Lamont Weekly Report, January 7, 2011

The world lost one of the giants of seismology on Wednesday: Jack Oliver passed away quietly at his home in Ithaca after a long battle with cancer. He left Lamont a long time ago - 1971 in fact - he was Chair of the Department at the time, but he did some of his most pioneering work here in the sixties, helping to lay several of the important foundation stones of plate tectonics. Details of services etc are appended at the end of this report. An obituary will going up on our web
site momentarily.  A sad day - he was a great man.

The Langseth arrived in San Francisco a few days ago after a trouble free steam up from San Diego. She is going into dry dock for maintenance and to get a new coat of paint, and will be returning to the Scripps pier in San Diego at the beginning of February, where she will finalize preparations for a very full 2011 schedule of operations in the Pacific.

I am excited and pleased to report that Bill Ryan's iPad and iPhone app - Earth Observer - has made it into the top one percent of Educational apps on the Apple App store - and that is without any efforts at marketing or advertising! We are planning on starting that over the next week or two.

A couple of years ago we ran a very successful workshop on scientists and the media led by Richard Hayes. This is advanced notice that we are having him back - if you are interested keep January 25th clear on your calendars. Kuheli will be providing details in the next few days - please be aware that there will be a limited number of seats, so you will have to sign up and register when the official announcement comes out.

Finally, many congratulations to Paul Olsen - he is the latest member of the DEES faculty to be honored by Arts and Sciences with the Distinguished Faculty Award. Many congratulations Paul, and many thanks to Lamont's great friend Gerry Lenfest for supporting these awards.

I notice it is still snowing outside - but not much - we are not anticipating any significant problems with the bus service.

Travel safely and have a good weekend, and oh, yes - Happy New Year.

Mike