Gustavo Bejar-Lopez has been interested in volcanoes since he was a child. Now, the Michigan Technological University Ph.D. student is a budding volcanologist mentoring young geologists from his undergraduate alma mater.
Gustavo Bejar-Lopez was just 30 days old when his parents brought him to visit Tungurahua, a volcano in his home country of Ecuador. He remembers watching Tungurahua erupting a few years later. His hometown, Guayaquil, was shielded from the direct hazards of volcanic eruptions, but larger eruptions from Tungurahua or nearby Sangay Volcano routinely led to ashfall across the city.
"Growing up in a volcanic country like Ecuador made it so that volcanoes have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember," said Bejar-Lopez. "Events like these made my fascination with volcanoes grow, though I hadn't realized it was possible to study or work on them until I got to college."
Bejar-Lopez began his studies at Yachay Tech University (YT), a research-based college in the northern Andes of Ecuador. While he initially majored in computer science, Bejar-Lopez switched to geology early on after taking a required introductory geology course. He finished his bachelor's degree in geology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
Today, Bejar-Lopez is a Ph.D. student in Michigan Tech's Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences (GMES), where he studies geology, volcanology, natural hazards and seismology. His childhood fascination with volcanoes has brought him back to the volcanoes of Central America and fostered a renewed connection with Yachay Tech.
"Over the years, Yachay Tech has had a sort of informal relationship with Michigan Tech," said Bejar-Lopez. "Four MTU graduates were professors at Yachay Tech and three Yachay Tech students have attended Michigan Tech's graduate programs. In addition, other undergraduate and graduate students at YT and MTU have visited the other institution to perform research work."
Bejar-Lopez strengthened the Tech-to-Tech relationship by inviting a YT student on a recent research expedition to Volcan de Fuego in Guatemala.
The project, begun by GMES Professor Rudiger Escobar-Wolf and colleagues from Boise State University in 2020 with funding from the National Science Foundation, focused on improving scientists' understanding of lahars on Volcan de Fuego. Lahars are fast-moving mixtures of volcanic debris and water that resemble mudflows or landslides. They have the potential to be dangerous; in 1985, over 23,000 people were killed in the town of Armero, Colombia, due to four enormous lahars. In collaboration with INSIVUMEH, Guatemala's geophysical monitoring institute, this project aimed to describe the seismic and infrasonic signature of these flows in order to increase early detection.
When he joined the team as a research assistant, Bejar-Lopez decided to apply for the National Geographic Explorer Grant to broaden the scope of the project in 2023. Since 1888, National Geographic has awarded more than 15,000 grants to explorers working on projects in science, conservation, storytelling, education and technology. Bejar-Lopez's grant proposal aimed to expand the knowledge of precipitation and incorporate artificial intelligence techniques to automatically detect and potentially forecast lahar activity. In addition, Bejar-Lopez chose to include two students to accompany researchers on their most recent expedition in June 2024. The impact that similar opportunities had on his own professional development was his key motivation.
"As an undergraduate student at Yachay Tech University, I joined an expedition to find and collect fossils in the Peruvian Amazon thanks to another project funded by, coincidentally, both the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. While I don't study fossils anymore, this experience left a lasting mark in the form of enthusiasm for field-based science. I wanted to generate the same impact on students through my National Geographic project."
That's how Dayana Espinoza-Celi, a geology undergraduate student from YT, and Jacob Krier, a geophysics graduate student from Michigan Tech, became involved with the Fuego volcano project.
Conducting Fieldwork at an Active Volcano
With funding secured, researchers from Michigan Tech and Yachay Tech embarked on their expedition to the volcano last June.
As Bejar-Lopez noted, Fuego is "an exceptional natural laboratory to study lahars." One of Guatemala's most active volcanoes, Fuego has been erupting consistently since 1999. While Fuego's activity usually occurs in the form of small eruptions every 10 minutes, some large-magnitude eruptions still occur, like the one in 2018 that killed hundreds.
When volcanoes erupt, they release large amounts of material, including ash clouds that can be transported long distances by wind. However, larger particles like rocks and loose sediments are often deposited on the volcanoes' flanks. When that debris mixes with rain or snowfall, it forms a mixture similar to wet concrete. Lahars result when this mixture begins to flow downhill.
According to Bejar-Lopez, these factors of lahar formation and the topography and climate of Volcan de Fuego combine into a perfect storm.
"First, the volcano erupts very often and provides enough loose sediments to be incorporated into these flows. Second, the area experiences an intense rainy season from May to October that provides plenty of water to trigger lahars. Third, the volcano's steep slopes provide enough energy for flows to travel faster and become more dangerous," he said.
Fuego is also considered a critical study site by volcanologists due to the dozens of communities lying on the flanks of the volcano. For the people living and commuting along these ravines and channels, early detection and timely alerts are vital for survival.
Researchers involved in the June 2024 expedition set out to temporarily install two seismometers, rain gauges and video cameras to get as much information about lahars as possible. This fieldwork involved hiking and carrying equipment through difficult terrain and dense forests, visiting monitoring stations to service them and download important data, and, on one occasion, rushing to the edge of a lahar channel when alerts were issued so they could observe the flow in person.
"Dayana and I also had the chance to climb the neighboring Acatenango Volcano to get a closer view of Volcan de Fuego's constant low-magnitude eruptions," said Bejar-Lopez.
The data collected from this expedition is currently in use. Krier and Espinoza-Celi are using it, along with data from previous deployments, to complete their individual research work. Bejar-Lopez is currently making use of the new datasets to improve the characterization and AI tools that he's developing for lahars.
The overall goal of Bejar-Lopez's research is to describe flow activity using seismology and characterize what these signals look like in the seismic record.
"I'm using methods that are similar to voice recognition, like when you speak to Siri on your iPhone," said Bejar-Lopez. "Your phone is detecting different values of volume and pitch in your voice to predict what words you are speaking. In the same way, I use similar parameters in seismic recordings to distinguish signals generated by lahars from other types of phenomenon. I'm achieving this by using machine learning methods."
Bejar-Lopez is also using rainfall measurements and videos to compare datasets, describe the characteristics of rain needed to trigger these flows, and to generate computational models that simulate lahar behavior. The research has the potential to significantly improve hazard assessments in the area.
Faculty Collaborate to Support Student Research
Gustavo Bejar-Lopez credits his Michigan Tech faculty mentors as key factors in the project's success.
"I started my involvement in the Fuego lahar project shortly before I officially joined MTU," he says. "Rudiger Escobar-Wolf, one of the co-principal investigators for this project, supported my research since the beginning and the involvement of Greg Waite as co-PI enabled me to develop skills in geophysics."
Waite said Bejar-Lopez is a welcome ambassador for this project. "He always has a positive attitude, which is especially welcome in the field or when problems are encountered. He has coordinated fieldwork logistics and he has been an unofficial mentor to other students," said Waite. "I also value his creativity and eagerness to explore new ideas."
Other GMES faculty have guided Bejar-Lopez as well. He has developed his technical skills in geostatistics and machine learning with GMES Associate Professor Snehamoy Chatterjee and found and managed funding opportunities thanks to GMES Assistant Teaching Professor Luke Bowman.
And the collaboration with Yachay Tech still runs deep. Bejar-Lopez currently serves as Dayana Espinoza-Celi's thesis co-advisor. She's using data from Fuego to model lahar flows and compare them to the seismic signature.
Bejar-Lopez hopes the students' college experiences are as transformational as his were.
"I not only learned about volcanoes, which was cool in and of itself, but also earned valuable mentorship," said Bejar-Lopez. "Considering how impactful this mentorship was on me, I aim to provide a similar experience to my future mentees. I really enjoy the role of educator in natural sciences, especially out in the field. I understand access to the field is challenging for people in underrepresented communities in STEM and geology especially. Therefore, my focus will be in building safe spaces for everyone to join."
After he defends his dissertation and graduates in summer 2025, Bejar-Lopez plans to continue work as both a researcher and mentor. Long-term, he envisions becoming a professor focused on volcanic hazards, computational geology — and his students. "I would like to continue my contributions to the science," said Bejar-Lopez. "As a professor, I not only hope to develop my research in this area but also mentor the new generation of volcano scientists."
Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
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