Italian researcher who died on Mendenhall Glacier was studying planetary landscapes

Riccardo Pozzobon, a 40-year-old planetary geologist from the University of Padua in Italy, died on the Mendenhall Glacier last week.

He had journeyed onto the glacier with two other Italian researchers to study ice fracture patterns in an effort to better understand the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The research is part of Project GEMINI and is funded by the National Geographic Grant Program. Pozzobon was also an instructor in the European Space Agency’s astronaut training course.

His companions on the expedition told rescuers that Pozzobon tripped over his crampon and fell into a stream of water that swept him down a moulin, which is a vertical hole in the ice that funnels surface meltwater underneath the glacier.

After he disappeared into the moulin, Pozzobon’s