tlopez [at] gi [dot] alaska [dot] edu (Taryn Lopez) received a GeoPRISMS Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue a project focused on three volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula. Her project will use geochemical measurements of volcanic fluids and seismic data from three historically active volcanoes within the Katmai Volcanic Cluster. With this information, she hopes to determine the source and flux of volcanic gases, identify proportions of magmatic and hydrothermal fluids within the subsurface and distinguish trends in gas composition and/or flux that correlate with seismic signatures of fluid movement.

Lopez’s project will build off her doctoral research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, which used repeated volcanic gas measurements throughout varying stages of volcanic unrest to understand the surface and subsurface workings of Redoubt, Bezymianny and Karymsky Volcanoes. 

Lopez graduated from UAF on May 12, 2013. She earned her doctorate in Environmental Chemistry, working with Associate Professor Cathy Cahill of the GI.

GeoPRISMS is a new National Science Foundation funding initiative focused on understanding the origin and evolution of the continents through the investigation of their active margins.

For more information about GeoPRISMS, visit http://www.geoprisms.org.

For details about GeoPRISMS Postdoctoral Fellowships, go to http://www.geoprisms.org/postdoctoral-fellowships.html. The deadline to apply for fellowships is July 2, 2013.  

PHOTO CAPTION/CREDIT: Taryn Lopez sits upon the caldera rim overlooking Karymsky Volcano, Kamchatka, Russia on July 23, 2012. Photo by D. Fee.