagination, summers have been getting hotter and hotter with extreme heatwaves occurring earlier and more frequently. But why is this happening and can we better predict heatwaves in advance to give people time to prepare?

  In June of 2021, an unprecedented heatwave shocked the Pacific Northwest and Canada. It ended up being one of the most deadly extreme weather events in the region. But no one could figure out how it occurred, until one Professor of Geophysical Science at the University of Chicago, Noboru Nakamura, saw it as an opportunity to test a new theoretical framework he had developed for understanding atmospheric phenomena.

  Check out the full transcript of this interview right here.

• Dauphas selected for Mars Sample Return Campaign Science Group

  June 17, 2022

  Louis Block Professor Nicolas Dauphas has been named one of the members of the Mars Sample Return Campaign Science Group. According to NASA, the Group "will be the standard-bearers for Mars Sample Return science. [...] They will build the roadmap by which science for this historic endeavor is accomplished – including establishing the processes for sample-related decision-making and designing the procedures that will allow the worldwide scientific community to become involved with these first samples from another world."

  Samples are now being collected by the Perseverance rover for intended future return to Earth.

  More information can be found at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-partner-establish-new-research-group-for-mars-sample-return-program

  And at UChicago News