Dr. Weisen Shen is an Assistant Professor of Geophysics at the Department of Geosciences, Stony Brook University. His research interests are seismic tomography and the seismic, thermal, and compositional structure of the earth’s lithosphere. Dr. Shen has published on topics ranging from the geothermal heat flux of the continent to the uplift history of the Transantarctic Mountains. Dr. Shen has participated in fieldtrips to the Ross Ice Shelf and the South Pole to collect seismic data for Ross Ice Shelf and POLENET projects.
Shen’s first opportunity to do Antarctic research came at Washington University in St. Louis, which he chose over another opportunity working as a geophysicist for the oil industry in Houston. “The professor at Washington University said, ‘I know you have a good offer from Houston, but if you come work for us, the paycheck will be less, but we can send you to Antarctica.’”
Shen would later use that same example recruiting grad students like Hanxio Wu.
“I told her, ‘If you join us, we’ll put you in the field in Antarctica,’” said Shen.
Wu and Thomas Reilly, research assistants in the Department of Geosciences, have done research in both Antarctica and in the Turkana Basin.
“At the South Pole, we submit our line to USAP South Pole (the United States Antarctic Program’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station) and they look at satellite imagery and detect if there’s any danger and if not, we just drive straight in one direction until the work is done,” Reilly said. “In Kenya, we drive about two kilometers and we have to make sure no one is following us. We put a node down as quickly as we possibly can, no markings around it, no anything, and try to take as good a picture as we can so we can find it next month. And then we get back in the car and do it 70 more times. So the two are very different, but both were good experiences.”
Andrew Groh, a first-year doctoral candidate, will follow in their footsteps, making his first journey to Antarctica. Groh is working on developing the next-generation geophysical instrumentation for polar regions.
Shen said if Stony Brook’s goal is to set itself apart from others in Antarctica, the opportunity is there.
“The long-term goal for us is not to do just seasonal projects,” said Shen, “but that sometime in the near future Stony Brook can maintain its own geophysical observatory long-term infrastructure.”
The current project focuses on the Antarctic ice sheet and the geology beneath the ice near the South Pole. The goal of Shen’s team is to gain knowledge to better predict the future behavior of the ice, and with it, the potential effects of global warming and climate change. For the past two years, Shen has led a research team in Antarctica, spending two months at the South Pole. Now, with funding for the project set to expire, Shen’s team is preparing to bring the project to a close.
“Stony Brook is known for having research stations outside of the United States,” said Shen. “We have a research station in Turkana. We have a research station in Madagascar. I think it’s just a matter of deciding if we want this to happen to the place that is most sensitive to the global change.”
In the end, Shen said the question is not whether climate change is real, but what can we do to adopt the changes and mitigate the risk?
“We know that the problem will not go away,” said Shen. “You can make yourself blind and avoid talking about it, but the ice is still melting. The sea will still rise. It’s time for our university and our stakeholders to think about what more we can do both for the sake of educating our next-generation portal researchers, but also to maintain infrastructure in a place that is critical to the future of Long Island residents.”