volcanoes

Researchers inspect a Lahar flow – a mix of water and rock fragments that looks like moving concrete – near the Tungaruhua volcano close to Banjos, Ecuador. The flow killed three people and shut down access to the road to Banjos in a 2006 eruption.A geologist at Washington University in St. Louis is doing his part to make sure that the small Latin American country of Ecuador follows the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. Robert Buchwaldt, Ph.D., Washington University lecturer in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, is the only scientist from America who sits on an international committee that is seeking ways to address the volcanic threat in Ecuador, especially in Quito, a city of five million nestled against the volcano Guagua Pichincha, which erupted just two years ago.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.Polar layered deposits exposed in a scarp at the head of Chasma Boreale, a large canyon on Mars.Mars climate history, recorded in ice-rich deposits near the poles, on crater-wall cliffs and ancient sand dunes, is being revealed by a trio of NASA instruments now flying over and rolling across the planet, suggest Washington University in St. Louis researchers playing key roles in the mission.