Nicola Shannon
5 dispatches · Potrillo Volcanic Field
Data Days: Geologists Find Benefits in Pausing For Reflection
Most geological field expeditions leave data analysis for a later season, sometimes discovering equipment failures only after returning home. The RIS4E team took a different approach at Kilbourne Hole in 2017, building two dedicated analysis days into the schedule, alternating with field days, so that astronaut Butch Wilmore and geologist Liz Rampe could adjust their simulated EVAs in real time.
ReadInside Aden Crater, a World of Tunnels, Tubes and Pits
Ten miles from Kilbourne Hole, the RIS4E team traded ash and sand for the jagged, porous rock of Aden Crater, a small shield volcano riddled with lava tubes, pits, and collapsed tunnels. Researchers deployed LiDAR scanners and a fixed-wing drone to map the underground features, pursuing a question with stakes beyond geology: whether hollow lava tubes on the Moon could one day shelter astronauts from space radiation.
ReadMars in New Mexico: A Geologist in Paradise
Elizabeth Rampe, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, spent the 2017 Potrillo field test paired with astronaut Butch Wilmore, running mock EVAs along the rim of Kilbourne Hole. As deputy principal investigator of the CheMin X-ray diffractometer aboard Curiosity, Rampe had spent years studying Mars mineralogy from Houston. The analog mission let her do the same work on foot.
ReadThe Roving Adventures of Team LiDAR
LiDAR, Light Detection and Ranging, builds precise 3D maps by bouncing laser pulses across a landscape and assembling the returns into millions of data points. At Kilbourne Hole in 2017, NASA planetary geologist Patrick Whelley hauled a 50-pound scanner across the desert to capture features from lava bubbles to full lava tubes, data he believed could one day guide rovers on the Moon and Mars.
ReadSeeking Shelter in Lava Tubes
Volcanic eruptions on rocky planets leave behind networks of hollow lava tubes that, on the Moon, can stretch miles wide. The RIS4E team traveled to New Mexico’s Potrillo volcanic field in June 2017 to study those formations and to test whether instruments like LiDAR could distinguish a true lava tunnel from an inflation pit, a first step toward finding shelters that might protect future astronauts from deep-space radiation.
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