Update from the field

First off, sorry for being so scarce lately! The field and lab work has taken up almost all my time, so finding a few moments to blog have been tough. I’m also traveling light with only my iPad, so that has added to the challenge.

Some highlight so far:
– I collected (with help from Dr. David Greene from Denison and Dr. Jade Star Lackey from Pomona) samples of more rhyolites from the Mineral King pendant. The biggest challenge was the sample from Vandever Mt., which took a 6+ mile hike in, an overnight at 10,000 feet and a final slog to over 11,000 feet to grab the sample.
– While at Pomona, Jade Star and I extracted zircon from the rhyolites and from one gabbro as well. I’ll post some images next week.

Today, my research student and I will mount the zircons from Mineral King and some zircon from the 1915 Lassen Peak eruption that Matt extracted. Then, we’re off to Lassen to see some rocks (and hopefully less snow than predicted) over the weekend before blasting the zircons on the SHRIMP-RG at Stanford next week.

So, busy! If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you might have missed some images I’ve posted on Instagram.

I know I’ve missed at lot of action at Cleveland, Lokon, Etna, Kilauea and more, but I’ll try to have more updates next week. Otherwise, keep up the great job you all have been doing with the news in the comments!
See you next week. 

Top left: Painting “Creation” by Barbara K. Mindell.