A UW-led team of researchers used a fiber-optic cable to capture calving dynamics across the fjord of the Eqalorutsit Kangilliit Sermiat glacier in South Greenland. This allowed them to document — without getting too close — one of the key processes that is accelerating the rate of glacial mass loss and in turn, threatening the stability of ice sheets, with consequences for global ocean currents and local ecosystems.
University of Washington researchers showed that they can monitor seismic activity at the ocean floor using fiber optic cables without disrupting telecommunications. They developed this technique in Alaska and then tested it off the coast of Oregon.
Kendall Valentine, an assistant professor of oceanography at University of Washington, along with collaborators from the University of Rhode Island and the Desert Research Institute are traveling to Anchorage and the Copper River Delta to study marshes that formed in the years following the 1964 earthquake.