After spending the holidays in Antarctica, an international research team composed of Maria Schönbächler (ETH-Zurich), Maria Valdes (Field Museum of Natural History-U. Chicago) and Ryoga Maeda (VUB-ULB), and guided by Manu Poudelet (International Polar Guide Association) and led by Vinciane Debaille has returned with more than 600 meteorites… including a 7.6 kg meteorite!! Mission accomplished and time to analyze them!
You have probably heard about the Belgian NANOK expedition in Greenland, an ice triathlon for climate research – https://www.nanokexpedition.be/ .
In April 2022, the two explorers Gilles Denis and Nathan Goffart left Belgium and crossed the entire ice sheet (more than 600km from west to east) in pulka and total autonomy, kayaked along the west coast of Greenland and opened a new climbing route « Immaqa » at the southern tip of Greenland on a 550-metre vertical granite big wall. In September, they returned safely, starry-eyed, and with many samples and results for the scientific projects they supported during their expedition.
Few days ago, a debriefing meeting was held at the ORB with all the scientists involved in the NANOK expedition (ULB – Steeve Bonneville, Sibylle Boxho, & Nadine Mattielli, ORB, UCL, ULiège) and Gilles and Nathan – see photo. A unique opportunity to realize the real challenges that Nathan and Gilles have successfully completed, both on a sporting and scientific level – all the snow and sediment samples have arrived safely at the partner laboratories.
And see you soon for future public conferences and a film of their adventure on the big screen…
Laure Brenot and Tabegra Disando have joined the team (mandats Aspirants FNRS). Laure will characterize volcanic unrest using Machine Learning approaches. Begra will try to better constrain the eruptive history and dyanamics of Galunggung volcano in Indonesia. Olivier Fontaine has also obtained funding (FRIA) to explore volcanic tremor using dense seismic arrays.
Together with colleagues from Japan, France and Belgium, Corentin Caudron and has detected pressurized fluids prior to the 2014 eruption at Mt Ontake (Japan) using continuous-based seismicity. More here: https://www.nature.com/collections/eihfbddfac.
