End of the project.
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BOULDERING
Transition to YOLOv8, always improving the algorithm, collecting more labels…
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Bonjour, everyone! Time feels like it’s slipping away faster than ever these days. With paternity leave in full swing, finding work hours here and there has been a challenge (and honestly, it’s hard not to get distracted by Baby Finn’s cuteness). Despite the chaos, I’ve managed to make a major leap forward in the project: transitioning from Detectron2 Mask R-CNN to YOLOv8. Let me tell you—it’s been a game-changer.
First manuscript accepted! Moving back to Norway after two years in the US
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Let’s go!!! 🎉 After nearly two years of hard work, my first article for the BOULDERING project has been accepted in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets! You can check it out here. This has been a long road, but also an incredibly rewarding one. Over 33,000 boulders were collected across more than 750 tiles/images from three planetary bodies: Earth, Mars, and the Moon.
Wifey at Stanford now! Baby Boss incoming in September
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Big life updates, everyone! Siri is now at Stanford! Thanks to a fantastic program from the Norwegian Research Council (NRC), postdocs already involved in NRC projects can apply for a research stay abroad for up to a year. The NRC covers the salary, and with a high success rate for these grants, it’s a great way to build international collaborations. After some searching, Siri found a group at Stanford doing work closely related to her research at NMBU in Ås. A few weeks of visa wrangling later, she’s here!
One Step Forth, Two Steps Back.
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Hey everyone! The past few months have felt like a game of two steps forward, one step back, but progress is happening—slowly but surely. Most of my time has been spent processing and fine-tuning the orthoimages collected during fieldwork and improving the prediction workflow for the Mask R-CNN model.
Drone Campaign/Fieldwork in Courtright Reservoir (Part 2)!
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Hey everyone! The second part of the BOULDERING drone campaign is in the books, and what a special experience it was—this time, I had my parents as my field assistants! They visited me for three weeks in September, and I thought this would be the perfect chance to show them not just the incredible landscapes of California but also what I actually do in my research (fieldwork edition).
Getting Help from Undergraduate Students During the Summer.
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Hey everyone! This summer, starting in late June, I had the privilege of working with two brilliant undergraduate students who helped map boulder outlines for the BOULDERING project. It was a fantastic experience mentoring them and tackling this enormous task together. Here’s how it went:
Fieldwork in the Sierra Nevada (part 1), Volcanic domes close to Mammoth Lakes
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Hey everyone! I’m just back from the first drone campaign of the BOULDERING project, and what a weekend it was! The volcanic domes near Mammoth Lakes were absolutely stunning. Here’s a little recap of the adventure:
Fieldwork preparation.
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Bonjour, everyone! The countdown is on—just a few weeks to go until the summer 2022 drone campaign kicks off! After lots of scouting, airspace checks, and careful consideration, we’ve locked in three fieldwork locations. Two of them, the Obsidian Dome and South Deadman Dome, are near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada. These volcanic domes were shaped by explosive phreatic eruptions and rhyolitic lava flows, leaving behind fields of boulders that are perfect for the BOULDERING project.
First Conference of the Project: Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC).
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Hey everyone! Big milestone: I attended the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC)—the first conference of the BOULDERING project. The LPSC abstract deadline sneaks up early in January, and though my results were still in their infancy, I decided to go for it. My abstract, titled “A Large Training Dataset of Boulder Sizes and Shapes as a First Step Towards the Automated Detection of Rock Fragments on Planetary Surfaces,” focused on the data I’ve labeled so far, the challenges encountered, my plans, and how our method stacks up against existing approaches. It felt like the perfect way to introduce myself and the project to the planetary science community. A “Hello, I’m Nils, and this is BOULDERING” moment!
First Drone test: finding a location in the bay area is…. not easy!
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Hey folks! Before I jump into fieldwork, I need to get comfortable with my new drone. That means finding a spot for a test flight—easier said than done in the Bay Area! Drones are only allowed in uncontrolled airspace (Class G), and with major airports like SF and Oakland nearby, plus a bunch of smaller ones, Class G airspace is as rare as a unicorn.
Living far away from wifey and family. Not easy!
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Hey everyone! Today’s entry is a bit more personal. Living far from home isn’t a walk in the park. My wife, Siri, is also a researcher, currently doing her postdoc at Ås University near Oslo. As much as we’d love to live together, her work keeps her in Norway, though she visits me every 3–4 months. She’s even considering applying for funding to establish a collaboration with a group here at Stanford—fingers crossed for early 2023!
Preparation of Lunar Data and First Training of a Boulder Detection Algorithm
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Hey folks! While I’m still waiting for the fieldwork season to kick off next year, I’ve been keeping busy with some lunar data. My current focus is mapping boulders around young impact craters on the Moon—by “young,” I mean geologically speaking, anywhere from a few million to a couple of hundred million years old. Since the Moon lacks an atmosphere and active geology, erosion is quite slow, preserving impact craters for much longer periods than on Earth.
Drone License in the Pocket, Fieldwork in Death Valley, Drone Is Bought!
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Hey folks! Big news: I’m officially a licensed drone operator in the U.S. 🎉 On December 9th, 2021, I took the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft General (UAG) exam, and wow, it was no joke. It felt like cramming for an airline pilot’s test! The 100+ pages of dense regulations, airspace classifications, and emergency procedures were quite the mountain to climb. And, after a grueling 150 minutes, I passed—just barely, with the minimum 70%! Talk about a nail-biter.
Getting Started with the Project
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Hey everyone! After a month of running around like a headless chicken—attending mandatory classes, filling out forms, and finally setting up my office—I can officially say that I’m ready to dive into the science. It feels great to shift gears from logistics to research!
About my Marie Skłodowska-Curie project – How boulder mapping can help reveal how planetary surfaces evolved
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Craters are among the most common features on solid planetary surfaces—planets, moons, and even asteroids. When an impact occurs, rock fragments are ejected from the crater cavity and scattered across the surface, sometimes forming secondary craters in the process. The most enduring evidence of these ejections? Boulders.
New apartment and meeting colleagues for the first time
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After an unforgettable first night in our new apartment—sleeping on the ground because IKEA couldn’t deliver our mattress on time, and discovering that the airbed we’d bought from Target had a massive hole (thanks, Target!)—things quickly improved.
Getting settled at Stanford
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Bonjour guys! The first ten days in the US have been super hectic—exciting but a little overwhelming. After tackling the jet lag (not fun), our first mission was to find an apartment near Stanford University. Spoiler alert: that’s easier said than done. The Bay Area’s reputation for sky-high rents is no exaggeration. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to make it here without the generous support of the Norwegian Research Council alongside the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global grant. Huge thanks to both!
Arrival in the US
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Hi people, this is the first entry on the blog. Whoop whoop! This marks the beginning of the BOULDERING Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, funded by the European Union (thanks again!). If you’re curious about what a Marie Curie postdoc entails, check out more info here. My fellowship will span three years—two years at Stanford University, followed by a final year at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Oslo. I have no idea what the next three years will hold, but I’m feeling a mix of excitement and nerves. My plan is to share the evolution of the project with you through this blog.