Judith Ellen Fierstein is a geologist and researcher employed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). She is affiliated with the USGS California Volcano Observatory.
Fierstein is a member and fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA), having been nominated by Charles R. Bacon.
Career
Fierstein is best known for her work in the fields of volcanology and geologic mapping. She is also known for giving engaging presentations to teach communities about her geologic work.
Education
Fierstein received a B.S. in 1980 and an M.S. in 1989, both from University of California, Santa Cruz.
Collaboration
Her main research partner is Wes Hildreth. Their partnership began in 1980, when Hildreth took the newly graduated Fierstein on a trip to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park and Preserve for geologic research. They have since become vital to each other's research, and they have collaborated in the Cascades, Andes, and in Alaska.
While Michelle Coombs, the current Scientist-in-Charge (SIC) at Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) was in college, she was a field assistant to Fierstein. Terry Keith, an earlier SIC at AVO, also worked with Fierstein on research in Alaska.
Research
Chile
Fierstein has worked extensively in the study of tephra stratigraphy. Her research was applied to fill in the known eruptive history of the volcano Laguna del Maule. She has also developed strategies for calculating the volume of volcanic tephra from a given eruption.
Fierstein's work in South America, including research at Laguna del Maule, led to the first ever tri-national hazards map, which included Chile and Argentina.
Alaska
Fierstein is an expert in the geology of Katmai National Park and Preserve. She has published multiple research papers and USGS publications on the geology of Alaska.
She was noted as a "Novarupta-Katmai expert" by the USGS, an "expert on the 1912 eruption [of Novarupta]" by the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and as a "Katmai expert" by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
She has collaborated with Wes Hildreth on papers about Novarupta, a volcano in Katmai National Park, Alaska, and has spoken at Alaskan community events, most notably in 2012 after the centennial of the Novarupta Eruption of 1912. She also appeared on Alaska Public Radio to talk about one of her publications on Novarupta.
Her research in Katmai has also uncovered errors in the research done by Robert Griggs, but has since corrected many of them. Fierstein's work has also been applied alongside the research of Bernard R. Hubbard for determining the geologic history of the area around Mount Aniakchak. Copies of a paper by Fierstein were found in the files of Father Hubbard after his passing.
Fierstein has also worked with volcanologist Colin Wilson on Alaskan research.
California
Fierstein has contributed to geologic research in both the Mojave National Preserve and the Mono Basin of California. She was an advisor to a USGS postdoctoral fellowship on volcanic hazards at Mono Basin.
The USGS largely used a professional paper by her and Wes Hildreth to create a "geonarrative" on the geology at Mammoth Mountain. She and Hildreth led an interpretive hike at Devils Postpile National Monument in 2016.
Oregon
Fierstein has contributed to geologic research in Oregon, especially with around the Three Sisters. She collaborated with Wes Hildreth and other contributors to create a geologic map of the Sisters' volcanic cluster.
Washington
Hildreth and Fierstein were also the first to research the stratigraphic structures making up Mount Adams and monitor the geologic changes at the mountain. They published a conference paper of their geologic mapping and geothermal assessment of Mount Adams in 1990, and went on to publish the geologic map with USGS in 1995.
Fierstein has also worked with geologist Dave Tucker on research in the North Cascades. Tucker assisted in collecting samples for Hildreth and Fierstein at Mount Baker in the 1990s for a 2003 publication on its eruptive history.
Fierstein's work with Hildreth has been used for documenting the seismic hazards present in Western Washington.
Awards
Along with Wes Hildreth, Fierstein won the Florence Bascom Geologic Mapping Award from the GSA in 2019. They were nominated by Colin Wilson.
Also in collaboration with Hildreth, she won the Outstanding Publication award from the Association of Earth Science Editors.
Affiliations
Fierstein is an Associate Editor of the Bulletin of Volcanology. She has also served as a manuscript reviewer for the journal Geology.