Monday, November 14, 2011
Good news, everybody!
I was awarded a $1,000.00 NASA student fellowship to continue my research on the engineering and geologic properties of palaeosols. Our department actually had two students total get this fellowship. More glory for our small department, and no rest for the wicked!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Geochemist Manifesto
As I was reading R.L. Folk's classical Petrology of Sedimentary Rocks online this morning (yeah, it's online and free) on page 176
“If Karl Marx will forgive us, we may state the Geochemist Manifesto: ‘Waters of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your ions!’” -- Robert L. Folk on contact zones in diagenesis of carbonates.
It kind of stuck with me. Not in the political meaning of the original quote, but just at how casual he put that in there. I like to think of myself as a budding geochemist as well. (Low Temperature Aqueous Geochemistry under my belt!) As a result, this geology joke leaves me quite warm and lithified.
“If Karl Marx will forgive us, we may state the Geochemist Manifesto: ‘Waters of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your ions!’” -- Robert L. Folk on contact zones in diagenesis of carbonates.
It kind of stuck with me. Not in the political meaning of the original quote, but just at how casual he put that in there. I like to think of myself as a budding geochemist as well. (Low Temperature Aqueous Geochemistry under my belt!) As a result, this geology joke leaves me quite warm and lithified.
Introduction
Bear with me, I'm running off 42 hours of no sleep due to studying for a Sedimentary petrography exam this coming Monday and a Mineralogy test a week from today.
I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled on to "The Lost Geologist"'s blog... probably when I was looking up stuff on Carbonate Petrology and clicking on everything. Though I'm glad I did. Reading about other schools or Ph.D. work in geology is pretty cool. My university has a small faculty, thus less spectrum of awesome, unpleasant, and horribly painful geology classes. (Though one man's Palentology is another man's Geochemistry (Booo, fossils!))
I'm a geology major who will be getting a B.S. in Geology this spring. That may not sound too exciting, but what if I told you I was a chemistry major for two years? Still wondering why I'm bringing it up? Well, I changed to geology two years in, and have been busting my butt off so I can graduate on time.
I took Physical and Historical Geology classes before I knew I wanted to do geology as a career, what got me to change was a half-summer Field Geology course. That's when I feel in love with geology. Though I didn't know anything I was looking at, I wanted to learn it!
My thirst for knowledge in this uncharted territory of geology has made me feel over my head at times. Even now, I can get locked up on a particular process/aspect of something and not feel like it's getting through my head, though in reality, I over think things sometimes.
This past summer, I conducted (and still am, on and off) research for my Capstone (senior project). My project concerns finding correlations between engineering properties of paleosols (Atterberg Limits, Slake Durability...) with properties geologists usually study (lithology, mineralogy...) of that same paleosol.
The project went through a lot of filters over the summer, since just like my entrance in to geology, I bit off a little more than I could chew. I had no concept of engineering geology (my adviser is an engineer and a geologist, but I quickly surpassed him in Liquid Limit testing! I'm a BEAST at those!). I also had no applied paleosol background, other than what we did during a giant Stratigraphy & Sedimentology project. So, as you could imagine, the learning curve was pretty rough there for awhile. All in all, I'm glad I chose to do research. I learned a lot about subjects outside of the teachings of my university, as well as created this thing that I tacked my name on and utterly was embarrassed to show to people due to at how horrible my end result was from what I thought it should be!
I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled on to "The Lost Geologist"'s blog... probably when I was looking up stuff on Carbonate Petrology and clicking on everything. Though I'm glad I did. Reading about other schools or Ph.D. work in geology is pretty cool. My university has a small faculty, thus less spectrum of awesome, unpleasant, and horribly painful geology classes. (Though one man's Palentology is another man's Geochemistry (Booo, fossils!))
I'm a geology major who will be getting a B.S. in Geology this spring. That may not sound too exciting, but what if I told you I was a chemistry major for two years? Still wondering why I'm bringing it up? Well, I changed to geology two years in, and have been busting my butt off so I can graduate on time.
I took Physical and Historical Geology classes before I knew I wanted to do geology as a career, what got me to change was a half-summer Field Geology course. That's when I feel in love with geology. Though I didn't know anything I was looking at, I wanted to learn it!
My thirst for knowledge in this uncharted territory of geology has made me feel over my head at times. Even now, I can get locked up on a particular process/aspect of something and not feel like it's getting through my head, though in reality, I over think things sometimes.
This past summer, I conducted (and still am, on and off) research for my Capstone (senior project). My project concerns finding correlations between engineering properties of paleosols (Atterberg Limits, Slake Durability...) with properties geologists usually study (lithology, mineralogy...) of that same paleosol.
The project went through a lot of filters over the summer, since just like my entrance in to geology, I bit off a little more than I could chew. I had no concept of engineering geology (my adviser is an engineer and a geologist, but I quickly surpassed him in Liquid Limit testing! I'm a BEAST at those!). I also had no applied paleosol background, other than what we did during a giant Stratigraphy & Sedimentology project. So, as you could imagine, the learning curve was pretty rough there for awhile. All in all, I'm glad I chose to do research. I learned a lot about subjects outside of the teachings of my university, as well as created this thing that I tacked my name on and utterly was embarrassed to show to people due to at how horrible my end result was from what I thought it should be!
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