Jasmine Blennau
5 dispatches · Kīlauea
An Odyssey Into Geology
Deanne Rogers, an assistant professor of geosciences at Stony Brook University and a co-investigator on the RIS4E project, led the thermal infrared imaging team at Kīlauea in June 2015. She designed five custom filters for a standard FLIR camera that expanded its spectral range, letting the team identify differences in rock mineralogy on the ground, the same method she applied to understanding how minerals on Mars formed.
ReadNever Stop Exploring
Gen Ito brought a rare combination to the RIS4E field test in June 2015: a graduate student in planetary science at Stony Brook University, he had already contributed to both the remote sensing and infrared spectroscopy sides of the project. A reconnaissance trip to Hawaii the previous fall sharpened the instruments he and his team would return with, and fueled an ambition that reached well beyond the lava fields.
ReadScientist in the Making
Marcie Yant joined the RIS4E field study in Hawaii as a Ph.D. candidate in geosciences at Stony Brook University, invited by her advisor Deanne Rogers to assist with thermal infrared spectral imaging of the lava flow. Her path to the volcanic rock of Kīlauea wound through model rockets in Indiana, a double major in geology and biology, and a determination to combine research with teaching.
ReadThe Kite Geologist
While the rest of the RIS4E team carried spectrometers and laser instruments into the lava fields of Kīlauea in June 2015, postdoctoral planetary scientist Stephen Scheidt of the University of Arizona flew a kite. His custom camera rigs captured low-altitude aerial images that, stitched together through photogrammetry and layered onto LIDAR terrain models, gave geologists a bird’s-eye view of field sites they could revisit from the lab.
ReadTIR Remote Sensing
Deanne Rogers, a geoscientist at Stony Brook, brought a modified infrared camera to Kīlauea’s lava fields in June 2015 to map rock mineralogy by heat signature rather than by eye. Her team fitted an off-the-shelf FLIR camera with custom spectral filters to produce multispectral images that could one day guide astronauts or rovers toward the most scientifically valuable samples on the Moon.
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