Dear GLIMS colleagues, My time with GLIMS has been an extraordinary 2.9 years of exploring the world of glaciology, pursuing fascinating new research, and meeting new friends. But now I have been given the unique opportunity to move my research focus back to active volcanoes. I will be moving to the USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) in Anchorage, Alaska in a few days to begin a research geophysicist position there doing mostly volcano remote sensing. While I am a bit sad that glaciology will now be reduced to a very small part of my research, working at a volcano observatory as a full-time scientist has been a dream of mine since 1988 when I interned with the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory helping them study the (then) new Mount St. Helens lava dome. If you are curious about my new job, I will have two main tasks at AVO: Volcano monitoring and developing new remote sensing research and applications. For the first task, I will mostly assist with the day to day active volcano monitoring via sensors like MODIS, AVHRR, and GOES for thermal anomaly and ash detection. The volcanoes of the northern Pacific can put out a lot of volcanic ash which poses serious hazards to jet aircraft. The 1989 eruption of Redoubt volcano damaged five jets which flew into its ash cloud. One jetliner with 243 passengers aboard temporarily lost power to all four engines and nearly crashed before safely landing in Anchorage. Damage to the Boeing 747 totaled nearly $100 million. (see http://www.avo.alaska.edu/genrl_info/pdfs/usgsfs030_97_ash.pdf). It is one of AVO's responsibilities (and several other organizations globally) to make sure that we detect major eruption events in time to notify the authorities to reroute air traffic. My research and applications task at AVO will be to continue to develop new monitoring techniques, collaborate on the ongoing hazard mapping projects as a high resolution remote sensing geologist and to hopefully reinvigorate my past life of studying the interaction of active volcanoes and tectonics. I will continue to have a small role in support of GLIMS and will hopefully continue to work with Jeff Kargel and several others on a few, yet to be funded, research efforts. I will certainly continue to help with glacier hazard response since that task meshes well with my new volcano responsibilities. If you do still have GLIMS and ASTER related questions for me, I will be glad to try to answer them or at least forward it to the proper person (with my usual "lightning" fast response time ;). Thanks to all of you for welcoming me into GLIMS and the field of glaciology. I hope to see and work with many of you in the future. My Warmest Regards, -- Rick +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Rick Wessels, Ph.D. rwessels@usgs.gov Arizona State University / U.S. Geological Survey 2255 N. Gemini Drive Phone(928)-556-7022 Flagstaff, AZ 86001 FAX -7014 After May 1, 2003 Alaska Volcano Observatory rwessels@usgs.gov U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center 4200 University Drive Anchorage, AK 99508 voice: 907-786-7492 fax: 907-786-7425 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++