The Star: August 01, 2019

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The Star Thursday August 1 2019 18 OUR PEOPLE Lava lover helping understand the Volcanologist Ben Kennedy recently won Canterbury University’s highest teaching award. The associate professor has travelled the world visiting and studying volcanos. Sophie Cornish finds out more How did you get into this field? Did you always want to study volcanoes from a young age? I am fairly childish in that I never grew up from the little boy who liked blowing up vinegar and baking soda and running around in the hills picking up rocks. Essentially, I found I never really stopped doing that. I did visit a volcano when I was travelling in Chile, where you could look over the edge of the crater and you could see a bubbling lava lake, I think that when I was 18. I had already done geology and I climbed up this volcano with my family and I remember looking over and seeing the lava and thinking: ‘I want to do this as a job; I want to do this every day.’ When I was younger I had books about volcanoes and would go looking for looking for fossils with my uncle. I was one of those nerdy kids that had a rock collection. I guess volcanology is the most exciting part of geology. What is a volcanologist and what does it involve? A volcanologist is someone who does research into why volcanoes erupt. They try to make the area around volcanoes a safer place to be or at least help calculate risks involved in being near a volcano. There are not many jobs for volcanologists around the world and as a result you have to spend a lot of time at university getting various degrees. We will walk around on top of a volcano and depending on what you are trying to discover about the volcano you will pick up different rocks, you might be digging through old layers of ash and trying to work out what happened in the past, 10,000 years ago. You could be up collecting a fresh sample of something that has just erupted out of a volcano and you’re trying to work out what the magma is doing right now. You could be working together with GNS Science on a monitoring project, where maybe you have a bunch of seismometers, acoustic devices, listening to what the volcano is doing and getting observations of what is happening inside the volcano, with sounds and shapes. Usually they can combine interpretation of earthquakes, when volcanoes erupt; you get lots of small earthquakes, but you also get sound waves and pops and bangs that are at the surface as gas is released, or you can get small explosions. You can do various calculations between the depth of the earthquakes, depth of the sounds and you can work out how fast the magma is moving and where explosions are happening. Generally it is GNS TRAVEL: Mr Kennedy witnessing the eruption of Italy’s Mt Etna on the east coast of Sicily. UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL: Scooping lava for a 3D discovery channel show at Mt Kilauea. Science’s job to predict them. They might have volcanologists working for and their job is to forecast and to assess the state of the volcano. Then they might ask someone like me to do a more detailed study on one aspect of the volcano. What volcanoes have you been to internationally and have any stuck out as your favourites? I was out at Mt Yasur in Vanuatu, that’s one of these ones that is erupting several times a day. We were mapping where these big lava bombs were landing all around and were trying to assess the relative safety of different parts of the volcano, flying drones and things like that, so it was quite a fun project. That was a couple of years ago. I’ve since been out to Iceland; we have a fun project going on there where we are trying to drill into a magma chamber. I also went out to Chile, looking to see whether earthquakes can set off volcanic eruptions. We were experimenting with lava to see if it shrinks when it cools down. Every volcano has its own personality. They will have variably sticky magma, there will be various amounts of gas dissolved in that magma, which controls whether or not you get a nice runny lava flow, or whether it goes bang. I have also visited Mt Kilauea in Hawaii, where I filmed a show called Lava Chasers for Discovery Channel. I sometimes combine work with holidays, my wife has been known to roll her eyes at another family holiday to a volcano, but my boys love it. What is the current volcanic situation in New Zealand? GNS Science is obviously monitoring our volcanoes very EXCITING: Canterbury University associate professor Ben Kennedy is an expert in all things volcanoes. PHOTO: MARTIN HUNTER closely. They have monitoring equipment all over Mount Ruapehu, Mount Tongariro, Whakaari/White Island, Auckland, Taranaki. They’re basically just keeping a close eye on those volcanoes. White Island is probably the most active. I think there is probably several of them that are likely to go off in our lifetime, but it may only be a small thing. Just since I have been in New Zealand in the past 10 years, White Island had I think five or six small eruptions, Tongariro has had a small eruption, It’s not like the Christchurch earthquake, where there is tens of thousands of people close by, there might be only one or two people at a time. What’s been the most fascinating place you have travelled to? Mt Yasur is a very interesting place, it’s an exciting cultural area and exciting physically, I have worked a bit in South America and have been to Guatemala which is very interesting culturally. I am really excited about this Iceland project at the moment, because it is a real final frontier, like the moon landing, it’s the first time scientists want to drill into the magma chamber, so it’s a pretty momentous occasion. There is a big group of scientists from all around the world who are trying to raise money from international governments to promote this idea of drilling into a magma chamber for science, so we can really learn first-hand what is going on.
Thursday August 1 2019 The Star 19 power of nature YOUNG, SUCCESSFUL & on the move Technology has come a long way over the last few years; I think people have been scared about it obviously. But, in recent years they have discovered that three geo-thermal power companies in various places around the world had accidentally drilled into magma before and it didn’t cause a volcanic eruption. So I think that gave scientists more confidence that this actually might be possible. Technology has advanced now that we can do tests at higher temperatures and control pressure better, so now it is an engineering possibility. They are still raising the money for it, it is a 25-year plan. They want to start drilling the first hole in next few years and keep it permanently open for observation, then build on it over next 20-30 years and make new holes and use it as a science facility, kind of akin to Telescope Array. What’s a common misconception about volcanos? I think it’s interesting that at any moment on the planet there is several erupting at once, I guess you only think that when they are on the news they happen. I guess the biggest misconception is the frequency of volcanic eruptions, you see it on the news as more and more volcanos are erupting. But, I think in reality, more people are living closer to volcanos, so there are more volcanic eruptions that are affecting people, not that there are necessarily more volcanos that are erupting. There are tens of thousands of active volcanos on the planet at the moment, plenty under water too. Tell me about the lava lab you have at the university? We now have a facility in the university where we can melt rock and make our own lava. We can do experiments and pour it out down a lava flow. We are trying to work out ways that you can observe lava flow from above, to work out properties about that lava flow and help predict where that lava flow might go. We also have a cannon here that can fire rocks at things, so we can see for example if you roof is strong enough to with-stand an impact from volcanic bomb. We’re the only lab with that in New Zealand. The lava lab is a joint project with the engineering and fine arts departments. Fine arts had a furnace that they use to use to melt bronze and make bronze statues. So we kind of persuaded them to super-size their furnace, so we did a bunch of work on the furnace so it would get up to the temperature ON THE JOB: Mr Kennedy at Mt Yasur, Vanuatu, which has been known to erupt several times per day. FIELD TRIP: Mr Kennedy with a group of students on the Tongariro crossing, Mt Ngauruhoe can be seen in the background. where it could melt rock, about, 1300 deg C. What are you into apart from volcanos? I live out in Sumner with my wife and two boys. I am a surfer, that’s my main thing. I love any outdoor activities, in the mountains, hiking, taking my family out in the hills. My wife is Danish, we just came back from Denmark where my boys brushed up on their Danish and I had a teaching exchange with Copenhagen University. Noah is eight-years-old and Viggo is five-years-old. They both love it (volcanos.) I took Noah out to a field trip last year, we went around all the North Island volcanos, he loved it. Viggo loves doing experiments, it drives me up the wall, we go through more baking soda and vinegar than any other family on the planet. What did you study to get this job? I did geology at university, in the United Kingdom. Then I went to Montreal, Canada, and did a masters in volcanology. Then I did a PhD in volcanology, also in Montreal. After that, I went to the other side of Canada, to Vancouver, and there I learnt a lot more about teaching volcanology. I did a post doctorate in how to teach, that’s how this teaching award kind of came about, because I spent a lot of time researching good ways to teach, that’s something generally academics don’t do. I was very lucky, I worked with a guy who won a Noble science prize, Carl Wieman. He basically trained us up on how students learn and better ways you can transfer information and cooler experiments and how to use research to assess whether or not the way that you teach is actually working, approaching teaching from a science perspective. He got his Nobel prize and decided to invest all his money into science teaching, so he hired a bunch of people like me as up and coming scientists and trained us how to be better teachers, so when we actually show up at university, we know what we are doing, because most have no training as a teacher. Then basically I got the job here at Canterbury University and that was 10 years ago now. The Star continues showcasing the city’s successful young people. If you have a story to tell, email jess.gibson@starmedia.kiwi Young designer turns heads at fashion awards • By Jess Gibson EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Lucy Hill has proven that when you mix yellow with purple, you get success. The Hagley School of Fashion student won 2019 Young Designer of the Year at Saturday night’s MLT Hokonui Fashion Design Awards in Gore for her Open Nightlife entry. Lucy’s dress, made of bright yellow faux-fur and purple lace trimmings with a picture of one of her paintings in the centre, was the product of 10 weeks of work. The painting represents an exploration of the human form and gender roles. The awards took place at a transformed Gore Town & Country Club Stadium before an appreciative audience of 700, hailing from as far afield as China. It was Lucy’s first time bagging any prizes in her second year entering the Hokonui fashion awards -- and she was surprised her hard work had paid off. “Cutting up the fur was a nightmare,” she said. The garment has earned her free flights and accommodation to New Zealand Fashion Week in Auckland from August 26 to September 1, as well as monetary prizes. Lucy is in her second year at Hagley School of Fashion and has always had an interest in the subject. “I think it’s really interesting how everyone can express themselves through fashion.” Head of fashion Vicki Dixon said it was very exciting to see Lucy’s design do so well. “She’s a true artist - she’s a painter, a print-maker, and does ceramics. She’s very talented,” Ms Dixon said. Designs at the awards ranged from the elegant and eminently wearable to the avant-garde. Speaking on behalf of fellow judges Sally-Ann Mullin and Wynn Crawshaw, Sara Munro, SKILLED: Lucy Hill won 2019 Young Designer of the Year with a yellow fur dress (below) which features a painting of hers representing an exploration of the human form and gender roles. of Company of Strangers, Dunedin, praised the “amazing” calibre of entries from schools, and from those entering the open sections. The judging panel had scoured more than 340 garments from 250 entrants to identify section and overall winners, and had been “astonished” by the level of skill and attention to detail, she said. Southern designers were well represented among open section winners, including Viv Tamblyn, of Gore, in the Open Streetwear section and Debbie Smith, of Waimumu, in the Open Recycled section. Founder Heather Paterson’s husband, Wade, who kept the event going following her death in 2015, announced on Saturday night his family’s continued sponsorship of the awards until 2024.
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The Star: August 01, 2019

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