Professor Hinckley’s lifetime of learning
After leading countless field trips, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences Professor Emeritus Tom Hinckley still learns something new every time he enters the forest.
“When you learn to see all the parts of an ecosystem, you become more comfortable walking into a forest. You know the context, the history, the stories. 

Deborah Rigg

Astronauts at the International Space Station are spending more time away from Earth, but they still need their daily serving of vegetables. In the quest to find a viable way for crew to grow their own veggies while orbiting, student researchers are sending broccoli seeds coated with a healthy dose of probiotics to space.

Six broccoli seeds are aboard the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft that launched last week from Wallops Island, Virginia, as part of a space station cargo resupply mission. Three of the seeds are traveling to space as is, while the other three are coated with two different species of bacteria, developed at the UW, that can live inside crop plants and improve their growth. These “beneficial” microbes, also called endophytes, may help plants grow better in extreme low-gravity environments, and in places where nutrients or water could be lacking. The goal is to learn how to grow vegetables in the challenging, microgravity conditions of the space station — and eventually on the moon and Mars — as human space exploration expands.

“It would be ideal if we could grow crops for astronauts at the space station or who are lunar- or Mars-based without needing to ship potting mix or fertilizer,” said Sharon Doty, a plant microbiologist and professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences who isolated and characterized the microbes used in this experiment.

Watch the May 21, 2018, launch

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The University of Washington’s College of the Environment and its faculty members are no strangers to ground-breaking and important research on volcanoes and magma—from a land-sea experiment tracking earthquakes and volcanoes along the Alaska Peninsula to publishing an atlas of seafloor volcanoes and deep-ocean life.

George Bergantz, a professor in the College’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences, is a geologist who studies the physics of magma. As part of the physical petrology group at UW, he uses a diverse set of tools—numerical modeling, lab experiments and fieldwork—to study volcanoes. In recent years, he and his team were the first to simulate the individual crystals’ movement in magma chambers to better understand the motion of the magma and buildup of pressure.

Coinciding with the anniversary of the devastating 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption that killed 57 people and as Kilauea ash clouds threaten Hawaii’s Big Island, we caught up with George to see how both events have informed and will continue to inform the study of volcanoes and how we prepare and respond to them.

Where were you when Mount St. Helens erupted?

“I was an undergraduate at the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. I was a faculty member here when it erupted again in 2004.”

What did you and other volcanologists learn from the event itself?

“The lessons from 1980 were many and are ongoing! Perhaps one of the most central and lasting lessons was about the lateral blast that blew out the side of the volcano northward, forming the horseshoe crater. In 1980 the hazard from a process like this was not adequately anticipated and with tragic results. After the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, these kinds of things, called a “sector collapse” were recognized as a common process at volcanoes like Mount St. Helens worldwide. Other lessons pertain to the importance of having a decision-making protocol in place at the start of unrest, to adequately inform the public and guide multi-agency decision making. Lastly, the importance and utility of geophysical monitoring techniques such as volcano seismology and ground deformation were demonstrated.”

What scientific insight have you gained from studying the volcano in the years since its eruption?

“I don’t work specifically on Mount St. Helens—my research interests pertain mostly to understanding the “architecture” or plumbing systems that produce volcanoes like Mount St. Helens. Active volcanoes don’t reveal much about the inner workings, so it can be hard to interpret and understand the complex geological and geophysical signals of unrest. Hence I have worked primarily on older volcanoes where erosion and geological tilting has revealed a significant portion of what is actually underneath an active volcano. From this, we have learned where in the Earth’s crust the most significant chemical changes take place and the timescales involved. For example, a volcano like Mount St. Helens is part of a process that can completely form and rebuild the Earth’s crust below it in less than 4 million years. That’s rapid geologically speaking!”

Dennis Wise/UW

With volcanos in the news here and in Hawaii, are there key lessons from science for policymakers and communities who want to be prepared for future volcanic events?

“One guidepost in volcanic hazard assessment is that the eruptive history of a volcano is a reasonable expression of what it might do in the future. To that end, every volcano should be as completely mapped and dated as possible, to develop a portfolio of possible eruptive behavior so that land managers and public officials have something to work from at the start of volcanic unrest. Secondly, geophysical monitoring like seismology and deformation, are essential tools to get a warning as to the movement of magma in the crust. In terms of having some personal resilience, having a 72-hour “survival kit” with adequate water and supplies for the family is a practical way to provide for any natural disaster. And lastly, heed the advice of the authorities, especially the spokespeople at the USGS where there is a staff of trained volcanic hazard professionals.”

To dive deeper into George Bergantz’s research on volcanoes, their plumbing and magma, see also:

• KING 5: “Hawaii volcano could erupt just like Mount St. Helens in 2004“
• Q13 FOX: “Could Hawaii’s lava flows happen in volcano-rich Washington state?“
• Seattle P-I: “As Hawaii deals with a volcanic eruption, where are the peaks in Washington state?“
• NBC News: “Satellite photos show Hawaii volcano leaking lava, toxic gas“
• The Western Journal: “Hawaii Eruption Has Some Experts Worried About US West Coast“

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U.S. Forest Service

Large swaths of U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought, forest fires and disease. Many local impacts of forest loss are well known: drier soils, stronger winds, increased erosion, and loss of shade and habitat. But if a whole forest disappears, new research shows, this has ricocheting effects in the atmosphere that can affect vegetation on the other side of the country.

A University of Washington-led study published May 16 in Environmental Research Letters shows that forest die-offs in specific regions of the United States can influence plant growth in other parts of the country. The largest impacts seen were from losing forest cover in California, a region that is currently experiencing dramatic tree mortality.

“These smaller areas of forest can have continental-scale impacts, and we really need to be considering this when we’re thinking about ecological changes,” said first author Abigail Swann, a UW assistant professor of atmospheric sciences and biology.

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Dennis Wise/University of Washington

The University of Washington’s School of Oceanography has a new member of its fleet. After revamping its global-class research vessel earlier this year, it now also has a new ship that will allow UW researchers and students to explore waters in Puget Sound and nearby coasts.

The RV Rachel Carson was built as a fisheries research vessel in Scotland in 2003, and the UW acquired it in 2017 and had it shipped to Seattle last winter. It completed its first science voyage in early April, and is expected to officially join the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet this summer.

“With its significantly greater capabilities, the Rachel Carson really expands our ability to take more scientists and students to sea, to provide better hands-on instruction, and to conduct a much wider portfolio of oceanographic science,” said Douglas Russell, the UW’s manager of marine operations.

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Nicole Spaulding/University of Maine

Ice cores offer a window into the history of Earth’s climate. Layers of ice reveal past temperatures, and gases trapped in bubbles reveal past atmospheric composition. The oldest continuous ice core so far comes from Dome C in East Antarctica and extends back 800,000 years.

But a tantalizing clue recently offered the possibility to go back even further. A collaborative study between the University of Washington and the University of Maine now pinpoints a location where an entire million years of undisturbed ice might be preserved intact.

“There’s a strong desire to push back the date of the oldest ice core record, to better understand what drives natural climate changes,” said Laura Kehrl, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences and corresponding author of a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters. “The Allan Hills has been an area of interest since the 1970s, when scientists started finding lunar and Martian meteorites that had struck Earth long ago. Now we’re discovering its potential for old ice.”

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