Brittany Brand and Aaron Marshall in the Maipo Valley.
Brittany Brand, assistant professor of geosciences, is currently in Chile studying deposits from several volcanoes along the Ring of Fire that follows that country’s coastline. Her first week, which began Nov. 13, found her in the Maipo Valley just outside Santiago.
The two volcanoes that feed into the valley (San Jose and Maipo) tower more than 20,000 feet above the plain. Future eruptions threaten the valley’s population, so Brand is looking at deposits from past volcanic eruptions to better prepare residents to understand and mitigate risks of future eruptions.
Brand also will visit Chile’s Llaina and Villarrica volcanoes, funded by a grant from National Geographic. She and her colleagues will hike into the lava and ash deposits surrounding the volcano and use a drone to capture detailed overhead images.
Follow her activities on the Boise State Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Facebook page at http://fb.me/BSUvolcanology.
BY: KATHLEEN TUCKÂ Â Â PUBLISHED 1:18 PM / NOVEMBER 21, 2016