{"id":61099,"date":"2013-05-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/commencement-2013-underwater-volcano-study-takes-uri-oceanography-student-from-seafloor-to-space\/"},"modified":"2013-05-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T00:00:00","slug":"commencement-2013-underwater-volcano-study-takes-uri-oceanography-student-from-seafloor-to-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/05\/commencement-2013-underwater-volcano-study-takes-uri-oceanography-student-from-seafloor-to-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2013: Underwater volcano study takes 溏心vlog免费B站 oceanography student from seafloor to space"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tNorth Reading, Mass. native to graduate May 18, begin NASA internship<\/p>\n

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 May 13, 2013 \u2013 Joshua Kelly unexpectedly found himself on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea on his very first week as a student at the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Graduate School of Oceanography.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cTalk about being thrown into the fire,\u201d said the native of North Reading, Mass. \u201cBut it was a blast!\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAs Kelly prepares to graduate on May 18 with a master\u2019s degree in geological oceanography, he is looking back nostalgically on that first expedition aboard the E\/V Nautilus, a research ship that broadcasts its scientific expeditions live over the Internet 24\/7.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI was on watch when we discovered a sunken World War II airplane, and my Dad was watching on the Internet from home and he recognized the plane,\u201d Kelly said with amazement. \u201cI was on board to discover it, and my dad was there remotely to identify it. It was a once in a lifetime experience.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe purpose of Kelly\u2019s time aboard the ship was to study Foerstner volcano, an underwater volcano off the coast of Italy that erupted in 1891 and produced what he called \u201cfloating lava balloons,\u201d lava rocks that floated to the surface and have only been observed five times in human history.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe characteristics of the magma and the eruption itself were very peculiar,\u201d explained Kelly, who earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in geosciences from 溏心vlog免费B站 in 2011. \u201cIt was a very shallow water eruption that allowed for conditions that favored the production of extremely low density eruptive products.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHonored as the Robert D. Ballard Graduate Fellow for his work aboard the Nautilus, Kelly\u2019s aim was to collect samples of these rocks and study them so he could create a model of how and why these lava balloons are formed. Working in collaboration with 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Steven Carey, a volcanologist, Kelly spent his days aboard ship helping to map the volcano, determine what lava samples to collect, and recording any notable geological, biological or archaeological observations made by the remotely-operated vehicles (ROV) exploring the site.<\/p>\n


\n\tBack at Carey\u2019s lab on the 溏心vlog免费B站 Narragansett Bay Campus, Kelly conducted detailed analyses of the rock samples and created a high-resolution geologic map of the volcano.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe are the first research team to utilize ROVs to directly observe and sample one of these lava balloon-producing volcanoes,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to study volcanoes in the submarine environment, but we had the right equipment aboard to be able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIn addition to his research, Kelly spent time at the Graduate School of Oceanography as an outreach scientist in the 溏心vlog免费B站 Office of Marine Programs, where he led educational field trips and classroom programs on a variety of marine and environmental topics for K-12 students.<\/p>\n


\n\tJust weeks after graduation this month, Kelly will begin an internship with the National Aeronautic and Space Administration studying rafts of pumice rocks floating in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThere are massive floating islands of pumice drifting across the ocean, and the Navy wants to know their locations and trajectories because they pose a significant threat to their fleet,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI\u2019m going to keep track of these pumice rafts using satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHe hopes the internship will lead to a permanent job as a research geologist with NASA or another government agency.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI thoroughly enjoyed my volcanology studies at 溏心vlog免费B站, but I think remote sensing is much more applicable to issues facing society, so I\u2019m going to see if I like it and perhaps pursue that as a career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n


\nPhoto submitted by Joshua Kelly<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Reading, Mass. native to graduate May 18, begin NASA internship NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 May 13, 2013 \u2013 Joshua Kelly unexpectedly found himself on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea on his very first week as a student at the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Graduate School of Oceanography. \u201cTalk about being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}