Research project takes student to exotic island

Colgate research projects can take students to some far-flung places. Just ask Alison Koleszar ’04.

She spent this past summer researching lava flows on a remote island in the Pacific, and this spring she’s heading to a major conference in Montreal to discuss her findings.

Koleszar spent three weeks on the island of Floreana in the Galapagos, a group of volcanic islands about 600 miles west of South America. Floreana has not been mapped well, and is unlike any other island in the archipelago.

Alison Koleszar takes notes on the island of Floreana during the summer of 2003.

“Floreana is covered with cinder cones, which means that the eruptions were violent and explosive. Most other Galapagos eruptions are gentle, effusive eruptions of lava flows, like the rolling lava flows in Hawaii,” Koleszar explained. She said the lava flows on Floreana also are chemically different from the other islands.

Koleszar’s geology professor, Karen Harpp, has been researching the Galapagos  for a few years, and took Koleszar on her latest trip.

“You get to know someone pretty well when you spend that much time on a deserted island with them,” Koleszar said.  “She’d probably say too well!”

“The Galapagos is this place that’s amazing, that you always hear about but no one really knows what’s going on there.  They have theories as to (its) formation.  But it’s neat to work on a project where no one knows the answer.  You can’t flip to the back of a textbook and see if you got all the questions right,” she said.

She started working with Harpp, a volcanologist, more than a year ago after taking Harpp’s course in megageology.  After doing some research with Harpp and some independent work, Koleszar found herself on Floreana’s beaches.

“We spent three weeks there just hiking and mapping.  Find a basalt flow you haven’t mapped yet, hack off a piece of it, and keep moving,” she says.

Koleszar’s honors thesis examines the variability within a single basalt flow based on samples taken from Floreana.  The flow, Cerro Pajas, is one of the largest on the island. She is analyzing different flow samples, mapping how their composition changed throughout the volcanic eruption.

“For the most part, people assume that the chemical composition of a lava flow doesn’t change throughout the course of the eruption.  The assumption is that the material erupted first is chemically pretty much identical to the material erupted last,” Koleszar said.

“Previous studies, (in Hawaii specifically) have suggested that there may actually be variability, but no one has ever looked at a single flow to try to measure it.  That’s what I’m doing.”

Koleszar plans to present her work at the American Geophysical Union in Montreal in May.

Is she nervous about the presentation?

“Already.  I went to the conference last year. There were more than 9,000 people there.  There were people there whose material and research I’ve read.  You’ve been using their studies to educate yourself and then they come up to you and tell you how great it is that you’re there as an undergrad.”

Koleszar’s involvement with the sciences at Colgate and her close relationship with her professor are characteristic of Colgate, she says.

“If you want to do anything at Colgate, you can.  I know its clichéd, but it really is what you make of it.  I still can’t believe that I spent three weeks in the Galapagos because of Colgate.  It was amazing.”

Jess Buchsbaum
Office of Communications and Public Relations
315.228.6637