With the Earth as teacher
At night, they could walk to the rim of the Kilauea crater, where glowing clouds of steam and gas emanating from a lava lake made a nighttime display. During the day, they visited Hawaii’s geologic marvels, from lava flows to the peak of the Earth’s tallest mountain to beaches of green and black sand. It would be a thrill for anyone. But for Harvard students studying the ways of the earth, ocean, and sky, it was like living a dream. “I would never want to miss this. It’s a great week,” said Ross Anderson, a senior earth and planetary sciences (EPS) concentrator living in Cabot House. Anderson was one of roughly 30 students, faculty, and staff from Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to spend a late-summer week on Hawaii’s Big Island. Home to several active volcanoes, including Mauna Loa, which forms the world’s tallest mountain — 33,000 feet from its seafloor...