Does Kamchatka belong to North America?

On this traditional map of tectonic plates, Kamchatka belongs to North America

This past week has been a week of science -- Wednesday was "Day of Science" in Russia.  Russia has "Days of" many things, there is a Geologists Day, a Day of Volcanology, a day of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatksiy, a Day of Fishermen,... and TODAY--Sunday 12 February--is a national day for healthy life, with skiing, Tanya says over 1.5 million people nationwide have registered for (cross-country) skiing events.  Avoiding the crowds, we went yesterday, when they were still setting trail and putting up bleachers at the ski center outside the city.

And I have learned that yesterday (11 February--ok, that's actually "today" at this point in the Americas) was/is International Day of Women and Girls in Science, declared by the United Nations. UN on women and girls in science.  I've blogged in the past about this topic.  For example Russian Women Geoscientists and from Hokkaido University, Girls be Ambitious!

For Science Day at the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, which is part of the Far East Division of the Russian Academy of Science (FED RAS), the director, Akademik E.I. Gordeev gave an introduction, which Tanya partially translated for me; I can understand words and sometimes gist, but commonly lose track and give up.... He talked about the state of the Institute and read the names of those receiving special commendation this year; he announced that everyone would be getting a 5000-ruble bonus, which caused a happy rustle in the auditorium.  Then the owner of the Shamsa supermarkets (I call him "Mr. Shamsa") pronounced some congratulations and presented us with a huge basket of fruit.

There were then three scientific talks, the first by a close colleague, Andrey Kozhurin, on tectonic geomorphology; I could understand much of it and discussed it with him later. The second talk was about HSE elements in Kamchatka petrology (I asked Tanya what were HSE, she didn't know, I just now looked it up on Google--highly siderophile elements).  He also used PGE, which I did figure out as platinum group elements.  I didn't understand much at all of that talk, but perked up when a map of the Kamchatskiy Peninsula was shown--one of our major stomping grounds.  The third talk was about seismic monitoring, with some details on recent Zhupanovsky volcanic activity and on the remarkably deep 2013 Sea of Okhotsk earthquake (Mw 8.3).  Then there was an archival movie about "volcanoes and life" -- it was quite romantic; I think it focused on 1970s Tolbachik eruptions; there was poetry composed and recited by one of the narrators, an Akademik volcanologist whose name I forget -- lots of facial hair.

9 Feb 2017 meeting at IVS with some young scientists;
more about them individually, later

On Thursday I met for the second time with our "young scientists" group (I have defined "young" as younger than I am 👵).  I gave a presentation entitled, "Does Kamchatka belong to North America?" -- an important plate tectonic question addressed by some of our group's research and publications.  When we submitted a manuscript to Geology with a long, convoluted title -- about an extruding Okhotsk block and coastal neotectonics -- the editors asked for a catchier title, and I came up with "Does Kamchatka belong to North America?", which, when the paper came out in 2006, gave us headlines around the world.  Here is just one example.  You can Google for more, and find a pdf of the article on Tanya's IVS site.  

Jody's photo.  Upper left to lower right:  Slava Sokolovsky,
Katya Kravshunovskaya (RIP), Vitya Morozov, Sasha
Storcheus (RIP), Kevin Pedoja, Viviana Alvarez, Tanya
Pinegina, Vanya Storcheus, Misha Egorov.

The first author of the paper is Kevin Pedoja, now a professor in Normandy, France.  This photo is from our Ozernoi field season, which was a classic in many ways, not least of which were the gourmet meals we had from fresh salmon, caviar, shellfish, wild fowl, mushrooms, berries, ... kak zhizn! (what a life!).  While Tanya's and my paleotsuanami group spent our time on low beach ridges, Kevin and Vitya (Morozov) would run up to the high terraces to get elevations and make observations.  This involved challenging bushwacking and not-uncommon bear encounters.  Then Kevin would become our "French chef" in the evening.


Here is the basic puzzle:  
The plate boundary between North America and Eurasia is well defined in the Atlantic (white line in picture to left); the mid-Atlantic ridge marks where the two plates move away from each other.  That ridge continues up into the Arctic, but loses character off Siberia.  There is not another distinct plate boundary between that endpoint and the boundary of the Pacific oceanic plate, which is subducting beneath the Aleutians and along the Japan-Kuril-Kamchatka (JKK) trench.

Our basic null hypothesis was that if Kamchatka belongs to the North American plate, then there should not be tectonic activity north of where the Aleutian chain collides with Kamchatka, which is also where the JKK subduction zone ends (the corner in the red line, above).  We have subsequently published two longer articles about this collision zone. By the way, Hokkaido and northern Honshu would also be part of the North America plate in this traditional model (see map at top of blog).  In recent years, other plates have been proposed in this area, including the Okhotsk plate, which has been relatively well accepted by now, and the Bering plate, which is not as well accepted.

In the 3-plate, older model, North America
encompasses Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk,
and northern Japan.  We can call this our
"null hypothesis."

In the newer, 4- or 5-plate model, the Okhotsk plate
is being squeezed where Europe and North America come
together, pushing it (and thus Kamchatka)
 toward the east/southeast.

Much of our Kamchatka field work has focused on the area at and north of the Pacific "corner"  There have been some large historic earthquakes along this border, some tsunamigenic, which tends to support a 4- or 5-plate model.  As paleoseismologists, we have found a relatively high frequency of tsunami deposits in this region, comparable to or higher than some other subduction zones.  And as neotectonicists, we have found uplifted marine terraces that show significant rates of uplift indicative not of the tectonic quiescence one would expect in the three-plate model, our null hypothesis.  So, if you ask us, "Does Kamchatka belong to North America?" our answer would be NO.

Photo by Kevin Pedoja of (labeled) uplifted terraces north of the terminus of the Kuril-Kamchatka subduction zone.

A day in the life (Kamchatka field)

Yesterday (1 Feb 2017) I met with a group of young scientists at the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (it had different name/s back in 1998) --we will meet weekly to practice English and to learn more about international science.  The group ranges from (field) volcanologists to mathematical modelers; I forgot my camera....  I am excited to get to know them and will write more in a future post.  Yesterday we introduced ourselves, Tanya introducing me first in a long encomium (in Russian). Later, I told some of her story (in English, slowly and distinctly spoken), and of our history together. So I decided today to post an essay I wrote some time ago--back in 2000 or so, I call it "a day in the life" -- from our first Kamchatka field season in 1998.

This was our 1998 crew, twoard the end of a 35-km backpack out of our Stolbovaya site.  From left to right:  Vanya Storcheus, Roman Spitsa, Jody Bourgeois, Sasha Storcheus, Tanya Pinegina

“A day in the life”  from Jody B’s 1998 Kamchatka journal

Introduction

            The Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian "Far East," is one of the most seismically and volcanically active regions in the world.  It is also one of the most remote.  Until about 10 years ago, Kamchatka was off limits even to most Soviet citizens, and visits by non-aligned geoscientists virtually unheard of.  With détente and perestroika, Kamchatka opened up in the 1990s, although bureaucratic paperwork, continued military sensitivity, complex logistics, and the unstable Russian economy were still significant hurdles to overcome.

            In the summer of 1998, for six weeks, I worked with Tatiana (Tanya) Pinegina on the Kamchatka Peninsula, just north of the triple junction, on the Bering Sea coast. We were looking for historical and prehistorical tsunami deposits in a frontier area.  My trip was supported by University of Washington Geological Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as the ingenuity and dedication of Tanya and her field crew.  Tanya, a researcher at the Institute of Volcanic Geology and Geochemistry in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, spent a month in Washington State in 1997, hosted by Brian Atwater (USGS, UW) and myself, so this was a return exchange. 

            Tanya's well organized plan to work on a shoestring budget was the single, most important contributor to the success of our field season.  We took public buses, hired local cars and motorboats to transport our gear, and backpacked and paddled to two remote sites.  Berries and fish we caught were important components of our field fare.  I've chosen one day from my journal and field notes to typify the experience.

5 August 1998, Soldatskaya Bay, Bering Sea coast. 

We get up fairly early, around seven, emerging from our sardine-like sleeping arrangements--five of us on a 1.5 by 3-meter platform in a 3 by 3-meter cabin dug in to the river bank.  The storm has abated, our clothes have dried, the river has dropped, the surf is quiet.  Breakfast, cooked by Vanya on the outside fire, is kasha, with (instant) milk and freshly picked blueberries.  The boys drink tea, and Tanya and I have weak coffee--we are running low, as we had to wait out the storm.  Vanya will stay in camp for the day, to guard from bears, to gather wood, to keep camp and to prepare food.

            We pack and dress for a long day.  I am still struggling to learn how to wrap my feet in partyanki, rectangles of wool used rather than socks by Russian field workers (soldiers, geologists, fishermen), before stuffing them in my rubber hip boots--standard footwear for the wet grass, marshes, and streams we commonly encounter.  This day we aim to the center of the embayment, heading ultimately for the 35-m-high terrace about 2 km from the shore.  After crossing the river mouth on foot (tide is low), we stop and pick "princess" berries (gnyazhnika--a kind of ground raspberry)--we are never in too much of a hurry to pick berries, this exercise providing not only part of our sustenance, but also one of our small pleasures. 

            The weather is pleasant, mostly sunny, the flowers are spectacular in their variety of colors and sizes.  Mosquitoes not too bad today.  First, Roma and Sasha excavate small trenches on the lower beach ridges.  As we work toward the back of the coastal plain, the trenches exhibit older and older volcanic ash layers, and some ‘candidate’ (potential, up for evaluation) tsunami deposits.  Before we reach the high terrace, we bushwhack through shrubs, hop over bumpy patterned ground, and traverse a spongy marsh.  We collect a pot of water from a slough, as there will be none up on the terrace.  Along the terrace front I can see five or six bear trails--places the grass has been flattened, recently.  We climb the slope and cross an open field to the edge of a birch grove, choosing the site for a 3-m-deep excavation (shurf), which Roma lays out.

            While Roma digs, Sasha builds a fire and boils water.  Tanya and I chat, write notes, pick berries, think grand thoughts, discuss ideas.  When I excuse myself to go off to the bushes, Tanya says, "Jody, don't go far, here lives bear."   Before describing the excavation, we recline in the tall grass and eat lunch--the last of our bread (somewhat moldy), freshly caught salmon and its caviar, prepared last night, caramel (boiled condensed milk, sgushyonka), weak tea.  A small shower blows over as Tanya and I describe the trench, then Roma and Sasha fill it back up, and we head north, toward another terrace.

            Sasha typically leads the way.  A volcano seismologist who grew up in the Russian Far East, he has spent much time in the wilds of Kamchatka and Siberia.  We follow a bear trail, for the most part, but veer right where the bear veered left, away from our terrace.  Soon we come to a slough we cannot cross, and we backtrack--Sasha's a good pathfinder, but the bear knew better.  On the next terrace, we repeat our actions.  I sketch a view of the mountains to the south--they seem to be tilted up and back toward the west--this area is very active tectonically, with many uplifted, relatively young terraces, and some deranged drainages.  Before dropping off the terrace, we pick more berries, mostly crowberries (shiksha) here, getting fatter and riper as the weeks pass.  You can strip 15 or 20 with a few swipes of your hand.  I wonder how the bears do it--Tanya says they eat the whole plant and spit out the branches.

            We head back toward the beach, crossing small sloughs by leaping, stepping on overhanging shrubs, bushwhacking till we find narrow spots.  Tanya picks another excavation spot, and Roma starts to dig.  Sasha is suddenly at my side, saying, "Jody, bear!" and turning me to face west, toward the terrace, orienting me to get a view.  I have not yet seen a Kamchatka bear (myedved), though I have seen many bear signs—bear trails, bear beds, bear footprints, bearshit.  I strain to look in the distance when a large brown head pops up above the shrubs, not more than 15 meters away, and then it is gone!  Sasha says he saw the bear, then the bear stood on its hind legs and looked our way, and now the bear, a big, old (light brown) one, is hightailing it away from us.  I want to see the bear some more, but Sasha tells me no, I don't, because the bear has smelled or heard us and is going away, afraid.  If it comes back, it only means trouble.  We carry whistles, bear flares, and two guns, but never have used them; these bears are solitary by nature, and here they are unfamiliar with and afraid of people. 

            We finish the trench description and head on, one more slough to cross.  We jump over a narrow spot, and then find ourselves on an island, with a wider channel yet to go.  Sasha leans over the slough, steps on unstable vegetation, makes the leap, successfully.  He takes Tanya's outstretched hand, and she reaches back to me for balance, making the leap, successfully.  To make a long story short, I tried next, and ended up waist deep in the slough.  Tanya and Sasha pulled me out, and I got down on all fours to dump the water from my hip boots.  The day was nearly gone (it was after 8 PM), so Tanya decided to send me and Sasha back to camp, while she and Roma did one more excavation. 

            I was wet, but not miserable.  When we got back to the river mouth, though, the tide was too high for us to wade across, so Sasha had to pump up the small rubber boat.  Big enough for one, we used it for two, as a ferry on these small rivers.  The pumping seemed to take forever.  A seal watched from the water close by--probably the seal who took bites out of the flounder and salmon caught in our nearby fish net.  (I always called a watching seal nyerpa nol-nol-syem – 007).  All we had as a paddle was a small shovel, but it was not far across.  Once on the other side, Sasha went on ahead to tell Vanya to stoke the fire.  When I arrived, Vanya helped me remove my boots and wet clothes, and gave me a big cup of kompote--berries boiled in sweetened water.  I warmed up quickly, eating some lukewarm salmon/rice cakes and noodles, trying to enjoy the spectacular sunset.  Sasha went back to ferry Tanya and Roma, and they returned with more fish from our net. 

As the sun set, around 10:30, the mosquitoes got thicker, and I retired to the sleeping platform, not even bothering to undress, and quickly dozed off.  Next thing I know, I am awakened by a rumbling, shaking sensation--an earthquake.  No one else has yet come in to the cabin to sleep.  Tanya starts yelling, "Jody, quickly, stand up!"  "Jody, quickly, come!"  I wonder, is she afraid the dug-in cabin will collapse?  Slowly I realize she is evacuating us to higher ground, in case of tsunami.  I am sleepy and tired and cranky and do not want to get up.  I "reason" that the earthquake was not big enough to make a sizeable tsunami.  I forget all the advice I tell folks living on the coast--if you feel an earthquake, don't wait, go to high ground!  I forget about all the people in Nicaragua (1992) and Peru (1996) who did not feel their earthquake (or barely felt it) and whose tsunami flattened their houses.  I only slowly remember that recently, two tsunamis in Kamchatka with high runup were amplified by earthquake-triggered landslides.  I reluctantly pull on my boots and follow Tanya and the others across the moonlit terrace to higher ground.   I begin to understand how easy it is to ignore warning signs of a tsunami, especially when it is nighttime and you are in an exhausted state....

            We chat in the chill night air, and hear a distant rumble but feel no more shaking—a landslide?  aftershock?  Waiting a respectable amount of time, we then return to our sleeping bags, calm down and finally fall asleep.  The next morning, there is no trace of a tsunami on the beach, but there are new bear tracks covering our footprints from the day before.

Kamchatka shopping adventures

Any shop worth its salt will have many versions of canned
fish.  This photo is from 2017 in an "open aisle" shop.

When I first came to Kamchatka, shopping in our (American) bourgeois, capitalistic style was quite new.  In fact, I didn't really "shop" myself for starters, ... shopping was a recondite process, and my red-blooded American desire to buy whatever I needed, whenever, was quashed -- I said I wanted to go buy a toothbrush (I had forgotten mine), and Tanya instead sent our friend Roman Spitsa to buy one for me, ...wherever that was.  My flat was in a rather uncommercialized part of the city of Petropavlovsk, but finally, at the end of my first summer field visit, I braved the local shop to buy a few things for a party.  A "typical" indoor shop at that time was a single room in an apartment building, with the possible items to buy all behind counters.  My Russian was primitive, and the words I knew, such a "bread" (xleb) I pronounced poorly.  I ended up pointing and saying, "Ya xochu eta" (I want that).  Within hours, it was all over the village that a foreigner had come into this little shop and bought some items.  Tanya thought I was so brave!  I don't have a picture from then.

 

This brand new building is a collection of shops,
with a supermarket on the basement floor.  Many
of the shop spaces are still vacant.  There is good
seismic engineering visible inside.

     That was almost 20 years ago.  Now Russia has grabbed shopping by storm, or at least the selling part of it.  It's hard to see how so many shops can stay in business.  All sorts of shops, from very traditional corner shops and outdoor kiosks and bazaars to supermarkets and even a "gipermarket" (hypermarket--no "h" in Russian).
     Since I arrived this winter, I have gone shopping a number of times, mostly just for groceries, which are relatively easy to shop for.  While it's easiest for me, a not-very-good Russian speaker/listener/reader, to shop at a supermarket with open aisles and shelving--thus no one waiting while I try to decipher if I am buying shampoo, conditioner, gel, or something else (it's easier than Japan for me, at least I can read the letters of cyrillic).  Dish soap or laundry soap or dishwasher soap (my flat in 2017 has machines for washing laundry and dishes!).

The Krushchyovsky-type apt building that
 the shop "Maria" is in has a relatively
new facade. I thought I took a picture
of the interior, but it's not on my camera...
I am not very good at snagging shots.

   



The nearest shop to my flat is "Maria," a standard one-room, behind-the-counter place near the institute.  First time I went in this year, I wanted apples and asked for "apelseen" which are oranges!  Oh well, I pointed and got what I wanted. Today I went in here after failing to find eggs at several other shops, and sure enough, "Maria" had them.  Even though the "rent" at these shops should be small, there is still an economy of scale, so that these small shops are quite like our convenience stores, with higher prices.  At the nearby bus stop there is now a compact, open-aisle 24-hour market packed into a narrow space.  I bought laundry soap there for

This convenience store, near my nearest
bus stop, is open 24 hours.

120 rubles, just to buy something while snooping around (I mean doing my shopping reconnaissance) and taking pictures.  Later I priced the box of powdered soap (Tide for color) at 106 rubles at a medium-sized market and 86 rubles at the big Shamsa supermarket.  I would like to patronize local shops if they have local owners, but that's really hard to judge here, unless you are buying "domashni" (home-grown) produce at an open bazaar.  Not the time of year for that!

The "W" looking letter is "sh" in Russian
and "C" is "s" for that's Shamsa's name
at the right.  The sign in black top center
says "rive gauche" in Russian!  BTW,
most of these cars are used, from Japan,
with wrong-side driving for Russia...

Shamsa from the second floor of mall.
This "half" is mostly non-consumables
but lacks key items (see blog).  So many
choices, urrah for capitalism!?

     So most of my grocery (produkti) shopping has been at the supermarket "Shamsa,"  which has doubled in size since I was here in 2010, and has many other smaller, specialty stores within its complex (we might call it a "mall").  One might think that one could find just about anything at Shamsa, but... not counting the facts that I can't read Russian well, am generally inclined to keep looking rather than ask a question, and the store is huge, ... one cannot find a nail clipper here, e.g.  Or a coffee grinder.  Definitely shampoo and other soapy things, various paper products, dishes, toys, lots and lots of produkti, and of course a huge liquor selection, which I have yet to sample.  There are racks and racks of herbs and spices of various kinds and brands, including pre-mixed versions for borsch, shashlik, riba (fish), grechka (buckwheat groats).  It took me awhile to find oregano and

A "spice rack" to choose from--
one of several in a single shop.

 even to locate dill (ukrop), the latter being very standard, though it's no longer pickling season...  Still, this is one of my more favorite things to do is to try to read all these labels and find what I want.  Years ago, in an open bazaar, I was at a herb/spice (only!) kiosk and asked for a curry powder.  He did not understand (the "ur" sound is very foreign to Russians).  I tried to explain in Russian that it was a mix/blend and came from India.  Finally, he said, "oh, karri!" and implied it came from China not India.  Whatever.  Got it.
     One of my most favorite Kamchatka foods/treats is brusnika  -- known as lingonberry, or tundra cranberry; it is smaller with more intense flavor than bog cranberry.  So upon arrival I bought some frozen brusnika and made my own jam for bread and for muesli/kasha.  You can buy lots of frozen items in shops, of course they are easiest to keep in winter, just put them in the snow or in a box outside your kitchen window.  You can buy frozen blini, pelmeni, ...

Brusnika upper right, pelmeni lower left.

Lots of frozen goodies to choose from.

 I am not sure of my freezer here, so thus far, I have not bought too many frozen items.  Tanya started me out with a big, frozen slab of king salmon (chavicha) from one caught by a friend of hers.  I've made two soups, mostly from root vegetables, which are definitively the standard here.  I added some salmon after I had had it a few times straight up, and thus made a chowder.  Now I have pea soup.
     So--what were my challenges this time in shopping?  Three items eluded me -- a thumb drive (I forgot mine!), a nail clipper (ditto), and a coffee grinder--I brought beans from Moscow Starbucks...        I found the thumb drive first, but not before some failures.  Finally, I located a large electronics store in the basement of one of the new, multi-story malls.  But I didn't know the word for thumb drive, and my dictionary is older than thumb drives.  I tried to explain "small memory" (like memory stick), then figured to say "oo ess bay" and he responded, "ah, flash" -- that's it!  Too many words for those little suckers.

This is an unimpressive view of the "gipermarket" (hypermarket)
red and white) also known as "druzba" (friendship, sort of).
I was on foot, from downhill, when I took this picture,
though Tanya and I had seen it from the road/her car as
an impressive structure on the hill.

     Next, after several strike-outs I finally "found" a nail clipper -- in a shop specializing in all things finger-nails... [but missing from another such shop, one even larger].  Problem was, the clipper was behind a counter, there were several customers ahead of me, and I chickened out. If it had been Seattle Bartell's they would be right there at the cashier's desk...(thought I)    
Coffee grinder.  First I found an appliance store at Shamsa, but it only had fancy, 7000-ruble grinders (more than $100).  Then Tanya sent me to "8 kilometers" which is one of the wholesale bases for the city of Petropavlovsk, even since Soviet times, and where there was a large indoor store of home goods.  Nothing doing.  Electric kettles, egg beaters, simple blenders,...
But at another applicance store where I struck out, a helpful man told me to go to

At the gipermarket druzba--the whole
 top row is coffee-bean grinders.

 "Friendship" -- indicating it was down the road, down the hill.  I didn't have time on that day's excursion to make the trek, so a couple days later--ground coffee running short!--I made another "shopping excursion", taking photos, etc., for this blog.  When I arrived at this store ("Friendship"), OMG, how many appliances could there be!  A helpful store worker said "Can I help you?" but that was most of the extent of his English.  Cofye-moli... some ending --I tend to drop my Russian endings because they are so complex.  We figured out what I was looking for, and lo and behold, so many coffee grinders, I had to struggle to make a choice!  I confess to choosing a German one (rather than Chinese, which was cheaper).  Well, I don't think there was a Russian one.

My receipts for the coffee grinder,
photo taken later, at home.

Then the process of purchase.  Sales clerk went to get the box and warrantee, instructions, made some notes; sent me to cashier with a printed form, which she used to ring up the sale (I used a credit card--also new since I was last here!), and she signed and I signed on several lines, then she stamped over three combined receipts, tore off one half for her and gave me the other!
    Still don't have a nail clipper, my toenails are going to destroy all my socks soon...

Below are a few more photos of representative shopping here.

A fairly typical street kiosk, this one selling cheese ("ciir" an impossible'
word for me to pronounce, the "i" is soft)

I took this for the sign, which transliterates "Lady Big"

A pharmacy (aptyeka)  -- even "over the counter" medications are behind the counter here.

A kind of "home depot" -- everyone is either renovating or building here.

Part of the wholesale base at 8 kilometers, many nondescript shops.
This is typically where geologists buy supplies for their summer field.
Cases of cans of meat, corn, sardines; large sacks of flour and sugar,
cases of crackers, cookies; large sacks of potatoes, cabbage, carrots.

Inside of one of the larger wholesale markets.  Smaller shopowners buy here and resell.
I man asked me what I was doing taking this picture, I tried in fractured Russian to tell him
I was an American and I wanted to show my friends how to shop on Kamchatka.  Tanya'
later advised, just say "Amerikanka,... Facebook"...  I don't wanna go to jail!

An outdoor, smaller wholesale shop at 8 km.  Anyone can buy here.
And you can commonly buy smaller amounts.  So many different ways to buy!
[that's my January midday shadow]

Agrotek is the local company making kielbasa.  Buy local!

This little shop specializes in sweets--candy, caramels, cookies, ...

At 8 km, there are a few places to buy hot food, this one is an "Uzbeki kitchen"

This is "Svarog" -- used to be an open-aisle market, closest to my flat;
now it is a whole series of mostly behind-the-counter specialty food shops,
including meat, bakery goods, deli, candies, fruits, bakery good, vegetables, meat, candies, ...
[yes, there is repetition, several little shops selling mostly the same stuff]

Another one of the aisles of Svarog in its current configuration (see above).

A small outdoor bazaar (rinok) at 10 km (that's 10 km from the
center post office), near the bus station.  More will be open in warmer weather.
Seems like these places keep going, despite all the other kinds of shops.
Some things here can be cheaper, but sometimes I think it's a preference of
traditional shoppers.

Today I found this specialty shop for coffee and tea, near Shamsa.
But no coffee grinders!

I took this photo for Megumi Sugimoto.  This shop,
specializing in beauty products, is named "Megumi"

One more view of a row of "traditional" little shops at 10 km.
Note that "traditional" mostly still means post-Soviet.
 But I'll ask my colleagues for more about that.

Return to Kamchatka, Week 1

View from my office window at the
Institute of Volcanology and Seismology

Ah, it took me some effort to get to the English version of Blogspot... now called blogger?

It's the deep of winter in Kamchatka (in Russian we would say "on Kamchatka" because it's a peninsula, or logistically an island) so it's hard for me to say "in" Kamchatka). This is my third winter here, the prior two being sabbaticals (2001 and 2010), this current one sponsored by the U.S. Fulbright Program

"The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries."

My two primary objectives during this six-month (!) visit are to conduct research and writing with colleagues, particularly Tanya Pinegina, and to work with students and young colleagues on their technical English, likely using examples from natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.  And of course to represent the U.S. and learn more about my Russian counterparts.

http://www.koryaks.net/images/norpac.jpg

Kamchatka is not an easy place to reach from the U.S., particularly in winter, even though it's not far at all from Seattle, my usual home. At times there have been direct summer flights from Anchorage, mostly for hunters and fishers, but also for volcanologists and seismologists (and paleoseismologists like me) and for petroleum workers going on to Sakhalin.  Alternatives from Seattle include going west, e.g., via Seoul (and once via Beijing!), with intermediate stops in Vladivostok or Khabarovsk.  And about as far from Moscow as you can get!  I've been told that if you misbehaved in school in Russia (USSR), you would be sent to the back corner, also known as being sent to Kamchatka.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb
/c/c3/Map_of_Russia_-_Kamchatka_Krai

So this time I flew via Moscow, that is: Seattle-Amsterdam-Moscow-Petropavlovsk.   [Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy on the scale of this map is near the southeastern tip--the first bay north--more later about PKC].  My itinerary put me at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow from about 5 PM to 5 PM, technically 24 hours, but not really, given logistics of arrival and departure, so, even though there is now a train into Moscow from Sheremetyevo, I opted to stay in a hotel attached to the airport, joined by my colleague, co-author, friend and common visitor to Seattle, volcanologist Vera Ponomareva.

View of my departure terminal from my hotel room.

Well, what to do besides enjoy eachothers' company and get some sleep?  Of course we had to go to the local Starbuck's, near the entrance to the train from the airport terminal.  There has been so much development at Sheremetyevo since I was last here.  Just the short corridor from my hotel to the train entrace had three different coffee shops, a couple small eating places, souvenir shops, and of course ATMs and phone stores.  I bought a Russian cell phone and a Moscow sim card, later replaced by a Kamchatka sim card upon arrival in Petropavlovsk.

Back to Starbuck's, it had its familiarities and its differences, particularly all the drinks written out in quite fancy cyrillic, except for one board in English.  The coffee-master, Olya, had been to Maryland for training; she and her baristas seemed very excited to hear that we had been to Pike Place Market (what is it like?) and to the original Starbucks.  We had breakfast there and also stopped by in the afternoon for a latte.  I am afraid I am something of a Starbucks "snob" -- I bought some coffee to bring with me to Kamchatka.

from Vera's cell phone--JB breakfast

Vera choosing a pastry at Starbucks

Baristas at Sheremetyevo Starbucks

I struggled a bit with ATMs, perhaps mostly because my usual ATM card, from a credit union, does not have a chip.  So I ended up using a Visa card that had a chip.  As for the rest of the time that I wasn't sleeping (I took 5 mg of melatonin and slept nearly 10 hours!), we had cheese and other goodies and red wine before sleeping, and champagne and more treats for "lunch" before I headed back to the terminal for my departure for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.

I've been here on Kamchatka a week as of today --we are a day ahead of the U.S, my flights took 24 hours, I had 24 hours in Moscow, and I lost time flying east... I left on Sunday 8 Jan and arrived Weds 11 Jan! This blog will say it's 17 Jan because my computer is on Seattle time, but it's 18 Jan here.

View along wall outside my flat.

The basics of Petropavlovsk have not changed, I am still getting settled and learning my way around what changes have occurred since I was here in 2010 winter (I was here briefly, also, in 2011 summer).  One big change is that with a cable under the Sea of Okhotsk, we now have broadband internet, and I have it in my flat, so that is where I am now.  I plan to use my own laptop here at home, and a computer in my institute office -- one way to learn more Russian is to try to use Word new version (I still use old on my laptop) in Russian!  That's how I learned CorelDraw back in 2001!

I arrived just before a snowstorm, with strong cross-winds at the airport leading to a very exciting landing.  I have great respect for Aeroflot pilots!  It was warm the first few days, now it is colder than -10 celsius (that's about 14 fahrenheit, not bad at all).  Tanya took me to buy snowshoes and we went snowshoeing in fresh snow with another colleague, tectonic geomorphologist Andrey Kozhurin.
Snowshoeing on Kamchatka by Tanya Pinegina

I got this image from the web; it IS Kamchatka

Sunday, Tanya took me to buy ski boots-- she already had skis and poles for me to use (for cross-country--I have at home but too tricky to bring with me), and we went cross-country skiing.  I didn't bring my camera, which is too bad because at the same time on the same trail, there was a ski-joring competition with dogs!  The huskies seemed to be having more trouble than less-furry breeds, probably because the temperature was just above freezing.    Doggies did not seem to be doing a great job, perhaps they are still in training.

Typical birch forest, near Lesnaya
 cross-country ski area

All righty, the sun is rising--it's 9:30 AM --time zone is a bit shifted, and of course we are pretty far north, ~53 degrees.

Tasks for this week include organizing my papers for working on paleotsunami and tsunami records from Kamchatskiy Bay region, and getting set up with teaching/advising students in technical English.

And some more winter sports and time outdoors.  Did I say I love snow?

Women in academic science: a changing landscape

  Are "young and midcareer women in math-intensive fields" . . .  "paid roughly the same (in 14 of 16 comparisons across the eight fields) as their male counterparts? As discussed below, the authors of the recent op-ed piece in the New York Times are disingenuous to suggest that the above graphs, based on NSF data and published in their journal article, indicate that rough parity has been reached for more junior women faculty, even if only in the left five categories (their "math-intensive" fields).

Based on the upcoming, extensive journal article,
Women in academic science: a changing landscape 
from which I extracted and plotted Figures 15-17 to make the figure above, the New York Times published an op-ed piece this past Sunday entitled:
"Academic Science isn't Sexist"
    
Now, we know that newspaper editors choose titles/headlines, so the title of the journal article itself better reflects the content of both that research article and of the op-ed piece.  However, right away, when the op-ed authors say they are relying on extensive data, rather than the anecdotes that commonly illustrate sexism, I am reminded of Michele Aldrich's article on the history of women in geology, where she points out that that history cannot help but be anecdotal, as the numbers are so small.  Granted, things are changing, as shown by the data presented in this article and elsewhere, especially NSF's extensive database.  However, that does not mean that "Academic science isn't sexist."  Less sexist, I would grant.

The authors lump the "math-intensive sciences" (geosciences, economics, engineering, math & computer science, physical sciences) contrasted with the non-math-intensive (life sciences, sociology, psychology) and compare how women are doing in academia in the two groups.  For starters, I know a lot of scientists who would bristle at life sciences (bio, above), if not psych and sociology, being less math intensive... anyway....   The authors note that women in their "math-intensive" fields, while underrepresented in numbers, are as successful as men once they make the first hurdle of a tenure-track job, and that women in the "non-intensive" fields are actually less successful by comparison.

One of the main points the authors want to make is that the most progress is now to be made at levels below the point of hiring at the tenure-track level.  [Their characterization of girls and boys is another whole realm of commentary.]  And indeed there is a LOT that can be done, of which one of the significant factors, they note, is MORE WOMEN TEACHING THOSE SCIENCES so that role models are available to women.  I don't disagree.  But the unfortunate title of the op-ed, and the fuzzy wording and conclusions by the authors, do academic women in science no favors.

Not surprisingly, there is a kerfuffle amongst academic scientists, particularly women (like me), and those who know and study them.  I read the op-ed and a couple of commentaries (and the comments on those commentaries), which sent me to the original article on which the op-ed is based.  I did not read all the text but I examined the figures, which are based primarily on data compiled by the National Science Foundation.  I have picked one subtopic to address the differences between op-ed text and actual data:  salaries of women scientists in academia.  Other commentaries bring up other issues.  Let me say that the authors do make some important points, I have no reason to vilify them.  But there are lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Are "young and midcareer women in math-intensive fields" . . .  "paid roughly the same (in 14 of 16 comparisons across the eight fields)" as their male counterparts?

The op-ed states, with the part I will address in bold:
"Our analysis reveals that the experiences of young and midcareer women in math-intensive fields are, for the most part, similar to those of their male counterparts: They are more likely to receive hiring offers, are paid roughly the same (in 14 of 16 comparisons across the eight fields), are generally tenured and promoted at the same rate (except in economics), remain in their fields at roughly the same rate, have their grants funded and articles accepted as often and are about as satisfied with their jobs"

Look at the figure (their figures).  [If you go to the original you will see that not all the data are significant (significant data they note with asterisks, etc.).]  I took the figures and put a line across the graphs at 100% (that is, parity) to look at how often women made more or less than 100% what men made.  Let's leave out the full professors, because they are not "young and midcareer."  At that level, the history of discrimination is apparent.

If women were paid "roughly the same" as men, shouldn't there be as many columns above the 100% line as below?  Yet out of 32 columns, only five are above the 100% line. More disturbing in terms of progress is that there appears to be more parity at the Associate Professor rank than the Assistant Professor rank -- that is, if you add up the white space below and color above the 100% line for all columns, there is more white below (and less color above) on the Assistant Professors' graph.

This difference might be because women spend longer in the Associate Professor rank, so their salaries rise, albeit at the expense of not getting the Full Professor boost till later in their careers, thus not as fast as men's.  Alternatively, it could be that women in all categories are earlier in their careers, on average, because of the only-quite-recent increase in hiring of women.  But more analysis would be needed to evaluate these differences.

No matter the reasons for the differences, I think the authors are disingenuous, at best, to use these data to say that junior and mid-career women are paid "roughly the same" as men in the same rank.

P.S.  It appears that the "14 of 16" comes from taking the 2010 data from not just what the authors define as "math intensive" fields.  If considering ONLY math-intensive fields (by their definition), the number would be out of 10 (if only 2010) or out of 20 (the latter if including 1995).  If considering only statistically significant differences (or not), the numbers for the "math-intensive" fields would be 9 of 10 for 2010 or 16 of 20 for 1995 plus 2010.  The eight fields would include all the sciences surveyed.  And of course all sciences use math, so the real difference is the fields where women are more under-represented.

WISE -- Women in science and engineering -- some reflections

It's been a long time since I've posted...  I set this blog up originally to write about my various travels, experiences and adventures in the field, observing the effects and geologic records of tsunamis, particularly my experiences in the Russian Far East.  More on that, eventually...  and it's not divorced from the topic I do want to discuss.

Lately, those of us who are professional women in field sciences have been reading and posting on challenges and harrassment issues --both our own experiences and those of our students.  More on that later, too.  But several recent web posts have made me appreciate having a field party on Kamchatka that was led by women.  See my blog on that topic.

But THIS post comes from reading an essay by a current senior at MIT about her experiences,

and posted to Facebook by our former University of Washington undergrad student Jen Glass, now a young professor in Georgia -- a rising star and one attuned to issues of gender and science.  Thanks, Jen!

The young MIT engineering student (Jennifer) wrote, on 18 September of 2014:
     "I am a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a materials engineer, an honors student, and a woman. I also have been told hundreds of times that I don't deserve to be where I am. MIT admissions decisions come out on 3/14 (for Pi) every year. By 8 a.m. on 3/15 everyone in my high school knew I had been accepted. Tons of people came up to congratulate that day and afterwards but seemed strangely insistent on reminding me that "it is a lot easier to get in when you are a girl because they get so many fewer female applicants."    The idea that there was some sort of quota for women would be repeated to me over and over in the coming months, and it only got worse when I went to MIT."

Jennifer discussed not only gender, but also treated the topic of persons of color.  Kudos to her for writing..

Damn  --so many themes I can relate to over my extended career, still alive and kicking.  I came of age scientifically/professionally in the 1970s, and in general I have seen some progress (though I have many stories about gender biases) --such as for about 20 years I was the only woman in a department, and today in our faculty meeting there were 7 women present (two more absent) (albeit out of a possible 43 ....).

But the issue of being admitted to an elite program, as Jennifer was, or being hired because you are from an underrepresented group, hit at least two major nerves.  The first is, I could tell you many stories over my 30+ years in an R1 (primary research) university, when women who were as, or more, qualified than men were not hired for various unsupportable reasons.  Enough to make me crazy, but I have persevered.

The second nerve it hit is the one I want to address, and it's very related to our MIT student's post:   My niece is a systems engineer.  Her profession is one I could not have imagined for myself, in my era, though some women in that era and even earlier did succeed in engineering, despite the odds  (thanks largely to girls-only high schools, I think).  So to me, my niece's success is a real testament to progress in WISE.  And here, thanks to FIRST high school robotics programs.

This past spring, my niece was laid off.  She had left a more secure position (where to this day they would hire her back in less than a heartbeat) to one more innovative and people-oriented.  This more risky position didn't hold up, not because of her failings, but because funding in her expertise at that company declined.

I was confident, in the long run, that she'd get another job--one that suited her--BECAUSE MY NIECE IS EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD AT WHAT SHE DOES.  And/but when having a conversation with a close friend, I heard them say, "She won't have any problem, she's a woman engineer, and engineering companies are looking to hire women" (could also say the same about people of color), it raised my hackles and contradicted my experiences over the past decades.  And I am sure the same goes for my niece.

In my experience, a woman has NEVER been hired because of her gender, but in fact, she has to meet, or in reality exceed, the qualifications of any of the many others who apply for a position.  I could describe several cases where a woman was actually the most qualified person in a search, and somehow,... somehow they did not get the offer because...   let's see, what can I actually put on paper?  Not much, but believe me, the reasons were commonly constructed without real foundations.   Crazy making, but I have persevered.

So Jennifer's essay hit home on several accounts, not the least  being reflections on my niece's career path.  I do remain an optimist, but please, do not tell me that women and people of color are more easily hired (and retained) because they are from underrepresented groups.  While it might happen, I don't believe that, at least in my own experience in the fields of science and technology, it happens more often than the reverse.