First Days

Quick update tonight: The first few days on the job have been pretty slow. Lots of training on the computer (computer safety/security, information protection, etc...) and reading papers. Joe gave me a bunch of journal articles about rootless cones, which is what our project will be on this summer. A rootless cone is a small volcanic cone that is formed when lava flows over wet ground or ice. The water gets heated, and explodes as it is turned to steam, building the cone. The best-studied examples are in Iceland, but there are also lots of investigations of some possible rootless cones on Mars, which is really interesting because that would mean there is (or was) water or ice at the surface! There's still a lot of controversy surrounding the Martian cones, though.

In other news, we were driving home from the store on Monday night, and we got an AWESOME view of Mt. Hood from the street right around the block from our house. It was incredible! So we raced home to grab our cameras, and searched out a good point for taking pictures. Unfortunately, it was getting dark, but I think we still got some pretty good ones. I'll post the (really terrible) copies from my phone for now, but will update with real photos when I can get them off my camera:

I know it's really hard to see, I'm sorry, but here's a view of how Mt. Hood stands out over all of the surrounding landscape. It's so pretty!

A view of Mt. Hood through the trees. It was such a clear night, we had a great view. I just wish we'd found a good spot before it got so dark!

Better pictures to come.