From May 27-29, 2024, the scientists that sailed aboard JOIDES Resolution for Expeditions 390 and 393, along with their student researchers and mentors, gathered in Reykjavík, Iceland. It had now been two years since both expeditions sailed (and even longer since the engineering legs installed the reentry cones for the South Atlantic Transect). The purpose of the meeting was to bring everyone together to share their scientific findings, to provide updates for ongoing analyses, and to determine new opportunities and directions for further research.
Our days were packed with oral and poster presentations from the 50 scientists present. It was exciting to see and hear how far we have come since our time at sea, and how far we still can take this research. This is a photo of where we spent most of our time sharing our work and getting caught up with updates to our professional and personal lives. I won’t go into the “science” of the meeting – that is for the scientists themselves to disseminate. I was fortunate to be able to share my updates with a talk on the status of my JR quilt project, the Tales from the Deep audio narrative archive, and I was able to get some volunteers to help with a new quilt project on-the-spot! It is a collaborative quilt that I just finished (less than a month after returning from Iceland – phew!) titled Takk, JOIDES Resolution.
And did I mention that a volcano started erupting during the meeting??? There’s nothing that will derail a conference with marine geologists when the Grindavik volcano, only 45-minutes away, starts spewing an ash cloud. The email alerts were going around during lunchtime, and we were a bit delayed starting our afternoon session – too much excitement, too many livestream videos to watch!
After the conclusion of the scientific presentations, there was a full-day fieldtrip to several sites around Iceland to observe geology – Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park, Geysir & Strokkur Geysers, Gulfoss Waterfall, and The Geothermal Exhibition – Hellisheiði Power Station. These are just a few examples of the sites we visited, which reminded me of the geology field seminar I attended in Iceland back in 2013!
After the scientists departed, I remained a few extra days to explore with an amazing early career scientists that I sailed with on Expedition 390. I was honored when Claire Routledge, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Kiel, asked me to serve as her mentor in the via:mento international program. This mentoring program is just incredible and has such a well-organized structure for not only the mentees but the mentors as well! Part of the program allows for the mentor/mentee pairs to visit each other for some focused mentoring, and Claire and I decided to stay after the meeting and explore-while-mentoring through Iceland. I so appreciated the time we had together. It’s never enough time, but she knows I’m always just a WhatsApp message away!
This meeting was definitely a highlight of my summer. I was able to connect with people I hadn’t seen since I was on the ship, and I met some new scientists and amazing students working on our Expedition core material. I was able to see puffins and an erupting volcano on my way to the airport. And oh yes – a new quilt was created! I look forward to seeing all of these colleagues at future meetings – and who knows, maybe one day, again at sea….
Journeys of Dr. G 