Biographies Dr. Jon Ranson is an earth scientist specializing in radar, lidar and remote sensing. He uses these tools for studying vegetation type and biomass in ecosystem research. He is NASA Goddard Space Flight Center DESDynI Lidar Project Scientist and Head of the NASA GFSC Biospheric Sciences Branch in Greenbelt, Maryland. Under his guidance the […]
To many, Maine evokes images of rugged coastlines, bold light houses and bright red, buttered lobster. The draw of the water is so strong that the Maine Office of Tourism’s website currently sports all coastal photographs. Their sole image of the woods is only a backdrop to white water rafting. Despite the beauty of the summer […]
In thinking back over the past two weeks here in Galapagos and going over the nearly 1,300 photographs that I have taken, I wanted to select a few that while perhaps not the best pictures in an artistic sense, are the best at capturing the things that have touched me the most and that will […]
Thinking back on all of the things that have led up to my Journey to Galapagos, I would have never realized the impact that a simple one line e-mail would have. It all started with this note that I sent to Stuart Banks on the morning of 13 April 2009: To: Stuart Banks From: gene […]
(May I Please Borrow a Cup of Sugar — and your Internet Connection?) NOTE: This was the journal that I was in the process of writing when I learned that I might have a chance to connect to the internet from the Galapagos National Park Service outpost just south of Beagle Crater so I hastily […]
A day onboard the M/V Queen dawns with the rising of the sun and the hum of the generator. While anchored for the night under the sheltered arms of the steep volcanic cliffs of Punta Vicente Roca just a tad south of the equator, the boat goes silent with the only sounds that I hear […]
I believe that at least two of the descriptions of the M/V Queen Mabel that I had heard earlier in the week were absolutely correct — cozy and that she has character. In a space that is 50 feet in overall length (including a wonderful bowsprit that I have my eye on) and with a […]
Ever since SeaWiFS was launched back in August of 1997, I had hoped to figure out some way of getting a high resolution satellite receiving station installed on the islands to collect a time series that would once and for all provide a data set for generations to come that would help characterize the ocean’s […]
Editor’s note: A second Spanish-only guest blog, from Gene’s shipmate Nathalia Tirado Sánchez, describes how a family vacation to the tropics when she was five ended up with them staying to live on the Galapagos. At that age, she remembers feeling like she had gone back in time, to a place where dinosaurs (marine iguanas) […]
Editor’s Note. Two of Gene’s shipmates on the Mabel, whom he invited to guest blog, submitted their posts in Spanish, with no translation. Biologist Jerson Moreno is describing the activities he has been involved in since he started working the Galapagos in 1998, most of them involving monitoring small marine animals such as fish and […]
