"Eruption of Knowledge"

My name is Dan Kelley and I'm a Ph.D. student in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State. I first started to be interested in Geology because it's a good blend of a lot of different sciences, there’s a lot of math, a lot of physics, there’s a lot of chemistry, and there's a lot of biology even involved. So it's kind of a nice mix of all of these sciences and you get to do a lot of work outside of the field and travel to a lot of nice places. My research involves studying volcanoes in Iceland, so for the past two summers I've gone for a few weeks to Iceland to do field work. So what I'm doing there is collecting rocks from around the many volcanoes in Iceland, and bringing them back here to be analyzed in a lab. I spend most of my time in Iceland in the northern volcanic zone, where there is a lot of different volcanoes. It's important to understand how these volcanoes work in Iceland first of all, because there is so many of them and they are active, they have a lot of significance impacting the people of Iceland. And furthermore if we understand how they work or what depths they erupt magmas from and how often they erupt, we can make predictions about what might happen the next time each of the volcanoes erupts in terms of out flowing of lava and effects on the climate and so forth. There's a lot of opportunity for research within the School of Earth Sciences with people working all over the world, a lot of research in Antarctica, in Asia and South America, and every part of the world really. We have a lot of opportunity to learn in the field for undergraduates. We do 10-day field trips that are geared towards all disciplines where we go to different places of the U.S. such as the Northern Appalachians or the Southern Appalachians and study all different aspects of the geology. Another big aspect of our undergraduate program is a trip to Utah for six weeks one summer towards the end of your bachelor’s degree to do field camp and do a real complete regional study of the geology in central Utah. Working at Ohio State I've had a lot of opportunities to do this kind of research because there is the opportunity within the University for research funding for graduate students. Working at a large research institution allows for the opportunity to get external funding to do this type of research, so traveling to a place like Iceland wouldn't be possible without a lot of help with funding. This important research can't be done without the opportunities that are available at Ohio State.

Iceland is among the most volcanically active regions in the world. The island, about the size of Ohio, has more than 200 volcanoes.

For the past two summers, Ohio State doctoral student Dan Kelley has traveled to the Nordic island to study magma chambers.

Along with Professor Michael Barton, Kelley has taken the first detailed look at what lies beneath all of Iceland’s volcanoes. Barton and Kelley found a labyrinth of magma chambers far more complex than geologists imagined.

The research could eventually help scientists better understand how earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur, in Iceland and elsewhere.

"If we understand how they work, we can make predictions about what might happen next," Kelley says.

Kelley says the opportunity to study in Iceland was the result of research funding available to Ohio State graduate students.

“This important research can't be done without the opportunities that are available at Ohio State. ”
—Dan Kelley, Ohio State doctoral student

"Traveling to a place like Iceland wouldn’t be possible without a lot of help with funding," he says. "This important research can’t be done without the opportunities that are available at Ohio State."

Ohio State graduate students are supported by external grants, college and departmental funding, and fellowships and grants from the Graduate School, which awarded 330 graduate student researchers nearly $5 million last year.

"The thing that makes a Ph.D. a Ph.D. is the ability to do independent research that leads to new knowledge, and the only way to get there is by actually doing independent research," says Patrick S. Osmer, vice provost for graduate studies and dean of the Graduate School.

But the chance to do field research isn't limited to grad students. Undergraduates in Earth Sciences may study in Antarctica, Asia, and South America. And geological sciences majors are required to spend six weeks of one summer in Ephraim, Utah, where they study sedimentology and examine features such as faults and basalt from old underwater volcanic eruptions.

"We have a lot of opportunity to learn in the field for undergraduates," Kelley says. "There's a lot of opportunity for research within the School of Earth Sciences, with people working all over the world."

Read the Ohio State Research News story about Kelley's work.

And find out about Research Awareness Events this month at Ohio State.