The world now looks so different due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I've been staying in my apartment in Beijing for three months. Now everything's finally coming back to normal, gradually.This is a long delayed update...I spent my last days in the ... Read More

It was my last US. National Park trip, before departing for Beijing. Xin and I were wondering where to visit in late September. We thought about Yellowstone, which I had always wanted to visit but never hashed out a real plan. The airfares were... Read More

This year, the Goldschmidt conference was in Spain. After the conference, Xin and I went on a trip in eastern Spain. It was our first time visiting Spain. We don't speak Spanish, but we managed to communicate with the people there just fine. I... Read More

This summer, we went on a second field trip to Tibet. We landed in Nyingchi instead of Lhasa and started there. Nyingchi is 600 m lower than Lhasa, and this really helped a lot. At 3000 m, the altitude effect was not as strong and everybody... Read More

Before and after our road trip in Washington, we made a few short trips in the bay area of California. We drove the Half Moon Bay to see tide pool, Land Ends and revisited Point Reyes National Seashore. There are a lot of scenic spots along the... Read More

I visited China three times this year. For the first time in seven years, I had a chance to celebrate the Lunar new year with my family in China! I also went to Tibet, for the... Read More

In this past summer, I joined a field trip in southern Tibet, one of my not-so-many long serious field trips. The field trip was led by Dr. Weiqiang Ji from CAS. We had a total of eight... Read More

The Canadian Rockies make a part of the North American Rockies, which have multiple ranges of mountains. They formed as a result of the Sevier orogeny about 140 to... Read More

Just spent the Christmas-New Year holiday in California. The five of us, Sean, Yilun, Jerry, Xin and me, teamed up and explored Lassen Volcanic National Park and... Read More

My post-doc advisor, Cin-Ty Lee, took me on a field trip that was originally designed for the undergrads to give me more experiences in the field... Read More

Visited the Corning Museum of Glass and the Niagara falls after my Cornell trip. Drs. Sue Kay and Robert Kay provided me a set of wonderful samples from the Andes... Read More

After I finished with the Goldschmidt conference in Paris, Xin flew in, and we started our journey in France. This was our first time to travel in France... Read More

The Sierra Nevada,located in central California, is a mountain range that primarily formed in the last two hundred million years when the Pacific ocean floor... Read More

Crater Lake National Park, established in 1902, is one of the earliest US national parks. Crater lake is not an impact crater, but a caldera lake formed somewhat seven thousand... Read More

Before setting out to Oregon for the independence Day vacation, we visited Santa Cruz to check out the steam train, redwood State Park and Walton Lighthouse there... Read More

While I was visiting my parents in China, I took my mom to Yendang Mountain Geologic Park for vacation. Yendang is located in Zhejiang Province, China... Read More

On 4/22/2017, the Earth day, hundreds of thousands of scientists around the world walked onto the streets to march for science, and protested... Read More

The Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch is a fun place in San Antonio, TX. About 2.5 hours drive from Houston... Read More

Puerto Rico was very different from the continental US. It was colorful, hot and active. Lots of history... Read More

On Aug.22, 2016, I left Maryland. Five years, from 8/2011 to 8/2016, was short indeed, but full of memories. Here, I learnt, worked, played... Read More

I joined the Goldschmidt field trip after the conference, hiking in the Hakone-Fuji area for three days. These places were simply as beautiful as Hayao Miyazaki’s films... Read More

Petrified Forest is full of magical elements. Things are whimsical, odd and yet in perfect harmony together. Car wreckage, a desert inn from the early 20th century... Read More

The Monument Valley, at the AZ-UT border, has all the characteristics of the historical western US. Desert, wind, crows, Indian tribes...These are the keywords... Read More

The views of Bryce Canyon in winter are breathtaking. This national park is not really a canyon, but is famous for its numerous giant amphitheaters... Read More

There are many canyon type national and state parks in the US mountain zone. I got chances to visit them during my multiple trips to Arizona State University... Read More

I visited Rochester University multiple times to do experiments, and at the same time, I was exploring west New York state. There are no national parks there... Read More

Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains are sister national parks in the eastern US. Shenandoah is the first US national park I visited, and I visited it... Read More

Goldschmidt 2015 was in Prague. Prague is a city full of history. I sat in a coffee shop and found the ceiling was from the 13th century... Read More

We only spent two days in Germany as we traveled from Switzerland to Czech Republic. We stopped for two places in Germany, Füssen and Munich... Read More

We spent five days backpacking in the Alps in Switzerland. Although there were no technical challenges, it was quite exhausting, especially the first day... Read More

I visited California multiple times to see friends and Roberta, attend AGU conferences, and enjoy the beach and parks. California is dry, though it's a coastal state... Read More

In January, 2015, we drove across the country, from College Park, MD to Point Reyes, CA. 11 states, 4 national parks, totaling 3456 miles in 8 days... Read More

On June 1st, 2014, we summited Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous US. Mt. Whitney, with an elevation of 4,421 m, is located on the border of California... Read More