First day of activities in Papua New Guinea...
included visiting the local nature park in capital city Port Moresby.
Flying foxes (fruit bats).
Victorias crowned pigeon.
Cassowary.
Blue-winged kookaburra.
Brolga.
Lollypop flower.
Twenty-nine hours of travel...
has delivered me from Grand Junction, Colorado to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.
Sedimentary strata (Cretaceous) in the Book Cliffs in Utah seen at take off from Grand Junction, Colorado.
Sun rise across the International Date Line on approach to Brisbane, Australia.
Trans-Pacific equator-crossing flights...
are interminably long. Here’s one of my four flights tomorrow, from Los Angeles to Brisbane, Australia. Fourteen hours long and 11,500 km (7,200 mi). Ugh. Thank goodness, at least, for noise-cancelling headphones. (And frequent flyer miles.)
Dash to the Pintler Wilderness...
in western Montana seemed more like a wildlife safari.
Juvenile bald eagle.
The American dipper, also known as a water ouzel.
Water ouzel on Pintler Creek.
Canadian geese taking flight from the Big Hole River.
The back ends of six sandhill cranes on the Big Hole River north of Wisdom, MT.
Red-tailed chipmunk in camp.
Belted kingfisher working the Big Hole River.
Prepping for Papua New Guinea...
with Zegrahm Expeditions, leaving in exactly one week. After traveling in polar regions for four-and-a-half months this year, this trip will feel like a tropical vacation! I’m looking forward to snorkeling on some of the most bio-diverse reef systems in the world.
Voyage map: Port Moresby to Rabaul.
Seismicity of the convergent tectonic setting (from USGS). Earthquake foci color coded red (shallow) to yellow (deep).
Microplates in convergent boundary between Australian and Pacific Plates. From Holm, RJ et al., 2016, Post 8 Ma reconstruction of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands: Earth-Science Reviews.
Hey, I made the leader board...
at Apex Expeditions among other expert team members!
Here’s the link: https://www.apex-expeditions.com/leaders/john-buchanan/
The spotless Sun today...
is reflective of its low energy state as solar minima approaches in its 11-year cycle. Track solar activity here: spaceweather.com.
Tripod-mounted Canon 6D with solar filter at 300 mm, ISO 100, 1/13th sec @ f/6.3.
First quarter waxing moon...
this evening, shot with handheld 500 mm telephoto lens through thin haze.
Great horned owls...
perched above the birdbath early this morning.
Close crop of first image above. Canon EOS 5Div with 500 mm f/4L IS II prime lens, about 50 feet away.
Yellow-pine chipmunk...
Mule deer having breakfast...
Red-breasted nuthatches...
quenching their thirst at the birdbath.
This one has an insect larva for a snack.
An attempt to control an advancing lava flow...
occurred in January-July 1973 in Heimaey, Iceland, where a short-lived eruption of Eldfjell volcano nearly closed the tiny fishing harbor.
View of Heimaey and harbor from northern flank of Eldfjell volcano.
Hiking the recent lava flow towards Eldfjell volcano in the mist.
View of Surtsey (erupted in 1963) from the bridge.
Surtsey volcano in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off southern Iceland.
Exploring Iceland...
Orca pod welcoming committee in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland.
Entrance to sub-glacial ice tunnel on Langjokull glacier, Iceland.
Exploring the excavated ice tunnel within Langjokull glacier.
Hraunfossar waterfall, with groundwater emerging from a lava flow into a glacial meltwater stream.
The Skaergaard Complex in Greenland...
is an interesting and uncommon layered ultra-mafic intrusion in Kangerlussuaq Fjord in southeastern Greenland.
Igneous rocks displaying sedimentary bedding!
Close up of “sedimentary” beds of mafic crystals that settled from suspension in a cooling magma chamber, 55 Ma.
Whale soup in the Greenland Sea...
where more than 200 humpback whales were traveling the ice edge in an endless display of blows.
Homes away from home...
the last two-and-a-half months at sea.
M/V Sea Spirit
M/V Le Boreal
Exploring Longyearbyen...
for four days, the northernmost town on Earth.
Searching the glacial moraine with Ida and Ryan for Paleocene plant fossils.
Me at the headworks to coal mine 2B above town.
Inside the headworks at mine 2B.
Exploring the coal mining headworks with Cobus and Blackjack.
Svalbard poppy enjoying the short summer bloom.
