Observatory Blog

By Sandra Chung It’s July 2012, and NEON Data Products Scientist Andy Fox is teaching summer school 9,500 feet above sea level. He is explaining data

The New York Times Dot Earth blog featured a "Postcard" from our very own scientists and blog contributors Jeff Taylor and Mike SanClements. As you

Wildfire, floods, drought and insect outbreaks. These and other disturbances all have the potential to affect ecosystem health and function and alter

terrestrial ecologists and the Airborne Observation Platform (AOP). The combined ground- and airborne-based efforts will create one of NEON’s first

One afternoon in March 2012, a casually dressed crowd of more than 60 researchers crammed themselves into the largest room at NEON headquarters in

By Sandra Chung Wordles of all tweets to the #ESA2012 hashtag from (left to right) Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the meeting week. Word size

Part II: Sharing the Challenges and Payoffs of Big Data By Brian Wee, Chief of External Affairs Big Data is not new to the science world. But to

In the largest study of its kind, NEON will collaborate with Colorado State University to provide airborne remote sensing data to study devastating

Earlier this month, while most of NEON's science staff was soaking up the science at the Ecological Society of America's Annual Meeting in Portland

Big Data has already altered the way scientists view, study, and analyze the world, and appears poised to change the fields of ecology and

NEON technicians will collect and identify countless insect specimens over the lifetime of the observatory. To put it into perspective, during a short

By M. Johnson I got a little nervous as I watched the first group of people disembarking the plane and saw one of my AOP team members carrying two

NEON broke ground on its first two sites this week, marking the official start of observatory construction. To commemorate this historic moment, NEON

By Leah Wasser A few summers ago, I spent my time in the field hugging trees. While I’ve been called a hippie in the past, this was hardly hippie

NEON's Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) will depart on its inaugural test flights out of the Grand Junction Regional Airport starting this Sunday

By Michael Fitzgerald For most people, water is just something that comes out of a faucet in their house. We pay little attention to how it gets there

By Dr. Dave Schimel Last month, I participated in the first Principal Investigator meeting of NSF’s new Macrosystems Biology program . The NSF

By Michael SanClements Just before I became a staff scientist at NEON, I and colleagues from the University of Colorado , Environmental Protection

By Jeff Taylor I stare intently at the Senior Congressional Legislative Assistant seated opposite me. He stares back, his eyes equally intent. I wet

NEON will break ground on three sites starting early Summer 2012: Ordway-Swisher Biological Station in Florida, Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, and

In just under four months, civil construction will begin at the first NEON site . The timing couldn’t be better. Ecosystems are increasingly stressed

By Jacob Parnell Even after more than a decade of working with microbes, I still find it amazing that more than 99% of the biodiversity on Earth is

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has completed the first of three high fidelity imaging spectrometers for use on the NEON project, known as the

The Long-term Ecological Research Network (LTER) and NEON are highly complementary networks that support ecological research in different ways, but

Imagine the scene: a sunny spring day on the plains of eastern Colorado, grasses gently swaying in the breeze, and a clear, gurgling stream winding its way across the landscape. Standing on the stream bank, suddenly there’s a loud splash, and you see a huge, dark shape gracefully plunge into the stream in front of you. Your mind irrationally flips through a list of mental images...

By Sandra Henderson Wildflowers, bats, and live music are just some of the pleasant things I associate with Austin, Texas. However, after recently

By Keith Krause It’s hot. Like, 100 degrees F hot. And I’m carrying around this heavy, ultra nerdy backpack (which engineering school definitely

NEON’s Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) team went to unusual heights in late September, taking only ground-based observations in the first of

By Kate Thibault The majestic, 500-pound lion lazing in the grass awaiting its next meal (provided generously by the females in his pride). The

Insects come in a variety of shapes and colors that dazzle our eyes. But there’s one insect that you almost always hear before you see it (if you see