Students Hone Exploration Skills at Meteor Crater Field Camp

Fifteen student participants (14 Ph.D. and 1 M.S.) from the U.S. and around the world successfully completed the fourth edition of the LPI-JSC Center for Lunar Science and Exploration’s week-long Field Training and Research Program at Meteor Crater, held September 3–11, 2016, at Barringer Meteorite Crater, Arizona. The field training is designed to enhance the success of exploration of the Moon and the solar system.

The goal of the camp is to introduce students to impact cratering processes and provide an opportunity to assist with a research project at the crater. Skills developed during the field camp should better prepare students for their own thesis studies in impact cratered terrains, whether they are on Earth, the Moon, Mars, or some other solar system planetary surface.

This field camp is organized under the auspices of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (formerly the NASA Lunar Science Institute), which is designed, in part, to train a new generation of explorers for the Moon and beyond. Thus far, more than 70 graduate students have been successfully trained at Meteor Crater since the inaugural session in 2010. The next planned session at Meteor Crater is anticipated for the fall of 2018.

The field camp is designed for graduate college students in geology and planetary science programs, although advanced undergraduate students are considered if they have successfully completed a summer field geology program and have a demonstrated interest in impact cratering processes.

The 2016 participants were:

Samuele Boschi (Lund University)
Christy Caudill (University of Western Ontario)
Mitali Chandnani (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Nicholas DiFrancesco (Stony Brook University)
Shannon Hibbard (Temple University)
Kynan Hughson (University of California Los Angeles)
Mallory Kinczyk (North Carolina State University)
Audrey Martin (University of Tennessee)
Ellinor Martin (Lund University)
Mélissa Martinot (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Cameron McCarty (University of Tennessee)
Kathryn Powell (Washington University)
Adam Sarafian (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Douglas Schaub (Stony Brook University)
Katherine Shirley (Stony Brook University)

For more information, visit

Field Training and Research Program at Meteor Crater