Spectacular Yasur just about sums it up. An archipeligo of islands in the Pacific, Vanuatu is home to some of the most unique and interesting volcanoes worldwide, including my target destination, Yasur. I am paticularly interested in a style of volcanic activity termed strombolian, that which is driven by large bubbles that ascend and burst at the surface. A style of activity I have written about lots before. Yasur is unique because of the frequency that these explosions occur and the number of vents at the summit which produce activity. The archetypal Stromboli (see post here), produces activity from 3 or 4 vents every 5 - 10 minutes (ish), this of course varies. Whereas at Yasur explosions were coming from more than 5 vents (it was difficult to tell how many exactly) and occurred more frequently, from seconds aparts to just a few minutes. So, two volcanoes with a potentially similar mechanism for driving the activity but visibly different behaviour at the surface, a perfect reason to study Yasur, all thanks to a Royal Society research grant.

​The journey to Vanuatu was a lengthy one from the UK, with stopovers in Singapore and Brisbane, before arriving at the capital Port Vila. A few days in Port Vila to acclimatise and sort out officialdom then off on a short internal flight to the island of Tanna. Arriving at Tanna really felt remote, perhaps not as remote as up near Sabancaya, but the tiny concrete airport building and vast lush green forests (I want to call them jungle but not sure I can) were quite something. Picked up in a 4x4 by our lodge owner, its a short 1 hour excursion across a mixture of paved, roads in progress, and dirt tracks. The approach to our 'jungle huts' crossed the ash plane created by the frequent explosions and as we neared the volcano I experienced the familiar buzz of visiting a new volcano.

It has been a mad period of time after getting back from Peru, hence the reason it has taken so long to write this last post! It was a great last few days at the workshop, spending the last couple days listening to some talks and instructing on the use of our Raspberry Pi ultraviolet cameras. One evening we had some telescope time at the hotel we were staying at, pretty cool looking through and seeing the four Galilean moons around Jupiter which was clear enough to see the striping!

On our last day in Yanque we had planned to head back up to Sabancaya to get some more data, but alas, the weather Gods were against us, and it still involved a really early wake up time, before 5 am. Plume in the wrong direction and clouds over the summit. Thats the way remote sensing is sometimes! See the video blog below. In all I think we got some decent data from the first day of fieldwork, so not a disaster but its always good to get as much data as possible. A little disappointing but it did mean a visit to Colca Canyon! Quite an impressive area to visit with some condors thrown in too. After this straight back to Arequipa. Heading back down to Arequipa was actually a huge relief on the lungs as far as oxygen content was concerned, but certainly not for all the pollution! A relaxed time for about 24 hours before the trip home, which was a little unorthodox to say the least. Certainly learnt a few things about booking flights for the future, and certainly worth keeping in mind for an upcoming Vanuatu trip, must buy those flights soon.

Flights on the way home should have been - Arequipa to Lima to Amsterdam to London Heathrow. So, off to flight number one, at Arequipa discovered a 30 minute delay on our flight to Lima, leaving us an hour to connect to a different flight, this sounded tight to us (me and Tom)...but we were assured this was enough time and were even given row one seats. Pretty sure we sat next to a Peruvian footballer and someone who behaved like a politician. They were personally greeted, this is all the evidence we had, definitely concrete sightings. Landing at Lima, up like a flash, and....we had the joys of the bus journey to the terminal followed by a 10 minute wait to collect bags. Legging it from the domestic terminal to the check-in desks, we were too late. Shuddering to a halt in front of the security cordon we were stopped by a guy with a lanyard who immediately looked at us, stated "KLM - follow me!" and he was off at speed! Assuming that this guy was waiting for us we followed at a matched pace, until some alarm bells started ringing...guy tried to grab my bag to start wheeling it, we were moving away from the terminal, and he even started to get a little agitated when we questioned him about officialdom., pointing at his faded plastic lanyard. A brief return to the terminal showed us that the check-in was closed (in fact we would have struggled to make it if the flight was on time!), we therefore decided to follow, at an increased distance, until it appeared the guy was probably legit and we ended up at airport offices. After an hour of haggling and negotiation we knocked down a 10 day wait for a return flight (mental!), £4000 each for business class the next day, to flights 5 hours later with a lengthy Atlanta layover. 

Anyhow, we got back, eventually, and that was it for Peru. Overall, an incredible experience and one I hope to repeat very soon.

So we set up with our sulphur dioxide measuring ultraviolet cameras to get some data. See the video whilst up at the summit. After an hour(ish) of data, the clouds came in starting to obscure the summit, we decided to head back down. For me this was great as the lack of sleep mixed with lack of oxygen at altitude I think was starting to take its toll. ​
On the way back, we stopped at a little village where one of the Felipes spotted a random building which appeared to be a shop. In we went to get sustenance as we were ill-prepared and didn’t bring lunch. Here me and Tom discovered Inca Cola, a little like Irn Bru but slightly less sweet and super tasty. This is also where I started to feel a little unwell. It was difficult to tell whether this was a result of exhaustion and lack of sleep or the start of acute mountain sickness or caffeine withdrawal or a mixture of everything. A small amount of nausea and a mild headache. Some coca cola (not the Inca stuff!) started to settle my stomach so the nausea passed quickly, as did the headache. Over the next hour we descended rapidly, the mild symptoms fully passed and I just felt exhausted.

​The evening was filled with dinner and an icebreaker to the workshop we are piggy-backing along (more in another post). I was probably not at my most chatty whilst mingling! A quick dinner then asleep by 8:30. And so ends Day number 1, which felt more like 3 days. I wrote this lengthier post than usual on the way up for Day 2 which you will hear about soon! See the accompanying video diary below.

​The longer title of this post reads – “Out and about in Tanzania: the wanderings and musings of a volcanologist on an international development fieldtrip”. Why is a volcanologist on a human geography fieldtrip you may ask... The short answer is the desire for a more well-rounded look at international development issues which may include environmental concerns and that someone was needed on the ground to help with this. As ever, the longer answer is much more complicated and boring. So, here I am, sitting on the porch of my room (with a nice king size bed), being bitten mercilessly by every insect which passes. Apparently, all my super strength bug repellent does is attract more of the creepy crawly critters.

This is my first experience of Africa, and wow, it doesn’t disappoint: happy smiling children shouting and waving (check), bus stuck in the mud with locals pouring out from everywhere to help (check), some of the friendliest happiest people I have ever met (check), encounters with completely safe animals like scorpions (check), other interesting critters like the praying mantis (check), lots of Arsenal/Chelsea/Man Utd fans (check), and see one of the most iconic volcanoes on the African continent in Kilimanjaro (check). Still lots more to come I am sure, with a safari tagged on to the end.

Unfortunately, this is not a completely social trip (I am working, honest!) so there have been work items to fill up my time, teaching students to look at the properties of water and soil has been a focus. But, as I mentioned this is a predominantly human geography fieldtrip so I have been exposed to and accompanied students whilst conducting interviews, which means I actually have to speak to and interact with people (breaks out in cold sweat), something which is completely foreign to me and my volcanic gases. Surprisingly, I have actually really enjoyed this and found this a really valuable personal experience. After a crash course on interviewing prior to leaving, I have done my best to provide feedback to students “in the field”. A very different experience to my usual hiking up a mountain, instead wandering round villages looking for locals to speak to with the help of guides. Note to self, if a local is irritably chopping a machete against a pole, don’t ask for an interview. The whole trip has really opened up my eyes to international development issues and got me thinking about its successes, failures, and the extent to which it benefits locals.

One of the more memorable moments was during an interview with someone who has worked in the Kilimanjaro national park, but who was now retired. They were one of the friendliest and knowledgeable people I have met, but not conducive to a good interview (yes, I now know some of the key factors, I wonder, am I a jack-of-all-trades or a master-of-none?), which was aimed at soliciting information at tourism. Classic rambling answers and interruptions from randomers, we even gained some great advice on marriage, growing vegetables, and metaphors on stages of life! I was most disappointed that I was labelled as “midday” and all the students “sunrise”.
​
Today is the end of the research stage, so things slow down for me slightly. A visit to nearby Moshi tomorrow. I am not sure whether I should be horrified or not, but someone actually told me “we will make a good human geographer of you yet”. Perhaps I need to climb a mountain soon and do some science, I wonder if there is one nearby…

The above is probably what I wish I had called one of my recently published papers, which have looked at the behaviour of large gas bubbles which ascend and burst at the surface (I'll make an amusing title a future career goal...). 

To understand more about the eruptions we see at the surface we have to investigate what we can't see below the surface and then try and make links between the two. A lot of my work has focused on one style of behaviour in particular, that of strombolian explosions. Strombolian explosions are likely driven by large gas bubbles which we call Taylor bubbles or gas slugs, named after one of the authors in the following paper (Davies and Taylor, 1950). The archetypal location for strombolian activity is on the island of Stromboli, but similar styles of activity also occur at other locations. A lot of work has been put into understanding the dynamics of single Taylor bubbles ascending in conduits, however, far less has been done for multiple Taylor bubbles ascending in close proximity and which may interact during ascent. This is what my recent paper "The dynamics of slug trains in volcanic conduits: evidence for expansion driven coalescence" begins to investigate through the use of analogue experiments (see video below for 30 s clips of the experiments which were shot using super-slow-motion cameras). These experiments were inspired somewhat by activity I observed and investigated in 2012 within the Bocca Nuova crater of Mt Etna. In particular, we were interested in the ability for individual Taylor bubbles to interact and join together during coalescence, and how this may have affected the distribution of each bubble.  For more information on this work see the paper here, which is open access!

The other paper published "Combining Spherical-Cap and Taylor Bubble Fluid Dynamics with Plume Measurements to Characterize Basaltic Degassing" involved the construction and illustration of a brand new model which describes the styles of activity we see at volcanoes such as Stromboli based on the ability of bubbles to interact and the time separating each individual burst at the surface. The aim of this paper is to bring together observations of gas emissions and explosive activity at the surface with the behaviour of bubbles as they ascend in the conduit at depth. This paper can be found here, and is also open access.

In September 2017 I started my second short-term contract as a Teaching Associate at the University of Sheffield. I started my first teaching contract in July 2016, following a short and low-paid research contract after my PhD. The past year and a bit have been a steep learning curve, life as a PhD student really didn't do much to prepare for the teaching (and admin) side of academia. So at the start of this term I decided to track my working day to see what I spent my time on and how long I actually spent working! I also thought that this would make an interesting blog post and may provide others with an insight into what life is like as a Teaching Associate/Early Career Academic. 

To track my work I created a number of categories for types of work that I conducted. Table 1 gives a summary of these. For every working day I then noted down how many hours I had spent on each. Note: these are approximate estimates, i.e., I don't have the time to account for everything to the exact minute. I have then investigated my working week and the types of work conducted (continues below Table 1).

Disclaimer: these are my personal experiences and may not represent workload/experiences at other universities or even different departments in the same university.

Table 1: ​A summary of different categories of work conducted over the year and their descriptions.

Overall, from the start of my new contract up to Christmas there were 16 working weeks. Here are some general figures from this period:

• Total hours worked: 669 hours
• Average hours worked per week: 41.8 hours
• Average hours worked per day: 8.3 hours
• Longest duration worked in a week: 59 hours
• Longest duration worked in a day: 16 hours

I can then take a look at how this was distributed throughout the term, see Figure 1. In general, student presence, which was mainly between the weeks 5 and 14, was accompanied by an increasing workload week on week. There was a large range in my hours worked per week, peaking at almost 60 hours in Week 13, which was mostly associated with marking. On average I worked 6.8 hours per week more than my contracted hours.

Figure 2 then shows which categories of work I spent the most of my time on. Here are the top 5:

1. Teaching preparation: 34%
2. Marking: 19%
3. Teaching delivery: 10%
4. Undergraduate supervision: 8%
5. Administration: 7%

These top 5 account for ~78% of my time. These categories above are perhaps not surprising as my contract is technically a teaching only contract, although I am also allowed time for research and professional development. Note though that these are percentages of my time spent not actual time so this does not give an indication of whether there was enough time for all tasks required.

I then took a look at the distribution of selected tasks on a daily basis (Figure 3) to look at whether the type of tasks changed throughout the term. The major differences we can see here are the huge increase in marking towards the end of term. At the same time, teaching preparation levels are maintained at a similar level, whilst teaching delivery is quite variable week-to-week. The majority of workload increase can therefore be attributed to marking at the back end of term. 

As an interesting aside I also compared the number of hours "allocated" in the department workload model for my teaching responsibilities which is encompassed by the categories for: teaching delivery, teaching prep, marking, and undergraduate supervision; to the actual time I spent on these.

• Hours allocated using workload model: 336 hours
• Actual time spent: 481 hours. 

This means that the actual time spent was ~43% higher than allocated in the workload model. A workload model is produced to try and create an even workload between staff members and to make sure that we are not given too much work. Whilst an underestimation of the model does still allow the head of department/lead academics to see workload split and who may have a low or high workload, there are still, however, several issues, particularly for early career academics:

1. There doesn't appear to be any differentiation between writing new lectures and delivering existing lectures.
2. A lecture may take an early career academic longer to write than a tenured professor who has been doing it for >20 years.
3. An underestimation in allocated time means that your workforce may be busier than you realise.

So there we go, a snapshot look at life as a University Teaching Associate.

Statistics is a vital aspect of a large variety of disciplines, particularly for the geographical sciences. However, the subject material can be a little dry and difficult to teach in an interesting way. But it really doesn't have to be like this!

I try to innovate and incorporate a very modern and interactive teaching style for my lectures with interactive quizzing and lots of in-lectures discussions and problem solving. For statistics this can be a particular challenge, certainly for seminar based sessions which are often solely based upon reading and interpreting journal articles. Hence, my motivation for trying something new, of course to keep the students engaged and challenged but to keep me interested and on my toes too!

I therefore devised a session which incorporated the interpretation of a journal article with the application of statistical methods and eruption forecasting. The students first task was to extract important information about the changes in gas ratios from a journal article about the behaviour of Stromboli volcano and how this may help forecast a change in eruptive style, they also had to consider what statistics may be of use in such a situation.

With the help of the interactive mobile quizzing software Socrative the students were then set a number of tasks aimed at helping them understand a developing (fictitious) volcanic crisis on Stromboli. This app allows teams to compete against each other in a "space race" adding a bit of fun competition to the challenge (and yes the icons are mini Starship Enterprises).

The questions involved selecting the correct statistical techniques and calculating the correct answers to progress in the space race. The challenges, split up into months, had the students probing data to see if there were significant differences between background ratio levels and new ones, investigating explosion frequency, and looking at the relationship between seismic signals and strombolian explosion masses to help explore explosion masses during an unfortunate down period of the gas monitoring network.

On the whole, the students found this a great way to begin applying their statistical knowledge to a believable, albeit fictitious, scenario. I would certainly recommend attempting innovative ways of enthusing and helping students learn about statistics!

After a hectic summer involving fieldwork in Nicaragua, a trip to Slovakia, Portland (Oregon), and fun at the Langdales in the Lake District, the start of the new university year has taken me by surprise. Anyhow, back sometime in July I recieved an email from someone at the Sheffield-Esteli society, Esteli is a town in Nicaragua where the group teaches English, saying they had heard about my recent research trip from the Nicaraguan ambassador and would I like to do a talk for Sheffield-Esteli society and Students for Esteli. Apparently she found out about our trip from someone high up in government after our initial but brief customs experience. I of course agreed to do so, and would be talking alongside the ambassador. 

I talked about our ongoing research into our low cost monitoring technique using the Raspberry Pi and its application to the volcano Masaya. It was great see such a diverse audience from emeritus professors, the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, members of staff, PhD students and a good number of current UG students. The ambassador then spoke about the importance of volcanoes to tourism and the energy industry. ​Meeting the ambassador and having the opportunity to talk to such a uniquely diverse group was a fantastic experience, it was certainly one of my best experiences of outreach and science communication so far. It was also great to engage with those whom your research may directly help in the future.

​If you fancy hearing more about my recent trip to Nicaragua, take a look at my YouTube playlist to see to hear more.