In the arid environment east of Bend, erosion is slow. Topography reveals the presence of fault lines where they are not obscured by ancient lava flows. (Photo: Anita Grunder)
Some of us need a direct, physical connection with a subject to look at it through the lens of science. For Ajeet Johnson, an OSU master’s student in Geosciences from Bend, that connection came from rock climbing at Smith Rock and skiing at Mt. Bachelor. Now she locates fault lines and seeks answers to questions about Earth movements in Central Oregon’s High Lava Plains. She is looking for clues to explain a landscape shaped by volcanoes and colliding tectonic plates, and she wants to know what those clues might mean for our future. See “Committed to a Fault” in the latest issue of Terra.
Nick Houtman
On my first visit to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, I saw whales, volcanoes and dinosaurs. I visited planets and stars and saw a giant pendulum swinging from the ceiling, knocking over a circle of sticks, one stick at a time. Evidence of the Earth’s rotation, so someone said. I thought it was a trick because nothing was rotating from my perspective. But then I was probably five years old.
The College of Science Fellows Fund helps us to recruit the best and brightest graduate students who go on to become leaders in their field. There are benefits for faculty and undergraduates, too. 