What a geologist does all summer

So, I am sure that everyone (at least the non-geologist amongst you) have been wondering: "what does a geologist do all summer anyway?". Well, here is a bit of my summer.

We will start in April. Fritz, Toufik, and I went to the Val Lumnezia in southeast Switzerland.

 

We were down there collecting stream sediment so that we can determine the erosion rates there. 

 

We also collected some soil samples to try to calculate chemical weathering rates as well (yes it really was that steep).

Then, I had about 4 days off before jen and I rushed off to Vienna for the annual European Geological Union meeting. 

Three days after that, I jetted off to Peru with Toufik and Mareike for the Peru work in May (see the previous post).

After that, I headed up to Potsdam in June for yet another conference.

So, now back to field work. In July, the GFZ crew came down to the Goms (where I did my PhD work) to do some further sampling. Here is everyone putting in soil water sampling equipment on the famous Honegg. 

Jan and Reka also did some bicycling (actually they are creating a vacuum for the samplers).

And possibly the highlight, Marcus and I got to (try to) drill cores out of the granodiorite walls up in Grimsel. Strangely, granitic rocks are quite hard.

After the work in Goms, I packed my bags again and headed down to South Tirol (Northern Italy) with Fritz to do some work with Sara and the crew from Milan. The work (of course) involved digging more holes, something that I have gotten quite good at over the years. Here is Vincenzo working his way through a glacial till.

This was the first time that I was snowed on this summer. 

 

This is typically what one of the holes looks like. 

We then take samples from the walls. We also took some quartz veins to try to calculate the time since the glaciers melted here (hopefully a long time ago). 

 

And of course we also looked at other exciting geomorphological phenomena such as the lovely debris flow channel. A rock as big as a van was transported down this channel 2 years ago and deposited about 2 miles further down valley!

Then came August. I had the great fortune to accompany the young researchers of the German-Tibetan Plateau Research group on a tour of mountain geomorphology here in Switzerland (they were typically more active than this). 

Along with looking at vegetation above Grindelwald (far too many pictures to post here), we headed up to the Jungfraujoch research station to look at snow (the second time that I was snowed on this summer). 

We had a great tour over to the Monchsjoch, and saw the ash layer from this spring's Iceland eruptions.

We also took a trip up to Mont Fort in the Valais to look at permafrost (this was the 3rd time that I was snowed on this summer). 

 

This is the top of a 20 meter deep borehole into a moraine that the University of Lausanne monitors. The only real danger to science at this elevation is from snowcats grooming the slopes!

There was also a trip over to the Goms (the reason that I was with them in the first place was to do some fieldtrip leading). Here is an intrepid group of us who popped up to the top of the Risihorn (note the Finsteraarhorn and Fiescher glacier in the background).

Then we ended the excursion with a trip over to the Great Aletsch Glacier, the longest glacier in Europe. It is also one of the first glaciers to be studied, and where Louis Agassiz started formulating his ideas of ice ages! You can just feel the geologic energy seeping from the rocks and ice.

Well, that pretty much brings us up to date. There are still two more conferences this year (one in London and one in Switzerland), but things are definitely winding down...about time to start preparing for ski season!