Latest / PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast / Navigating Rocks - Field Geology and the Evolving Geosciences

Transcript

Navigating Rocks - Field Geology and the Evolving Geosciences · PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast

0:02
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, shall we dive in?
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Let's do this.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh cut two, round two.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Once again, because of Jesse's technical difficulties.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I don't know.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I I mean I don't know if I'd place the blame solely on me.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: I think it's mostly the technology's problem, not me.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: But you know.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: All right.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, everyone, we have grumpy Jesse today because he cannot get his stuff figured out.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Um things that drive me nuts.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Things that should work and worked yesterday that don't work today drive me nuts.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh the vehicle Bluetooth.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while, the Bluetooth just stops working.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: It drives me batty.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: I'll be in the middle of a drive, two-hour drive, and all of a sudden the Bluetooth stops working in my phone.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I was in the middle of a good podcast.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Like now I gotta pull over, restart the car to make the connection, you know.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: It drives me nuts.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, well, I don't know.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: You seem to have a lot of problems lately, Jesse.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Lots of problems.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, mainly my podcast co-host is being a big problem over there.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Just the way he's just general thing.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: That is not true.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: That is just not a true statement at all.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: I am I'm a happy, um agreeable, I'm patient with you.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: I let you get all doctory and windy on us all the time.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: So like you have the perfect partner, actually.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: You're so gracious, just so gracious.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Chris, today, this is a I mean, this is a good topic.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: This is a good fun topic, and I I think an important one, a timely one.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: This comes from a listener question, actually.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, listener question.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Taylor emailed us and said basically, what's the point?
2:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm summarizing and paraphrasing here, but it's very concerned that field geology was not valued, was maybe becoming quote unquote a lost art, and had been advised that going out and mapping rocks was kind of an obsolete skill set.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: And so the question was really targeted, I think, at research, like going on a research trajectory.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Should you go into field geology?
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: And and I think a lot of people, Chris, I'd be curious your thoughts on this.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of people have we talked about before, get into geology because it's cool, it's outside, it's fun, they like it.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, all those things attract people to the field, and if it's becoming an irrelevant skill, that's kind of important to know, right?
2:42
SPEAKER_00: So it's an interesting conversation to have at this point in time.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, was there a tone to Taylor's email?
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, um, was Taylor implying that this was a bad thing, or was you know, like, hey, this isn't right, where I'm being discouraged from doing field work and this shouldn't be happening.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Was there any kind of like intonation that way?
3:01
SPEAKER_00: No, I not really.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it was more of uh just you know, hey, here here's my perception, here's what I'm perceiving as advice being given to me about the field.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Maybe go into like make sure you learn technical skills.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: But is this true?
3:14
SPEAKER_00: The email was very much what do you think?
3:16
SPEAKER_00: What give me some advice?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: So we'll provide advice on this one, and and you know, take this advice with a grain of salt, it's our advice, but I do think that it's well, it's our podcast, Jesse.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: We can we can do this.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I think it's part of our broader conversation, Chris, about the value of geoscience and geology to the field right now, and we're gonna focus specifically on the field component, which I know you love.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: You go into the field teaching students how many days a year?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a lot.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: I try to get them out as like as often as I can.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: I because I just think that it is the best way to experience geology or geoscience, is like the field because how else do you get a feel for scope, you know?
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, for for like the magnitude of of like how big things can be.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so I try to I do this as as often as I can.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I think that's right.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And this is a photo.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Photo number one.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Photo number one is Chris Bullhead's recent in the field.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: This is I think I think you were on Summer Science.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: I was after a photo or a couple photos of you for the website or something.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So I texted you, said, Hey, send me some photos of you.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: This is one of them I got back.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: It's Chris up in the T Tons.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: I yeah, wait, I am.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm in the I'm in the Tetons.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm up at a place that I love.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: It's it's up at Amphitheater Lake, and uh I had just got out of my hammock, and I'm like, oh wow, this is a beautiful day.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful shot.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: So I took a little selfie and and you know, you're ripping on me for it.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: I I don't think that's right.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: But I had like well, I'm just hoping you had a little sunscreen in your little half moon hat, you know, area there that you don't get a little sunburn on that head of yours.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Jenny, make sure I have to.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've done that though.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: I get this half moon in the back of my head um because of where the trucker hats.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's a thing.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the kids think that's uh the students think that's really funny.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you need a little insert for that.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: So, Jesse, um, what do you think?
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Are are you concerned that G, you know, field work is becoming a lost art?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a great question.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: It really is a great question.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: I um it's perhaps true that field geology is becoming a lost art, but I think that's a massive opportunity for people who know the field, can function in the field, can think about the field, but not exclusively.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: There's kind of multiple parts to this.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And in my I was advised, Chris, actually very interestingly, I'll skip ahead here to a photo.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: This is me.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh relatively recently.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: This was actually during my postdoc right before I started at Penn State.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: But this is up in the northern Canada.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: We're doing float plane supported field work, you know, in the remote arctic.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: You got a cobra look going on, like you're you're like that doing this.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: What's going on with you?
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Trying to my selfie school with that fat head all in the all in the same frame there.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to frame, it's hard to get all the brains all in one frame, Chris.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: All right.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I was advised very interestingly, you know, when I was graduating my PhD, I was kind of debating between I really had this great postdoc opportunity in the U.S.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: at the Carnegie Institution for Science, which is like a premier geochemistry institute, you know, had had developed geochronology tools all throughout their the entire history of this institution.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Norman Bowman was there.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, they'd done a lot of experiments, a lot of lab-based work with some really good geologists there too, but it was not fundamentally a field place.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some uh advisor of mine gave me advice, said, no, don't go there.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Actually, go do field work, go see as many rocks as you possibly can.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Go work for the Canadian Geological Survey or go work for some survey where you just map and then go do the geochemistry stuff afterwards.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't take that advice, I went to the geochemistry thing at the the postdoc that was really lab heavy, but I had already gotten a lot of field experience in my PhD.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's value in doing both, and I've had this, this has kind of gone with me throughout my career.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: People appreciate when you both know rocks in the field and have like an a tuned-in, innate eye for the rocks, you know what I mean?
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if that makes sense.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it makes sense to you, but I don't know if it makes sense to the listener, like what we mean by that.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how how, Chris, what's the range of student I don't know what the word is, uh eye tuned into the rocks-ness that you see?
7:44
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Like that that that you see students who they're like clearly picking up on the important parts of an outcrop, they're noticing the important differences.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: What's the range of abilities, sort of natural abilities, without you teaching them?
7:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, natural meaning like when they walk in your door.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's an interesting question.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I've ever thought about it in that way before, but I will say this, and I'm not sure if I'm really gonna directly answer it.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: But what you see is um the first few times that students are in the field and they're trying to make sense of what they are looking at, they're fumbling around.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're at a loss.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: But but once they, you know, once they're there, um, some of the best advice I ever got was I had a problem, I I couldn't figure it out, and and uh the person that was like with me just looked at me like I'm the biggest idiot in the world and said, you know, Bullheist, figure it out.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: And and so I just had to stand there and bullheist, figure it out.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and and so then all of a sudden, you know, I don't know, a few minutes later, I'm literally trying to solve this problem.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: And it just came to me and and I saw it, and I don't know why I didn't see it before.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh I was actually rock climbing.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: And you just like figure it out.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't f I couldn't find a handhold.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And I just like figured it out.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: And so, but but it stuck with me.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, wow, you know, that's actually and I see that with my students.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I don't want to step in and start helping you right now.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: I want you to stare at the outcrop.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: I want you to start looking at the go walk to a different spot then, you know, go pick up different rocks and and start looking at what you're seeing.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: Um and I want to let them kind of fumble about, you know, totally and then and then they start they start to figure out the way that that things, it's just this different way of thinking, but that's why you and I think field work is so valuable still as figures.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: You're really nailing that that story nails the value of it for sure.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think employers are looking for this, they're looking for people who can function in the field.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: When you can function in the field, you have a sort of an innate three-dimensional kind of figure it outness.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: You can spatially think about things.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: You can say, okay, I don't quite understand what's going on in this outcrop.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I need something to the left and back behind this thing.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: That's where my interesting data will be.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go rummage around looking for rocks over there to answer the question that I have.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's some spatial thinking, and just it's just basic observational skill sets.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like what looks the same for an entire outcrop, and then what do I need to focus on?
10:20
SPEAKER_00: What's the difference?
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Where is there the most difference that I can focus in on?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: That's like the thing, and and employers are looking for this.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: So back to like the value of field geology, you know.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: I bedrock mapping, if that's your skill set, if that's the only thing you do and do well, the job market, frankly, is probably gonna be a little bit more limited.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, I you know, that there are definitely people being hired who do that.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: I there's no doubt about that.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know, in the 80s, when all of northern Canada was relatively unmapped geologically, they were hiring field geologists like crazy because they needed them to go map this place.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And all those maps have been made, a lot of the big scientific stories have been told.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: There's still places to go explore, and there's a lot we don't know still.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: But I think the days of like field mapping as the big job in geology, I think those are over.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: You kind of gotta pair geology with something else.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: But that being said, we might as a community have gone the uh too far the the other direction.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, yeah.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: I think about it this way.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: I think um skip ahead, Chris, real quick.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and is this gonna go to another one and make fun of me here?
11:30
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Is this the person who said what?
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Is this the person who said boy's figured out?
11:37
SPEAKER_01: That is not the person that said it.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: She would not have she would have been much more colorful with her language.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I see, yeah, fair enough.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: But I I think uh you know that's the truth too.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: I do.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm down towards this the truth.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: There would have been a lot more words in there in that sentence than Boy has figured out.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: Let me use an analogy, I think, or something that that I think is relevant today.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Because I, you know, I think that the I see a trend, and and I think you see it too, because we've talked about it.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: We caught a podcast on this about the just how different young students are right now, yours and mine, right?
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Both.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're seeing that that spillover from where I'm at.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, think about math.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: When back in the day, even probably you, you had to do the math, right?
12:25
SPEAKER_01: And now math is different.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: You may have to do that.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: They have all of these instruments.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, I had to do it long hand and and yes, yes, and you had to proof everything, you know, and and it's just different now.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to do that.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they're doing math, but they're doing it differently.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: And I do wonder about do they understand the bones of what they're doing?
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Because uh, they don't have that that really solid foundation that I think older generation has with this.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that that's the best way.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm just I just see a parallel with this.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: That I think that being able to do field geology is fundamental to like understanding some of the basics of geology.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is and that there's so many, there's so much depth to this kind of this question of the value the relative value of field geology.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think Chris, you're you're touching on something exactly right.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a good place to like start from.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a good basic to start any interpretation from any geochemical or geophysical data.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: You really have to understand the complexity in rocks.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: I'll skip ahead here.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is Mike Axon, friend of the pod, and I um on the uh we're up in Nunavut here, or Northwest Territories here, looking at our complicated rocks.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Look at the rocks behind us, those are complicated.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: They're complicated when you look at it from the air, you can see that there's a bunch of complication going on.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: When you land on it, you can see in this photo, those are complicated.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: When you get down with your hand lens, you can say these are complicated.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: So there's like this complexity occurs at a bunch of different scales.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And you really have to understand that before you, or you have to work if you're a geophysicist who who who you know thinks on big scales and looks at big data, you want to work with people who understand this complexity, right?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you're and I th so I think to Taylor's question, what I my advice is to students and my own PhD students is you gotta know the field geology, you gotta like have some experience with rocks, you gotta be able to know what you're talking about.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: You can't just be what we we call this is a derogatory term, but we call a rock in a box geochemist, where they get a little sample powder in the mail, and then they're really, really good at measuring you know isotope ratios of some random element, right?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: And that has value, those people have value too.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: But you you always have to pair that with either somebody or with your own self who knows the rocks, so you kind of make sure you kind of home your institute your your interpretations in rocks.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Um I agree with that, but I think also, Jesse, just a point because your comment like made me think of this that there are places that where you can go in geoscience where you don't need any field experience.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: It's it's great to be able to have field experience, but if you're physically unable to do this, there are still you can have a a very rewarding career in geoscience and not have that those field experiences.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: It's not that you have to do this in order to be good at what you do.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: That's a great point, Chris.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And here this is uh where are we?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Black Hills?
15:38
SPEAKER_00: This looks like Black Hills.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what hike is this?
15:41
SPEAKER_01: I think this is Little Devil's Tower, actually.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Little Devil's Tower.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, yeah.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: This is before you were doing it as the sunrise hike.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: No, we we do it on the No, that's that's uh like after the sun had come up, and it was just such a day that I'm like, well, let's hang out here for a little bit and then let's let's let's look at some geo let's look at some geology here.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Teaching them up, teaching them up in the black hills.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what could be better than that, Chris?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I think you're you're you're touching exactly on this point.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is such a valuable point to make that I and I think probably, you know, uh not your generation, but the generation before you was probably like you had to have field field skills, otherwise you were you couldn't get a job.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's very healthy that we have gone completely, like there are so many opportunities.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're we're doing this with our uh the field camp at Penn State.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: There are alternatives that you can do to going on field camp, you know, for accessibility reasons, people who just can't get out in the field for for health reasons or for a variety of other reasons can't do the field camp.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: There are other options, and so yeah, you can be an amazing geoscientist without knowing rocks.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: That's for sure true.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: I think my my advice to Taylor as somebody who it seemed like likes and is able to get out in the rocks.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: My advice is don't shy away from that.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Like lean into it, but pair it with other skill sets.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, myself, here's this is uh this is a photo up in Nunavut.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: You can again see some really complicated toothpaste-y rocks.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta know, like I for me, I've paired it with geochronology, and I know instruments really well and and some geochemical data, some niche parts, but I've always kind of stayed grounded in the rock record and in the field geology part.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Because in part that I I like that more, you know, I just I don't get to do it as much anymore.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Here's a question in grad school, but yeah.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Here's a question for you because I think this fits more into like your realm of of uh you know getting like a research position or getting a job in industry, whatever.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: I gotta believe that having field experience makes you stand out a little bit more, but just be like you have stories to tell, you have experiences then.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Um and and so I don't know, you've been advised, Jesse, both ways on this.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: You've you've actually been on the receiving end of no, you should you need to just go into the lab, and then you've also been advised, no, go get some field experience.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from two very respectable people, right?
18:07
SPEAKER_01: You got very different advice.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about that?
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Like the you know, is there something to the field experience and and helping you out?
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just from the level of I think different.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: It's a great that's a great question.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: So I again, this is just speaking personally, uh, from my own personal uh life and my own personal experience.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: First of all, in the advice thing, this is why you can't just have one person's advice, right?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: You gotta have what the what's the phrase, like a kitchen sink or a board of directors in your life where you got eight people who you can ask, and you can weigh each of these opinions differently because you're gonna get different opinions.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: So, like ask everybody, right?
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh so Taylor, great.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Ask us, ask your people in your life that you see in three dimensions, right?
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Like ask a lot of people this question.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: For me personally, the field stuff has I know it's gone with me really well.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is, you know, I was interested in in rocks, you know, when I set foot in your door and you just set it on fire, right?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: You we went out in the field a lot in all the classes.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, I took three classes from you, went out in the field a whole bunch on those.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: So when I started at Hope College, I I know that my letters of recommendation that professors at Hope wrote for me said this guy has one of the most naturally innate senses for rocks in the field that they've seen because I had all this experience.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I stood out at Hope College.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't stand out GPA-wise, but I stood out for that reason.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: And so that that those letters of recommendation carry a lot of weight, right?
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you had a lot going on.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, there's things happening.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then that that carries on where my PhD supervisor then you know recognizes that that stays with you.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And my letters from my PhD supervisor say, you know, great in the field, carries out field work really well, like can manage his own campaigns, that helps me get a postdoc, that helps me get a faculty job.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I've heard from other people that you know it's a great strength to pair geochemistry and field work.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And I and I've heard, I don't know this for sure, but I've heard from people that I was attractive as a professor to Penn State when I was applying there, in large part because of the field program, because I could carry out field programs, get students out in the field because they felt like they needed more people who were who were doing that stuff.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, it carries with you.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Like it, I mean, that's kind of uh I'm I'm trying to emphasize that that started for me in high school, and that kind of carried its way all the way through, and and I think still to this day it's kind of uh added somewhat of a strength.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: I view it this way that that you know, maybe back in the day that you had to really be strong in field work and and you didn't have a lot of other avenues, but I think now being able to do field geology or field geoscience, it's just another tool in your box.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, we use this kind of like analogy often.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: We talk about it with geochronology that you have to use what's appropriate, you know, and you have so you have this big diverse toolbox.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And I think that doing field work, this is a just an outstanding tool.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: If you're physically able to do this, then it's something that's good to have.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: I I can't see a situation, Jesse, where being good in the field is actually gonna hurt you.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: In fact, a lot of a lot a lot of entry-level jobs are field-based, you know, especially here in Michigan.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's uh Chris.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, I want to come back to that.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: But first, that point you just made, the way you phrased that, it's not gonna hurt you to be good in the field.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely true.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: So my advice to students that I have, my PhD students or graduate students, is always do the fieldwork.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: In addition.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: So let's say, you know, come in and you've got what what appears to be a pretty lab heady heavy project.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Like we're gonna be doing some, you know, instrument development, or you're gonna I know you're gonna be in the lab a lot during your PhD.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: So what we're gonna do is we're gonna make sure you get a bunch of field work too.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Like go to the conferences, go to the conference field trips, actually just go on a field trip for Some society that will pay for you so that you go get our eye tuned into the rocks, see a bunch of rocks.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't have to do your thesis mapping to see a bunch of rocks.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: You can go see a bunch of rocks just by like going on a hike and like pretending you're mapping the you know sandstones in the hike or something, right?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just multiple ways to get your eye tuned into the rocks, and there's all sorts of ways to do that, but it's never gonna hurt you.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Then the employer thing, Chris, that's super, super important.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: I know our uh our buddy Andrew DeWitt feels this way, but like your first job, you know, in many of these jobs, like environmental consulting, a lot of them are like starting out entry-level field field work, and so if you go in and crush that, then you're moving up quicker, right?
22:46
SPEAKER_01: So 100% if they can rely upon you to be in the field to to be alone, basically, a lot of the time, and you're getting it done, you're crushing it, they're showing a lot of different skill sets with with getting that part done.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just uh and it's a you know, it's a massively valuable skill set, you know.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And I uh this is okay.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: So this is uh we'll we're gonna go back in time a little bit here, getting the time machine crazy.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: What do you got in the photo?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: 40 photos here.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is me in grad school.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, okay.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Look at you.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: I know, looking a little bit this looks like it's a photo straight out of the 80s, actually.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, but this is in uh this is in southern British Columbia.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Amazing geology, like just spectacularly cool geology.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: You're in kind of the the core of the mountain belt, and it's it's just amazing.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: But the undergrads were doing a mapping project on this whole hill, you know, we'd call it a mountain in Pennsylvania, but sort of mapping this whole area.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's it was hard, it was complicated, and you'd see the students over the course of four days mapping that they would slowly work their way out of the fog, and the fog is real.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, you remember this, it is real, you see students go through this all the time.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Like you drop them off and say, Okay, figure out what's going on.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go eat a sandwich.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: You're like, just sit down and be like, oh, this is too hard.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: But you're like, okay, you just gotta cover ground.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: You gotta like who knows what you don't you just don't know.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: You're just in a fog.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I don't even know.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Is this a basalt I'm looking at?
24:18
SPEAKER_00: I think it is, but I gotta make sure, you know.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: You're just in this pea soup fog in a in that slowly lifts, the more you look at it, the more you kind of think, oh, okay, I think this is what's happening.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: How do I test that?
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I gotta go over there and look at that, and that'll tell me if I'm right or wrong.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: And you more you do that, the more you kind of figure it out.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it just takes that time, and that's the skill sets that you're talking about that that can like really set you apart.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: I think.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh what I see too is they they when they get into that like moment where they're they're in this fog, they have no idea what to do.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: They so they start looking at the rocks, because I you know, that's what you have to start with, they forget it all, right?
24:57
SPEAKER_01: They um they're still panicking that that they don't too.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: They're like classify the rocks, right?
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Just don't name them, just see if you can.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Is this sedimentary?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Is this metamorphic?
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Is it igneous?
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Start there and they forget it.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: Like that's how I teach them, you know.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And it's just all out the window, it's gone.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: It's totally true.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: But I feel this way whenever I go to a new spot too.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, when going on a field trip, you know, associated with some conference or something, and all of a sudden it's like people are looking at it, somebody turns to you, hands you rocks, like, what's this?
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh boy.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: I know I've seen this before.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: I know I heard the person leading the field trip say some of this stuff, but like, I don't know.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I gotta think about it, I gotta look at it.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's hard.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: This stuff's this stuff's stuff.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And one more thing, Chris.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: This, okay, this is this is teaching them up, Chris.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: This is full-on gym teaching.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at that.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that is that's old school, man.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: That's that's going back.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't have any gray in my goat.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: There's I was gonna there's no gray in them whiskers there, right there.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: That's all red right there.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: That's not red.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: That was never red, it's brown.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Talking about red.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Um but this, Chris, to me, this looks like you are on the the dunes of Lake Michigan.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Do you think?
26:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think I'm actually in the UP.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm up on Lake Superior.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is actually a better this is a better analogy then.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Because to me, Chris, one of the great values of just seeing as many rocks or geological locations as possible is the scale.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: You get a sense of the scale of things.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: So up in the UP, you know, when you say, Oh, this used to be a mid-conner rift, and you know, this is there's basalts, there's a kilometer of basalts.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: If you say that without ever having seen a kilometer of basalts, it doesn't resonate.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
26:46
SPEAKER_00: But or let let's a Mafic dike, a hundred meter wide Mafic dike, cross-cutting.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Unless you've walked across that, it's really hard for you to picture what that looks like and actually picture what might be happening to the rocks around that.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's just a the scale of geology is not intuitive at all.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: So even if you pictured rocks, like, hey, we're looking at sandstone lenses and cross-cutting cross big crossbeds and stuff.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Unless you have seen that, it's really hard to like link that to nature or link that to a process.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a hundred percent.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, we've said this before, and and the best geoscientist is the is the person that's seen the most rocks, you know.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: That um, and there's a lot of truth to that, that variety.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Um But here's the thing is that being in the field, though, Jesse, allows you to put context with the rocks.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's hugely important.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: That's why, like, what you know, you're you probably get this.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: I get it all the time.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: Kids are coming into my room and saying, Hey, Mr.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Boyce, I found this, and and I'm I'm like, my first questions are where did you get it?
27:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, what did it look like around you?
27:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to give context to what's in my hand now, you know.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's so field geology does that, it gives you context.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: It definitely does that.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think, Chris, you know, the other the other thing here that's important to me, this is uh this is a college age, Jesse, in the Grand Canyon here.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: We're looking down at the Vishnu here.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: You can kind of see the Colorado River very much.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Um this, Chris, I think that that the you kind of touched on this.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: The local, the people who know the rocks the best, or the people, what'd you say, the the best geologist person who's seen the most rocks.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: There is an amazing resource in the people who know the rocks around the local area.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Like there are people who know local Pennsylvania geology just and they've spent their whole life like looking at all the outcrops around here.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: They know everything that in a way that like I could never know that much, right?
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Because they've they've been doing it for 60 years or something.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: So it you can really scale that, you can narrow that like telescopic lens down to say the person who knows the area the best might be the person who's seen the rocks the most around the area.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And so if you go up and go up Did you go down and touch the Vishnu then?
29:06
SPEAKER_00: No, no, we've covered this before.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: We didn't make it down.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: You can kind of see we ended, we had to uh turn around.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: We were on this field, this was an undergrad uh field trip, and we we did not go past the Kaiba, I guess that's a Kaiba Plateau, yeah.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: We didn't go past the Kaiba Plateau there.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Um brings back memories.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: I love it, brings back memories.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: I just I don't know.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: But again, scale, like unless you it's hard to understand the you know the problem of cutting the Grand Canyon without being there, seeing it and understanding the scale of it.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: And so just seeing as many features, seeing if you're so you know, back to the kind of advice thing.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in field field stuff, you like the field, I would be hesitant to like take a PhD project that is only in the lab or only looking at remote sensing data without any field component, just because you like it.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think there's gonna be anything wrong with being like having a pretty good sense of how to operate in the field.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Now I think that's really solid advice.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Actually, is that's huge.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: You have to when you're gonna do this, it's a long, long time that you're working on this this one thing, right?
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Becoming an expert, especially for a PhD.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally you better like it.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, you better like what you're doing.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: And and if field work is important to you, then then you need to pick a project that's gonna incorporate some of that into it.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
30:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I did, and I know a lot of people who picked their projects because they wanted to get out in the field.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people who picked their projects because they didn't want to get out in the field, and that is fine.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: That is totally fine, but you got to make sure you do both.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: I got dragged kicking and screaming into geochemistry, but now I absolutely love it and I'm like really good with instruments.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know these instruments really well because I I got you know, I got dragged into it because it was interesting and important and a good skill set to have.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: So on the flip side, I don't know if I'd recommend students, you know, do a project that's just mapping.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: Because I think if you you can do it, but you gotta make sure that like you got to pick a side piece.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: You gotta pick like, oh, I'm gonna learn geochronology really well, and I'm gonna actually try and go to the lab that's doing my analyses, and I'm gonna try and learn there, and I'm gonna get really into the data and maybe go to a geochronology conference to get that other skill set too.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think just field work.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean a master's, sure, but for a PhD, I'd be hesitant to be like just a field person.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: That might be bad advice, but I don't know.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Just depends what you want.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: I think do what you do what's most interesting to you.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: That's the the best thing.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: So hard to go wrong when you're doing that, actually.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely true.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And Chris, are you uh are you doing the most interesting thing right now?
31:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm talking to you, so you know.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, that wasn't an answer to the question.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: I was looking for a compliment there, and uh just I know you were that fell really flat.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Wow, okay.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: That's the other thing about field geology or field work, it just takes you to totally cool places.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Just totally cool.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: I I think I've always that's an excuse to go into geoscience, is that you you always have this card that you can play of I have to go travel.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: Why?
32:17
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm a geoscientist, I have to go.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm gonna go do it.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: Chris, where are you going?
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Where's the where are you and Jenny going this summer for the extra trip?
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so we we weren't gonna actually do one for the first time in a long time.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember one, but I was gonna I I wanted to gut my master bathroom and totally overhaul it, and I want to do it myself.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: But uh we're gonna go to the winds, the wind river.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Nice, excellent.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: For uh just a shorter shorter version.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Just a 10 10 day trip, maybe catch a concert at Red Rocks.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: All right.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a good one.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: There's some good rocks out there.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta you gotta bring uh bring that vehicle towards Pennsylvania.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: I know.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: I think I I think once um I think I'll be out there like sometime in June.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, like we have to talk, but we have to talk.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: We'll go look at some rocks in Pennsylvania.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I got some I got my eye on a couple cool outcrops I want, I've been meaning to check out and uh good.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: All right, that'd be a good excuse.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Have Chris come and go we can go bomb around.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it'd be awesome.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Go do some more field geology, bring it back.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll figure this out for sure.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: All right, well, Chris, uh, I think that's probably what do you think?
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Was that probably a rap?
33:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do we do it just as the question?
33:37
SPEAKER_01: I th I hope so.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a great question.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: It's really it's our opinion.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: It's strange.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think let's just let's end with something this this is an evolving conversation or a very active conversation in our field, actually.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is we're not giving you answers, we're giving opinions.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people in our field who are having these conversations.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: A lot of departments, geology departments across the country, across the world, are evaluating the field camp requirement.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Like for instance, Chris, you had to do field camp, right, at Grand Valley?
34:06
SPEAKER_00: But Grand Valley did not offer one.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: So that has been kind of the the MO for a lot of departments.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Either you offer a field camper requirement or you don't offer it and make the students go take it somewhere else.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: At Hope, we had you could either do field camp or you could do undergrad research, and either of those kind of counted for the the whatever the capstone kind of thing.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Um University of Alberta, field geology was required two field camps.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: They were both a little bit shorter, but two of them.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: And then Penn State, you know, we always required a field camp, but now are providing sort of optionality to those who, you know, for whatever reason can't access the field camp.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of departments are just kind of nixing the requirement.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: They're saying, you know, we don't it's it's complicated because if you don't offer it, then you're a lot of you're sending people out of state then, and you got out of state tuition, which is double what you normally would have.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: And and yeah, you know, those options are going away.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm not sure about this, but I don't think our field camp, we used to have students that were non-penned state students take our field camp.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's happening anymore.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: So there's yeah, because I went to University of New Mexico and uh, you know, it was it was 10 weeks long.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, that was a long field camp.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's a serious undertaking, yeah, for sure.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: And a serious thing for a university to put on for the benefit of uh you know a lot of students from other schools.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: So I that whole system is kind of in flux, and and I think as part of that, the people are having these conversations.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: What do we really value about the field?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and what skills do we need to convey?
35:40
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, it'll be interesting that we'll have this conversation with Andrew Duett again, uh, and get his perspective now that he's you know on the hiring managing side and so say, okay, is this a skill set you really look for?
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll have a couple, we have a couple actually uh upcoming interviews on that that'll be interesting from people who who know the the industry and the hiring aspects.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: So that'll be useful.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely looking forward to it.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good stuff.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: All right, man.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, that's a wrap for this episode.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: You can find us on all the social medias at Planet GeoCast.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: You can go to our website, planetgeocast.com, and download our mobile app, Camp Geo Mobile app, first link in your show notes there.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: We have a bunch of visual podcast series, basically the intro level class that we offer for free there, um, and some other paid stuff on geology Yelston National Park, Grand Canyon, Grand Towns, and climate and our solace rocks, and other things like that.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: You can see this episode along with all the images as well on our podcast app or on YouTube.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And if you're on YouTube or Spotify, leave us a comment, like, subscribe, and a follow.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: We appreciate that.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Peace.