American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting showcase for 2024’s major geoscience research, discoveries
Nearly 180 researchers and other experts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks are in Washington, D.C., this week for an annual gathering of top geophysical scientists from around the world.
The American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting opens today in the nation’s capital. And as usual it’s drawing a big turnout of earth and space scientists, like the 178 from UAF who will present a total of 100 papers on the cutting-edge research they’ve been conducting.
“It's kind of like the Super Bowl for geophysicists and geoscientists,” says Jessica Larsen, the associate director of UAF’s Geophysical Institute. She’s also a volcanologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Larsen says the annual event attracts not only scientists but also educators, policymakers and journalists, to name a few.
“About 25, 000 people attend,” she said. “So it's a really great place to not only present our science, but also to meet new people for collaborations from just a really diverse cross section of people from all over the world.”
The contingent from the Geophysical Institute, or GI, is the biggest of UAF’s delegation. But it also includes presenters from the university’s other academic units, including the International Arctic Research Center, the Institute of Northern Engineering, the Institute of Arctic Biology and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
“The GI is really in the thick of the American Geophysical Union meeting,” she said, “because that's really what we're really experts at here.”
During the conference, Larsen will give two talks on volcanology-related topics that she’s been researching. One is about the Lost Jim Lava Flow, a sprawling expanse of now-hardened lava that flowed into what’s now called the Seward Peninsula more than 10,000 years ago.
“It's in a region where, you know, you can expect someday in the future, there might be another eruption,” she said.
The other paper Larsen will be presenting is about Mount Churchill, a nearly 16,000-foot dormant volcano in the Saint Elias Mountains in southeastern mainland Alaska that both the Volcano Observatory and the U.S. Geological Survey are keeping an eye on.
“It is the source of two of the largest, most explosive eruptions in North America in the past 2,000 years,” she said. “. … It's considered high threat by the USGS and we know very little about it.”
Larsen has attended many previous American Geophysical Union annual meetings, and she’s looking forward to again exchanging information, seeing old colleagues and meeting new ones. She hopes graduate students and other younger members in UAF’s delegation also will experience that camaraderie.
“For our graduate students,” she said, “it's a phenomenal event, because they can get practice talking about their science and their research and communicating that with other people they meet, other researchers who might be the source of employment or collaborations for them later on, or research collaborations.”
Many of the presentations are related to climate change and its impact on Alaska and the Arctic. Others will touch on issues like subsistence and indigenous knowledge that informs research. Members of the public who are curious about those talks can go online to agu.org/annualmeeting.
