We're excited to announce that Clint Cowan ’83 is leading an Alumni Adventures trip to Atlantic Canada this summer:  Sailing Newfoundland’s Fjords, Bays, and Tickles.    Clint did his Ph.D. research in western Newfoundland.  It is uncertain how much geology the group will actually get to do, but possibilities include walking and kayaking along the coastline, and hiking in the freshwater fjordland.  There is also a chance for a hike up an ophiolite!  The scenery is breathtaking, and the sailing ship is a destination in and of itself.

The site was catastrophically abandoned; people left their food and tools and apparently fled with little warning. Every place we tested was completely burned. There were piles of burned corn in food storage rooms, burned baskets filled with seeds, and clay pots and tools on the room floors where they had been smashed when the burning roof collapsed.

Doesn’t that sound like a pitch for the next Indiana Jones movie? Actually, it’s a description of the findings from one of archeologist Alison Rautman’s excavations at Frank’s Ruin, a Southwest American pueblo site that dates from about 1100 to 1300 A.D. A 1987–88 American Fellow, Alison has uncovered some unlikely findings about the society’s warfare and raiding tactics in her excavations, a subject she is now researching as it relates to different societies.

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College of Eastern Utah researchers have located the largest nodosaur ever, according to a December 2008 article in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Nodosaur is an armored dinosaur that is part of the a group known as ankylosaurs.

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In the bitter cold of winter, frisbees have disappeared from the Diag, but they are still flying around Ann Arbor. The women’s Ultimate Frisbee club team, Flywheel, practices during the entire academic year.

The Wolverines started strong this year with a 16-0 record in the fall and won the Michigan Indoor Tournament in January.

The players practice indoors during the cold months in The Sports Coliseum and at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse to work on conditioning and improve their game. And it’s that year-round dedication that led Flywheel to a fifth-place finish at Nationals in Boulder, Colo., last year.

“We definitely deserved to make it to Nationals last year,” senior captain Nell Turley said. “We worked really hard and earned our spot. The team came together and played really well at the end.”

Martha Carlson, who has coached Flywheel for nine years, is a doctoral student at the University and traveled to Nationals in 2003, 2006, and 2008.

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Nathan Hale Science teachers Matt Hinckley and Karl Englert, and Math teacher Brian Coon recently published an article in the January 2009 edition of The Science Teacher titled "Arctic Research and Writing: a Lasting Legacy of the International Polar Year." The article chronicles their experience working with students and professional scientests on polar ice research funded by a National Science Foundation grant.

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ROTHERA BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - U.S. geologists working at an Antarctic base hailed President Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday and expressed hopes for a stronger focus on science.

"It's a very exciting time," David Barbeau, assistant professor of geology at the University of South Carolina, told Reuters after watching the inauguration at the British Rothera research station on the Antarctic Peninsula.

"There certainly is a feeling that this administration will have science pretty close to the forefront," he said in the base, by a bay strewn with icebergs with several seals sunning themselves on the ice.

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Shares of construction equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. fell with the broader market Wednesday after an analyst suggested Washington's coming infrastructure spending plans will give less of a lift to the sector than previously expected.

Morgan Stanley analyst Robert Wertheimer dismissed the idea that federal spending will offset the sector's woes.

"We doubt (federal) stimulus (spending) will have much of an impact on equipment sales, especially in 2009," he wrote in a note to clients. "Current talk in D.C. still supports around $85 billion in infrastructure (spending), with half contracted within the year, and a likely multi-year spending curve. The resulting math does not mean much in a trillion dollar construction market.

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Winter in Alaska is in full . . . brrrrrr. Snow on the ground, parkas on the kids, and it is expensive to live there. Food, clothing, everything costs more because of the extra effort required to get it to consumers. To take the chill off, Alaskans don't pay sales or income tax. And every year, many residents get a check from the dividends of oil drilling. This year's check was double the usual amount. Happy Holidays. Emily Schwing reports from Homer, Alaska.

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Bess here again. I realized I haven’t really introduced myself, so I’ll do a brief introduction here. I’m working on the WAIS Divide project as a graduate student at the University of Maine, in Orono. I study dust and trace element chemistry in the ice, and am particularly interested in how the chemistry of iron affects phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean. Iron effectively fertilizes the little plants in the sea, much like you would fertilize your lawn to make it grow greener. I look at where dust comes from, how big it is, and how much iron it contains.

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Though I’m completely scared of what has to be the raddest line off the summit of the Grand Teton, the more I study it, the more I want to ski it.  But finding it in good, ski-able conditions is key and on multiple trips into Glacier Gulch over the years, I try to make a point to eyeball the Hossack-MacGowan Couloir to see what kind of shape it is in.

I’ve seen it thin and rocky in the early season and in light snow years, but I’ve also seen it look pretty damn good, like last year, though I never heard of anyone giving it a try.  No surprise really. The Hossack-MacGowan Couloir on the Grand Teton has to be one of North America’s gnarliest skied lines.  It was finally nailed in February of 1996 by Mark Newcomb and Hans Johnstone.  The second and only other descent was in 1998 by the belated Hans Sarri and Andrew Mclean, who often recounts it as the scariest thing he’s ever skied.  I don’t think many people have read Mark Newcomb’s account of he and Hans’ descent from the 1997 American Alpine Journal, so I thought I would post it here. 

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