HOW DO YOU USE TECHNOLOGY IN YOUR WORK?
 The digital computer revolutionized how I work with terrain data (I go back to the era of data decks of Hollerith (“IBM”) cards - the kind most of you have never handled: with square, not rounded, corners (!) I also get ever so much more written due to the word processor. The Internet makes it so easy to answer questions now - the oddball and obscure as well as the mundane, that it is hard to imagine working without it. It also is an essential means of publication, altho I am concerned that it is not yet of archival permanence. Best of all, perhaps, is email - instant communication with my far-flung network of colleagues worldwide - Australia, Japan, England, Greece, Germany.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT YOUR WORK?
It’s FUN! Sifting through a bunch of fresh observations, choosing likely measurements that a hunch tells me might say something important, and then plotting up X against Y for a good sample and finding that there is a positive correlation between the two … well, this may not be fun for some, but for me, it is Nirvana. I also enjoy writing; always have. I do a lot of writing in my work, and I enjoy seeing my name in print on good research. I also enjoy reading what other people in my field are doing, and I LOVE reading about my predecessors - the history of surface quantification, which goes back into the early 1800s in Germany, simple fascinates me (I started out in college to be a historian, not an earth scientist, but that is another story).
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ON LANDSLIDES
Landslides, lethal mixtures of water, rocks, and mud, are triggered by weather events, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions. They are part of the way the Earth operates. Although we can’t prevent natural hazards from happening, we can learn from them, and use this knowledge to prevent natural hazards from turning into natural disasters.
ON THE USGS
As the nation’s largest water, earth and biological science and civilian mapping agency, the USGS works in cooperation with more than 2,000 organizations across the country to provide reliable, impartial scientific information to resource managers, planners and other customers. This information is gathered in every state by USGS scientists to minimize the loss of life and property from natural disasters, to contribute to the conservation and the sound economic and physical development of the nation’s natural resources, and to enhance the quality of life by monitoring water, biological, energy, and mineral resources.
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Learn About Mapping of Topographic Land Forms
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Learn About Terrain Modeling
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Above: View of approach to Apollo Landing Site 2 in southwestern Sea of Tranquility
Apollo 11
MOON TOPOGRAPHY
I never gave much thought about the Moon until the summer of 1964, when I worked at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (Buffalo NY) for one of my mentors who had moved there from civilian Army employ. They had a contract to analyze the roughness of the Moon’s surface preparatory to deploying the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the later Apollo missions. My assignment was to quantify surface roughness from recently issued lunar contour maps. I did that, but also became absolutely fascinated by the Moon’s CRATERS. What cool landforms! I dug into the old literature, began to analyze their shapes mathematically from data on the new maps, and … I was GONE (into Nirvana)! I ended up writing my doctoral thesis on the origin of the Moon’s craters. In the course of that work, I spent the summer of 1965 at USGS in Flagstaff Arizona. The USGS hired me right out of graduate school in 1967 to do more surface-roughness analysis, which I did, but I also kept up my interest in craters - which paid my way for many years thereafter.
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