He took a plane, sailed on a boat, rode horseback, flew on a helicopter and trekked across a volcano -- all for science.

Falk Amelung, a geophysicist at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science on Virginia Key, went on a three-week expedition to the Galapagos Islands this summer to help install 16 seismic stations.

The stations will record data from Sierra Negra, one of the Galapagos' and the world's most active volcanoes.

Sierra Negra, on Isla Isabela off the coast of Ecuador, last erupted in 2005. But its previous eruption in 1979 was one of the largest in the 20th century.

Amelung, 45, of Palmetto Bay, was with a team of six other scientists, students and teachers, often in harsh uninhabited terrain.

``It really was an adventure,'' he said.

He's done it before. The German-born Amelung has also studied volcanoes in Hawaii and earthquakes in the San Francisco area.

``I have always been interested in the power of nature's force,'' Amelung said.

The data the Galapagos stations record over the next three years will confirm where the volcano's magma chamber is, which the researchers estimate is two kilometers beneath the surface of its caldera or a crater-like basin.

The seismometers will only record data. Researchers will have to return twice a year to maintain the stations and collect the information. But more concrete knowledge of the volcano's inner structure will help them better understand it and will bring them a step closer to better predicting volcanic activity.

``Right now it's like a big memory card for a camera, all the data is just being stored,'' Amelung said. ``I think in January is when it's planned for another team to go and retrieve that data.''

The stations are comprised of a seismometer, a battery, a solar panel and electronics to continuously record ground vibrations from local and distant earthquakes.

Earthquakes on the island are frequent, though most of them are barely even felt.

Amelung had written the proposal to the National Science Foundation last year with seismologist Cindy Ebinger of the University of Rochester and volcanologist Dennis Geist of the University of Idaho.

The foundation emphasizes involving the classroom and Lisa Hjelm, geologist and science teacher at Girls' Middle School in Mountain View, Calif., was brought on to the project. She received an additional grant for educational outreach.

``They actually gave me more than I initially asked for,'' Hjelm said.

She intends on creating a visualization of the volcano geared toward teens with the help of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. She has also created a blog about the expedition.

The Ecuadorean government required an Ecuadorean student to be involved so Daniel Pacheco and professor Mario Ruiz worked on the project too.

Ruiz is working toward using similar technology, connected to a satellite, to create a warning volcano system.

An engineer also was part of the expedition to oversee the installation of the seismometers.

The team met in Puerto Villamil, the only town on Isla Isabela, which is otherwise largely uninhabited. The fishing town is home to about 2,000 people.

Over the course of the next three weeks, the scientists, with the help of the crew of the boat they had chartered, La Pirata, and the staff at the Darwin Research Center deployed the stations across the island.

The team split up into two groups -- the volcano team and the boat team.

The scientists had planned to evenly distribute the stations across the island and had a general idea of where they would go.

But they faced challenges with Isla Isabela's lack of roads, rough terrain and wildlife.

The volcano team hiked up the mountain every day after spending the night in the small town or found other station sites on horseback.

``You can drive up to the volcano, but the hike up to the caldera is about an hour and a half long,'' Amelung said. ``We walked, we used horses, at one point we even used a helicopter.''

The boat team covered the perimeter of the island and used a dinghy to transport the equipment from the ship to the island after spending their nights on the boat. Once the stations were installed and hidden, they will be left unattended for about six months at a time.

But the team is confident the stations will do fine by themselves. Ebinger has used the same technology before in the East African rift zone -- and those stations were successful.

In fact, the only harm that has come to any of the Galapagos stations so far was at the hands of a giant tortoise.

It ate away a station's plastic.

The plastic was replaced -- and the station better hidden.

To read more about the research trip go to Lisa Hjelm's blog at http://sierranegragalapagos.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@