Brad Rosenheim
From the bottom up Floating in the warm, turquoise-blue water of the Little Colorado River, Brad Rosenheim, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, memorializes his unique perspective in this snapshot. “The photo was taken with a disposable, waterproof film camera. The quality surprised me; everyone gets lucky every once in a while,” says Rosenheim, an instructor in this year’s Grand Canyon Colloquium. In its 36th year, the colloquium is offered to students every spring, culminating each May in the mother of all field trips: eight days down nearly 200 miles of the river—mostly the Colorado River (the Little Colorado is a tributary of its big brother)—that winds through the bottom of the Grand Canyon. “Millions of people go to the Grand Canyon and stand on the rim, look down, then go jump back in their air-conditioned car and go have lunch,” says Ron Parsley, professor of geology and trip organizer. “We decided that a better way to do this was to get on a boat and spend a week looking at the canyon from the bottom up.” Ever the geology professor, Rosenheim notes that the Caribbean-like blueness of the Little Colorado can be attributed to a mineral called travertine.