WeiPoints #05: My Year in Photos
A dose of wonder about the world
Iceland’s Barnafoss waterfall is always a spectacle. But nothing beats Iceland in the fall when the sparse ground cover turns brilliant golden and auburn hues. *Chef’s kiss*
Hi all!
First, a confession: I let perfection get in the way of good enough for this newsletter and failed to send many (or any?) updates this year. I attempted to write many newsletters, including one at 35,000 feet altitude en route to Slovenia. But with 2025 now upon us, all those unfinished newsletters are still sitting in my drafts folder.
So, here we go. Try, try again.
My apologies to anyone who subscribed MONTHS ago and hadn’t yet heard a peep from me. If this is the first email you’re receiving, welcome! One of my biggest goals for the new year is accepting that sometimes, done is better than perfect, which hopefully means more newsletters, more stories, and more wonderful and weird science about our world.
This year has been jam-packed but fun, my first full year of freelance. I guided six trips for National Geographic Expeditions and Smithsonian Journeys through eight different countries, published my kids’ book What a Rock Can Reveal, spoke with more than a thousand kiddos during book events, took my first ghostwriting assignment for a book, and wrote stories for Quanta Magazine, The New York Times, Science Magazine, and Times for Kids!
I’m getting excited about projects in the works for 2025. For now, however, let’s dig into some of my favorite pics from this past year and the crazy geology or fun science behind each one.
Coming up…
2024 in photos: Adventure into the caves crisscrossing under a bustling New Zealand city, watch whales in an Iceland Fjord, boat across the brilliant blue waters of Lake Bled in Slovenia, and more.
Latest Stories: Learn about the retirement of the JOIDES Resolution, a ship that played a vital role in many key discoveries about our planet, a 200-meter-tall megatsunami in Greenland, and how Declassified satellite images helped reveal lingering impacts of the Vietnam War.
What a Rock Can Reveal: A short update about the book :)
Adventures ahead: My travel schedule for National Geographic Expeditions and Smithsonian Journeys in 2025 and 2026, check it out if you want to join me in an adventure!
When trying to pull images for this newsletter, I ended up with a folder with about three dozen pictures. So I chose ten (plus a bonus pic) and will save the others for upcoming newsletters about some of the amazing sights and science! The picture at the top of this newsletter is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I witnessed all year. I’ve visited Barnafoss in Iceland many times before, but the brilliant blue waters set against the blazing autumn colors on a grey and cloudy day took the prize. Here are ten more sights and places that took my breath away.
Auckland’s underworld
Welcome to New Zealand’s lava caves (also known as “lava tubes”). These tunnels crisscross under the bustling city of Auckland, New Zealand formed from eruptions of the 53 volcanoes strewn throughout the city. These volcanic blasts lay down thick layers of fresh rock, but they also have the potential to create caves. That’s because the molten rock often flows across the ground like a river, causing the edges and top of the lava to cool first and form a hard rocky tube. Molten rock will continue to flow through the center of the tube until the eruption ends. Then the tube drains, leaving behind these subterranean caverns. I visited this lava tube for a story I wrote for Smithsonian Digital News — check it out!
Serene Slovenia
This is Lake Bled, which is so gorgeous it looks like a fake backdrop. Glaciers carved out the basin where the lake stands today during the last ice age, then filled it with water some 14,000 years ago as the ice receded. Humans have visited the island in the lake’s center for millennia, since at least the Copper Age (between the 5th and the 4th millennium BCE)! We also ventured to the island, gliding across the still waters in one of these blue canvas-topped boats — a bit fancier style than the early humans.
Window through time
During our week adventuring through Slovenia with National Geographic, we hiked up to some remnants from WWI. The country was one of the war’s bloodiest frontlines. This concrete window was part of a transport system to move supplies up the mountainous terrain.
Donkey-honking penguins
The final stop on the boating leg of the National Geographic Expedition trip in Patagonia is Magdalena Island — a place that more than 100,000 Magellanic penguins! They make a hilarious donkey-like braying call. Check it out in this short video.
Patagonia joy
The little ice cubes in your glass might not seem very useful for cutting stone. But with enough ice, like the frosty masses of glaciers, you suddenly have one of nature’s greatest sculptors. As glaciers flow, the ice plucks and abrades the underlying rock, creating tons of gravel that meltwater flushes into vast glacial outwash planes—shown beneath my joyful jump in this picture :)
Rare view in Alaska
Denali, the highest peak in North America (20,310’ elevation), is so tall it makes its own weather, which means it’s almost always shrouded in clouds. The peak is estimated to only emerge about 20 percent of the time, so most guests to Denali National Park never see the snowy peak. But on an early morning adventure with National Geographic Expedition guests, we had a glorious view of the queen of the mountains! (Seen above as the bright white peak in the photo’s center)
Scars of fire
Do you see that brown patch on the mountains to the right of the ridge? That’s a region that was ablaze just days before my tour group arrived this past summer. The exact cause of the fires isn’t known, but there was speculation that either a spark from a train or a cigarette butt flicked from one of the train cars ignited the dry landscape.
Kenai sentinels
These pillars of stone stand tall in Alaska’s Kenai Fjords National Park. Glaciers plowed through this valley, caving out the channel’s steep walls. As the ice melted, water flooded in and eroded the rocks into these spindly chimneys.
Geared up and ready to go
Me, in a survival suit, ready to head out whale watching in Iceland. I’m going to save the rest of the whale-watching photos for their own post. So for now, you just get me goofily posing in my extra warm flotation suit.
Icelandic night light
My last two work trips this year were to Iceland, where the Northern Lights were putting on quite a show. The solar activity that causes the northern lights peaks whenever the sun’s poles flip. That happens every 11 years or so, and scientists think that it finally happened this past winter. The result was northern lights running amuck across the northern hemisphere, with activity spotted surprisingly far south. I took this picture during one of the many gorgeous nights.
A bonus aurora photo because how could I not??
A taste of Spain
I’m sneaking in another extra photo to mention the food. I had some amazing meals everywhere I traveled. But some of my top bites were in Spain, where my husband and I went for a wedding of two dear friends. I’m still thinking about these salmon and cheese dishes from Babula Bar.
My Latest Stories
Declassified satellite photos reveal impacts of the Vietnam War: Nearly 50 years after the war’s end, the deadly impacts of US bombing and herbicide spraying campaigns still persist. Unexploded ordnance continues to maim and kill, while hot spots of dioxin, a potent toxin in the herbicides, might still be contributing to cancers and birth defects today. Now, using declassified military satellite photos, scientists have identified the likely locations of these hidden dangers, which could help direct remediation and cleanup efforts.
Dismantling the ship that drilled for the ocean’s deepest secrets: The ship, known to those who sailed on it as the J.R., helped uncover the devastation the day the dinosaurs died and confirm the theory of plate tectonics. It provided records of climate change throughout Earth’s history. It unveiled microbes thriving far deeper beneath Earth’s surface than ever thought possible.
Yet the J.R. returned from its last expedition earlier this month, and there are no concrete plans for its replacement.
“It was a punch in the gut,” said Beth Christensen, a marine geologist at Rowan University in New Jersey.
A megatsunami in a remote fjord range Earth like a bell for 9 days: In September 2023, an unusual seismic signal raced around the world, zipping from eastern Greenland to Antarctica in less than 1 hour. The seismic waves continued to radiate worldwide for 9 days, ringing Earth like a giant bell. Now, scientists have tracked these mysterious signals to their source—a colossal landslide in a remote Greenland fjord that sparked tsunami waves up to 200 meters tall!
What a Rock Can Reveal
My book was featured in NY Strategist’s kids’ books of the year! I’m so honored that this book has reached so many people. Thank you to everyone who has already purchased a copy — I’ve so enjoyed all the pictures of kids, grandchildren, and other littles reading about rocks. 🫶
It was my pleasure to speak with kids about the many secrets hidden in stone at a series of book events in Tulsa, OK, and Cold Spring, NY. Let me know if you’re interested in coordinating an event near you! (Thanks to Valerie Wei-Haas for this picture at the Tulsa event in the Gathering Place!)
Adventures Ahead
In the new year, I’m continuing to travel as an expert geologist for trips with both National Geographic Expeditions and Smithsonian Journeys (trips listed below). I’d love it if any of you wanted to join these adventures, and I hope to see you all on a trip soon!
Trips for 2025:
February 8-23: Patagonian Explorer with Smithsonian Journeys
June 14-24: The Northern Rockies with Smithsonian Journeys
August 11-20: Hiking the Alpe-Adria Trail with National Geographic Expeditions
September 30 - October 10: Adventure in Iceland with Smithsonian Journeys
Trips for 2026:
February 7-18: Exploring Patagonia with National Geographic
August 24 - September 3: The Northern Rockies with Smithsonian Journeys
September 29 - October 9: Adventure in Iceland with Smithsonian Journeys
***Please note: Sometimes there are unforeseen changes in the experts/guides on these trips due to health issues or other scheduling needs out of my control. I am currently under contract to travel on the below trips and will do my best to keep to the plan!
One of the best parts of traveling is coming home to my hubby and two wacky pups (pictured above). So I’ll leave you with this photo that encapsulates their polar opposite personalities :D
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