> Volcano course attracts students North America-wide

Document Tools

Contact:  Glyn Williams-Jones, 604.291.3306, glynwj@sfu.ca
               Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca

Website:  volcano course: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/EHaz/

For the first time at Simon Fraser University, volcanologists in training from Canada, the United States and Mexico are studying volcanic disasters together, without setting foot outside their classrooms.

The 50 senior level undergraduate/graduate students, including four in one of SFU assistant professor Glyn Williams-Jones’ classes, are on six campuses North America-wide.

Along with SFU, universities in Mexico, Michigan State and Montreal (McGill) are offering the class through eHAZ, a university exchange program in earth hazards under the North American Free Trade Agreement. It will prepare students for a field trip in August 2007 to examine key volcanoes and landslides in B.C. and Washington State and Northern California including Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier.

Williams-Jones, who studies active volcanoes worldwide, says understanding the complexity of volcanoes is key to making their potentially catastrophic eruption more predictable.

“While there are many tools that can be used to monitor the signs that can precede significant changes in volcanic activity, they are expensive to install. The fact is that there are more active volcanoes than people, instruments or money to study them.”

Thanks to state-of-the-art conferencing software, eHAZ students are jointly studying what causes volcanoes to collapse and attending lectures by 14 internationally known experts on volcano instability. The software allows participants to converse in real time, jointly hear lectures and visually map out ideas simultaneously on a digital whiteboard at virtually no travel cost.

Williams-Jones says this course will help universities overcome their difficulty in offering advanced classes on volcanology regularly.

“They require up to the minute knowledge of highly specialized subjects and this is a difficult challenge for faculties which must struggle to keep track of all advanced topics,” explains Williams-Jones.