Graduate assists scientists on Indonesia's highest peak

A Jamestown College graduate recently saw two years of planning and preparation come to fruition at one of the most remote mountaintops in the world.

Scott Hanna '02 is General Superintendent of Corporate Communications at PT Freeport Indonesia, the operating affiliate of American mining company Freeport-McMoRan. He has lived and worked in Indonesia since 2006. Hanna organized the logistical support for a team of scientists drilling ice cores from glaciers on the mountain Puncak Jaya, located in Indonesia's Papua province, in June.

Now back in the states with their ice cores that date back hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, the scientists will use them to learn about the region's past climates. The cores could also hold clues about future climate changes.

Scott Hanna '02 (left) helps load a section of ice core from Puncak Jaya.

Hanna organized the first planning conference call involving Freeport, Ohio State University, Indiana University, Texas A&M University, and Columbia University in 2008. He stayed involved through the next two years of planning, including hosting a visit by the expedition organizers, Lonnie Thompson from Ohio State and Dwi Susanto from Columbia, in 2009.

"One of my key responsibilities for Freeport Indonesia is organizing and hosting dignitary and other important visits to our operations in Papua, including ambassadors, financial analysts, journalists, and NGOs,” Hanna says.

Getting the 34-person team and gear to the site was a challenge. A two-week delay occurred when the equipment was held up in customs.

"Once the equipment cleared customs and finally made it to Papua, the team found that the ice drills -- the most important items for the project -- were lost in transit,” Hanna says. "We had to spend nearly six hours flying back to Jakarta and luckily found the drills in the corner of a warehouse.”

Once in place, the team faced illness, bad weather, and misunderstandings with local people about the project.

"While you can always plan more and plan better, I think these kinds of challenges are unavoidable in many ways when doing a project in a remote part of the world like Papua, and that is what makes it so exciting,” Hanna says.

The team included researchers from the United States, Indonesia, Russia, Australia, and Italy, plus journalists and support personnel at the glacier camp, base camp, and at the Freeport project area in Tembagapura.

"It was a remarkable team effort, with great cooperation across cultures, languages, and nationalities,” Hanna says. "On the radio or around the dinner table, you could hear Russian, Indonesian, Italian, and English at any given moment.”

Since graduating from Jamestown College with majors in history-political science and criminal justice, Hanna has lived in Austin, New Orleans, and now, Jakarta. He says the glacier project brought back memories of cold North Dakota winters.

"I have been living in increasingly warmer climates, and I don't miss the long winters,” he says. "But, there are many things I miss about North Dakota and Jamestown College. My closest friends to this day are from Jamestown College, even though our paths have spread us across the globe. I forged relationships, personal and professional, that will last a lifetime.”

Photos courtesy Scott Hanna