Latest / PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast / Idaho to Iceland - Shawn Willsey

Transcript

Idaho to Iceland - Shawn Willsey · 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.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Chris.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: No kidding, Dr.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Ray Mink.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Holy crack.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, not today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You don't.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: You sound sick.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't sound well.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not true.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: But you say you you say you feel well.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's I do feel well.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris, I feel even better after that conversation.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh this was a great interview.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: This was a very fun, very cool.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sean Wilsie is just uh he's a very passionate educator, and it comes across in his YouTube channel and in our conversation here.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: That absolutely is the case.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: I had two takeaways here, Jesse.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: One is that that just this kind of service mentality, maybe I guess is the way I would put it.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: He is very passionate about the geosciences and wants to serve the greater community in terms of look, I can communicate these things in a way that a lot of people are gonna understand.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's his motivation.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: That to me came through.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: The other takeaway I had is that I need to update my roadside geologies.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're over there reading the geology of Idaho, Roadside Geology of Idaho from 1980, like an idiot.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a brand new that you gotta get.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Sean Wilsie is uh he's a professor at College of Southern Idaho.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's written a couple books, co-authored and authored The Geology Underfoot of Southern Idaho is one of them, and Roadside Geology of Ihoe.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can buy those on his website.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put a link to that in the show notes.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's got his Bachelor of Science from Weber State University in Geology and a Masters from Northern Arizona.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's really kind of as he describes it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, his YouTube channel has gotten a lot more popular since the Iceland stuff about a year ago.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Has really does amazing field geology-based YouTube series.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, going around with a video camera and him and some notes, it's it's a really cool.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It just reminded me of Chris, of I said this in the interview, but it just reminds me of geology field courses or field trips.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like almost all of them I've been on, or TA'd, it's kind of the same dynamic.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like look at the rocks, then look at a little sketch that simplifies the rocks, or make your own sketch that simplifies the rocks, or interprets the rocks, then look back at the rocks.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's that dynamic, and it just his channel reminded me of every field course I ever took or TA'd or that I wanted to be a part of.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly, exactly right.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a massive compliment because it's like that's a cool thing to be able to provide to people, I think.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: A cool experience.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I love the hand-drawn diagrams that he uses so often on his YouTube channel.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I love it because that's also my style.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm drawn on the side of the bus, drawn on a trailer, or I'm drawn on a piece of paper in front of my students.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to get, you know, 20 kids around my drawing, you know, and and that's uh that's the vibe of his YouTube channel, which I really appreciate.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's really good.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, very cool.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool stuff.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I encourage everybody to go check out his YouTube channel.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put a link to in the show notes, but it's at Sean Wilsie, W-I-L-L-S-E-Y.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you can check out more about Professor Sean Wilsie at wilsegeology.com.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, what do you say?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Should we get to the interview?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do Sean, welcome to Planet Geo.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure to have you here.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm looking forward to the conversation.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be fun.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a big fan of your guys' podcast and just looking forward to our conversation together.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, thanks.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we we were exchanging emails and talked and we had we kind of had stumbled across each other around about the same time.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've I forget what I was down a YouTube hole on geology something, and I came across your videos, and then I sent you an email and you're like, oh, actually, I just listened to your podcast.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I forget why you stumbled across our podcast, but it was around about the same time.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was doing a big drive back from Utah from Vernal.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_04: I'd just done some videos down there and you know, was looking for something to listen to.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: And I had listened to your guys' videos earlier, but like somehow didn't like save them in Spotify or whatever, and so like kind of forgot about it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: Apologized.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so then I found Chris is very forgettable.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I know.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, rediscovered it again, and so it was really fun because I'm like, oh yeah, it's these guys, like so.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: So then it was like really exciting, and then I just went episode after episode.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's fun.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, Sean, I got a question for you.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was actually watching some of your YouTube videos, and maybe it was on your website.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: I actually can't remember anymore because I you know did a deep dive into you.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about your story though, how you got into geoscience.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I couldn't believe how similar it was to my story.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I was kind of dragged into geoscience, kind of kicking and screaming, because I didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you kind of had this same kind of story.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you tell us about that?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like what got you?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: What was your aha moment of this is my path in life?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, that's that's a good question.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think I was really kicking and screaming, but I don't think I think it was more ignorance that would be maybe the the theme for me.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_04: So my dad was in the Air Force, we lived all over the West, you know, hopping from base to base for never lived in a place for more than a couple of years.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I think as a kid, I was into I remember being into dinosaurs, and this was like pre-Jurassic Park.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_04: So this was kind of I was the OG dinosaur kid, I guess.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_04: And and then I remember looking at maps a lot when they would load us up in the car and we'd drive to some other place to go live.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_04: I just remember looking out the window and I'd have my atlas in front of me, and I'm always thinking, like, okay, there's that mountain, and I was keeping track of where we were and wondering interesting, wondering what was over on the other side of the mountain and what did it look like from the top.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think that was like the seeds that were planted.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, we all go into junior high and puberty, and we all kind of turn into crazy people.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I kind of forgot it all until I got to college and I did have no idea what I wanted to be or do.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: I knew some things I didn't want to do.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: And so I thought that's just anything medical.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm squeamish with blood and guts.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_04: But blood and guts were not nothing in accounting or finance.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like there were definitely like red flags that were just like a no-go for me.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: But I didn't really think about science.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't know what I was gonna go into.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_04: I just knew college was important.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: That was, you know, um, sort of, I guess, expected of me, or that's just seemed like the natural progression.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: And so I just started taking generals, just like most students do at the college I teach at and checking the boxes and getting through those.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: And it wasn't till, but at the same time, I also had become very interested in outdoor recreation.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I'd started rock climbing and backpacking and just doing all these outdoor things.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think I knew that something outdoor-ish made a lot of sense for me.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: And it wasn't until my third year of college, I don't even remember why or how I enrolled in it, but I took a physical geology class with a buddy and really liked it and did well.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so I thought, well, I'm just gonna take another one.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I was in the third quarter, we were on a quarter system.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: I was in into my third quarter, and I realized you could major in geology.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_04: And so it was just a snowball for me.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I had no idea, there was no conception about, oh, this degree will get me to this career or this is how I'm gonna make money off of this.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: I I was just down the rabbit hole, just like, okay, now I at least I have a focus.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_04: I have something to work towards.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: And I was never thinking about how this was gonna turn into like a paycheck down the road.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: You just kind of knew that this was the path you had to figure that rest out later, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Yeah.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I did take at one point I remember before geology, I thought, well, maybe I'll be a forest ranger because that's outdoors, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I took an intro to forestry class and we went up to the Winter Mountains in Utah and it was beautiful.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I was outside, so I was excited, but we spent the day like looking at the tree closely and measuring things and taking samples of the bark.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember thinking, I like trees, but not this much.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: And so that was like, okay, I don't want to be a forestry major.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_04: So again, it was good to like, and I tell my students now, like, it's okay not to know what you want to do.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: It's just as important to figure out what you don't want to do.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's really good advice.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it what was the class?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: What was your first class?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was it like an intra-geology class or was it something different?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_04: I think I was in two, I don't even know how this happened because I I'd already done two years of college, but I didn't have an associate's degree yet.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_04: I was still I'd done some part-time semesters and you know, I was taking the scenic route for sure.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I was in an earthquakes and volcanoes class that was like three credits, and then I was also in a physical geology or intro to geology class.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't even remember I'd have to I'd have to look at the transcript and see who the professor was.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_04: And they might have been awesome, but but I think it was more the content.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure it was partly the delivery, but the content was was very captivating.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And do you find that now that you're on the other side of the podium, uh, as it were, do you I'm curious what you think of of the shift?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, I I think that the geosciences are undergoing this really sort of seismic shift as far as the job market where shifting from oil and gas into oil and gas plus a whole bunch of other stuff that geoscientists can go do.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find that there's a different motivation?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think like you guys and and me too, we got into geology for the passion of it, but do you feel like students are getting a are going into it for different reasons?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think there's a some students definitely a large fraction might have a different motivation for getting into it as opposed to, hey, this is cool.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta study it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where does the paycheck come from this kind of look?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the environmental side, Jesse?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Partially environmental.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: We have a bunch of like earth science policy, sustainability is such a motivating factor for students, and I think you know, in the mining industry as well, perhaps too.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's just my sense.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm curious, uh Sean, if you think that's the same, if you see the same trend or not.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: I think I see, I mean, I it's probably a little different where I'm at versus you're at, but where I'm at here at a two-year college in Idaho, uh, I see it's similar to what I was involved with when I was there.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I feel like I'm the Kool-Aid salesman.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_04: I'm giving them a sample of the Kool-Aid and they're trying it.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think most of my students, some of which came in as geology majors, but most of which didn't.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: Most of them took my class and some of them had their aha moment, at least up to this point, and decided to major in it.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't polled them, but I don't think they know.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's part of what I think my role and job is, is to help them these this next year or so.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, where is this gonna go?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: What's the pathway for you forward?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_04: But I don't think they really know what where it's gonna take them, just like I didn't know.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_04: I had no clue what my career was going to be at the end of my educational journey.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that but that's such an interesting position to be in.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'd be curious how you advise students in that regard.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: But Chris, sorry for interrupting.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: You got a question.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, actually, we can follow that line if you want.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: I Sean, I'm just curious how many classes do you offer where you are?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how far do you go?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, great question.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's interesting at a two-year college because we're mainly trying to get them that associate's degree or something comparable.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: We also collectively at our school offer lots of vocational programs like welding and all sorts of things, nursing, things like that, of course.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: But for geology, we have it's just the basics.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: My students are taking their calculus here, they're taking their physics, their chemistry, and all their gen ed classes.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so I tell them, hey, you're doing kind of the hard work now, but when you transfer from here, if you get all this done here, you'll transfer as a junior, and it's just you'll have just the geology courses mainly ahead of you.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: So we have physical geology and historical geology, 101, 102 for the majors.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then I have a field geology class, 275, which is not a field camp class.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's more we pick a location, we learn about it, and then we go there.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So how how long do you spend in the field then with them?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: For the field geology class, it's like a week.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: So last year we went to Iceland.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the year before that, I took students to Hawaii.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_04: So sometimes it's exotic, and sometimes it's let's go down to Great Basin National Park or Yellowstone or whatever.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are spoiled for places to go with cool geology from southern Idaho.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to go very cool stuff, but yeah, that's awesome.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_04: But those are the main classes, and then there's um for Gen Ed people, there's like geology of national parks and natural disasters, and that's pretty much the suite of classes I teach.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's a nice uh nice lift, yeah.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: That is that I don't think that's very typical for a two-year college, is it?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Sean, though, this is more robust than what's typical, don't you think?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_04: I don't I think it's pretty typical.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_04: I think most of the other schools I've seen do something similar where I have a colleague that teaches at the two-year college near in near Boise, and it's similar.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: So my students aren't taking much geology.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: They're getting most of those background courses.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: They're not getting mineralogy, petrology here, they're not getting, you know, sed strat and field methods and everything else is ahead of them.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but for a lot of students, those physics classes, those calculus classes, those chemistry classes, those can be maybe not deal breakers, but they can be tricky and hard.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_04: And by them getting it done here early, then they'll transfer and they'll just have geology.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas some of their peers that have been at that four-year school might be seniors taking structural geology, but they're also taking physics and calculus because they've kind of waited to do those.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a really good point.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Jesse, what do you find uh in Pennsylvania or around your area?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't maybe it's geographic.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have a bit of a difference in system in Pennsylvania.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think, however, that many students get, as Chris is saying, the breadth of stuff that you're giving them.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a lot of like physical geology or intro-level geology.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: They might get like a groundwater geochemistry or something in that kind of what for us is a 200 level class.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But mostly when they they then like after two years, you know, they get all their hard gen eds out of the way as you're describing, and then they will come to the main campus or the university park campus, and they'll some of them will dive right into the 200 levels, but they often kind of they don't get the breath that you're giving them.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they start in their third year taking 200 level classes, and they kind of have to play catch-up a little bit because of that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's my sense is I'd agree with Chris.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know in the details, but most of them I think are not as as deep as as sort of what what you're giving them.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's awesome.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly no field course.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I mean the field course is is sort of show and tell geology.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's not like they're out there, you know, with the Brun Compass doing things, but they take field notes, it's observations, and then you know, coming up with questions and hypotheses.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: So it's doing a lot of that stuff.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_04: They're just not mapping per se.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: But we do hear that our students, when they transfer, they come in, because I ask them, I'm like, you know, hopefully I've prepared you well as you transfer.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: How are you stacking up with your peers?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: And by and large, they're like, Yeah, like I'm right where I should be, or I'm ahead of my peers.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like they're showing us how to use this brunt and compass, and you already showed me how to do that in historical geology or whatever.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: So that's awesome.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: But Sean, show and tell is, I think, so important because you're the hook.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I kind of Jesse, you're you're not in this realm.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you're a terrible hook, is that what you're saying?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Chris and I, Chris and I are the cool, we're the Kool-Aid salespeople, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: So you're dangerous.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: Like by the time they're in Jesse's doors, they've already like committed to their Kool-Aid and their addicts at that point.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: But Chris and I are getting them, you know, hooked on the stuff.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_04: And you're right, the show and tell courses are important because for a lot of students, they're like, hey, I think I want to do this geology thing.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: And I they go on the field trip and these this big field course.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: And for the most part, I get students who come out of it and now they're locked in.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_04: Like, yes, this is definitively what I want to do.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: I I thought I had good intentions or ideas about this, but now I feel really committed.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so that that's nice for me, is that they get a little taste of that.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am just such a huge fan of two-year colleges because of this.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in Pennsylvania, the branch camps is the students who come into the the geoscience program start taking the 300, 400 levels.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have a couple in my research group who've who've done this path.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's just an amazing way to do it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm such a huge fan of this process.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and Chris, we were talking, I think Adam Simon did also did this in his his career trajectory as well.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: He went to your college, Northern Virginia Community College or something like that, is what it used to be called.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: It might still be that, but it's just a such a valuable way to kind of get that exposure, that breadth of exposure to what do you want to do?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You get to figure it out over two years with a massive amount of exposure and come out of that really motivated and and sort of have a clear direction.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's an amazing.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I think too, they get um, and this is not a blanket statement, so don't take it the wrong way, but I think by and large, generically, they get better instruction.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_04: Like my world, Jesse, you and I basically have the same title per se, but we do very different things.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: I am totally teaching based.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: I have no expectations for grants, writing papers, supervising students, doing research.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: If I want to do those things, great, that's off to the side.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: But my job's focusing on students.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_04: My class sizes are small.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think they get maybe it's not better teaching per se, but just like it's a different experience.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's just we can call it like it is.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: They get better teaching.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, hey.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm let's call it what it is.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's it's true.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I totally agree with that.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let me jump in, Chris, on this a minute, real quick, because I agree completely.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It requires a different student to be successful in the physical geology class that I teach versus the one that that you teach, presumably.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm teaching 200, 200 students, 180 of them are engineers.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's eight TAs, you know, like it's sort of mass-producing.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a circus, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a circus.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh a lot of energy, but you're kind of like, I'm just on stage the whole time.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's like a little bit of interaction, but I I don't really the students I tell them right from the outset if you want to get to know me, you got to come up after class and talk to me.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I can't get to know a room of 200 students.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, I'm just like I can only really lecture at you.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the way it is.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it requires a different student to be successful in that.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't think it's common to be good at that to sit there and listen to somebody in a huge lecture hall and learn really well.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I agree completely.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: There it's a student-teacher ratio matters a lot and correlates.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: They're not getting as much attention.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: There's not it's it's not as uh you know closed of a setting.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_04: I think certain students thrive in smaller group settings.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_04: Like we just did our last field trip last week out to City of Rocks, and yeah, it's me and 17 students in two vans, and we can all walk from outcrop to outcrop and and and it's doable.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas 200 students, like you, you can't do that.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: You like the the logistics are just impossible.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like lecturing versus educating, or or um what is the term for coaching, you know, to uh instructional coaching is what you are you're doing more than I'm just lecturing SDS.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, that's natural though, Jesse, because your job, you do research.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's your main Sean and I, our job is to teach.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we do, that's our craft, and that's our focus, yeah.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And yours is not it's a rare instance where you get somebody like a Richard Alley from Penn State where you get this unique combination of somebody that is able to just crank out the research and also just connect with people.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, he I've seen him connect with a room of 250 students, and it's uh, you know, it's amazing.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: That that isn't a rare talent to be able to do that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I agree completely.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe, Sean, this is a good transition to the origin story of your YouTube channel, which is I'd imagine a very different style of education than what you're doing in the classroom.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, what was can you tell us just the origin story of that and what motivated you maybe to to do this?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and this I think mirrors some of the other the some of the other characters that are doing geology education on YouTube.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it was COVID.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_04: So um, you know, so COVID hits in March of 2020, and now I'm like, oh great, the field trips I had planned for my students this spring, those are a wash.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: Now we're doing this remote learning thing, it's all canned lectures.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_04: And so I was just trying to think of like, gosh, now in a little bit more time on my hands, which was probably helpful, but how can I bring that experience, which we're not gonna have now, to the students?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought, well, if I can't bring the students on the field trip, how can I bring the field trip to the students?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so it started really simple with um, I remember this just terrible point-shoot camera and my nine, 10-year-old son at the time, we did a hike to this part of the Snake River Canyon.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_04: I said, Hey, just hit record and just keep me in the frame and I'm gonna talk for two minutes.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_04: And and he did that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it turned out okay.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_04: And it wasn't until that fall, though, that I got a little bit more serious about it and I got a little better camera.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: And the president of the college let me go and paid for me essentially to go down to Death Valley.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_04: I said, Hey, I'm gonna sleep in my truck.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_04: I won't be near anyone, you know, it's safe COVID-wise.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_04: And I did a series of videos down in Death Valley and just put them up there.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_04: And what I found was that, you know, okay, yeah, the students were using them, and that was great, but there was this other audience.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: There was this other group of people that I really wasn't intending to be the target audience, but they were eating it up.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: They had an appetite, a voracious appetite for this kind of knowledge.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it was mostly, you know, the 50 and over crowd of retirees and people that were interested.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: They really wanted it.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so it grew slowly over time.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_04: And that's sort of the origin story.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: We can maybe talk about where it went from, but that was kind of it.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: And mainly what I wanted to do initially was all field-based videos.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm like, okay, I'm going to go to these places.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I was getting cool comments from people, people who were, they had diseases or they were on hospice care or they just didn't have the mobility.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_04: And they're like, thank you for taking me to this place I never was able to get to.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, just the feel goods and the warm fuzzies you get were just, I mean, that was payment enough for the opening, was just getting that kind of feedback.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: And so, just like anything, just like what you guys are doing, you get the good positive feedback, and that motivates you to keep doing.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: You knew you kind of hit a chord and it was resonating with someone.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_04: So that was sort of the origins of it was with COVID, was the catalyst.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I watched Nick Zettner, I saw what he was doing in Washington, and that was a bit of my like kind of role model was watching what he was doing, but then doing it in my own.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Way and in a different style.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: He was doing mostly little lectures and backyard things.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought, well, I'm going to go out and seal.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: I'm going to go, I'm going to go show people cool faults and rocks and you know things I can go touch and see.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, Sean, I'm curious as to what's your time commitment in terms of like preparing for these things, doing it.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then what about the back end?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: All the communication.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do you do with that?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: All the emails that you get and so on.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is something that Jesse and I deal with maybe on a smaller scale too.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm curious about this.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, a year ago it was easy.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_04: So, like this time last year, if first of all, this time last year, you guys probably don't even know I exist.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: I had maybe like, I mean, and I was happy.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_04: This time last year, I was at like 20,000 subscribers, and I was like, this is amazing.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember even like before that being at like 300 subscribers, and you know, and and then thinking, like, oh, if I can get to a thousand, just to kind of setting goals for myself, not for any monetary gain, just kind of like, let's see if we can keep attracting people, let's see if we can keep this momentum going.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what works and what doesn't, like, you know, you just kind of constantly iterating, oh, that one works.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: People grabbed onto that for whatever reason, like, you know, do more.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_04: And it's a crazy, it's a crazy world.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I still don't get it, even four years in.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I have no idea.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_04: As I launch out these videos, it's literally just throwing darks, darts into the darkness and like what's going to stick, what's not.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: But to answer your question, Chris, the time component, I'm pretty active and I'm outside anyway.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_04: And our family goes on trips and vacations.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm like, hey, I'm climbing Devil's Tower.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_04: I bet people would like to see these rocks and these columns and maybe a little bit on the history, or I'm river rafting on the salmon river.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: Like, hey, here's some sweet basement rocks.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_04: Let's go look at those.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_04: So it was easy to weave that stuff in.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_04: I've always, and I still do a pretty simplistic method of they're not slick productions.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's very bare bones.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's minimal editing.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_04: And in the early days, it was literally no editing, pretty unscripted.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's just what's in my head and what I can remember.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes I forget things like, oh, I forgot to tell them that that's Jurassic over there.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_04: But it is what it is, and it's just sort of my style.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so this time last year, I was able to handle the emails and and communicate with the viewers in a very personal way.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_04: Since then, it's gotten much bigger.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm really blessed to have a gal in Iceland uh named Amanda Joe.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_04: She's actually an American, she's from PA, she's from Pennsylvania originally.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_04: She's been living there for about 10 years.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_04: She's married a guy over there.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_04: And during the whole Iceland thing about a year ago, she was letting me know what was going on because she was in Grindovic.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: She was in the town that ended up getting evacuated.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_04: So she's telling me insider information.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: And so that relationship grew.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then she told me, like, hey, I have website skills and all these other skills, and I want something else to do.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so she basically volunteered to help me kind of run and manage all the emails and stuff.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_04: So she helps out tremendously with a lot of that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: As I'm looking at you guys, I look at my other screen over here, and I'm looking at my my email inbox, and there's 20 emails I haven't got to yet.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_04: And some are easy, quick things like, hey, can you look at this rock?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: And okay.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_04: And and others, you know, I'm like, oh boy, I don't know if I have the time to answer this two-paragraph essay kind of thing.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so I just I do the best I can, and I mean, I'm still trying to be of service to people.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: I see that as my role here at the community college.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_04: I'm kind of the only geologist in the area for the most part, but I still want to be able to help these people out that have questions about you know, you guys get the same thing.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_04: Like, is this a meteorite?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_04: Here's my fossil.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, what's the geology of this interesting place I went to?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_04: So I I think I try to do the best I can, but it is as it grows, it becomes a little bit harder, of course.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's for sure.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I get that, yeah.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: We at a smaller scale, I think we get we definitely get some of that type of stuff too.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And wheelers are kind of like, hey, interesting question.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take a while for us to answer.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's really we gotta learn a lot to answer that question.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, you know, yeah, that's a place we're not super familiar with.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So on the the origin, or I guess not the origin story, but on the YouTube channel, I guess two questions.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first is what changed from a year ago, and the second is what we saw, I think, in the podcast sort of area is that I mean there was a lot of podcasts that got started during COVID.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd imagine it's the same with YouTube channels, and then you know, the ones that stick around, I guess, are are sort of still around, obviously, and and have gained in popularity, and so there, and there's a lot that kind of didn't.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is like, do you see the same in the YouTube space?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happened to you ago?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And are those two related?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I guess is kind of where I'm going with that a little bit.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so you might need to remind me about the second question.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: But the first question was what what happened that happens a lot, Sean, with his questions.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: They go on, it's a it's like a book, and and then you forget.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I put a pin in the first book.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, yeah, exactly.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: I have a hard time with this too.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you're I guess what what happened a year ago?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and what was the was the geology YouTube space saturated with other people or not?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel do you feel like?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I guess is kind of where I'm okay.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_04: Those are easy.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for uh concisely summarizing your questions, Jesse.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_04: Anytime.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so what happened a year ago was, and it actually was exactly this a year ago, exactly at this time, late October 2023.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm watching, you know, because I I've been to Iceland several times.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_04: I'm kind of watching what's going on there.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: I'm interested in it, and there's a little bit of news coming out, and so I'm looking at their data and I'm seeing these earthquakes and the ground deformation, and and I'm like, gosh, this is fascinating.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_04: And it looks like there's going to possibly be an eruption sometime soon.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_04: And on a total just whim epiphany moment, I suppose, I thought, well, what if I, and up to this point, like my videos are field-based.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's my bread and butter.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: I go out in the field, I show you the geology, because I'm thinking the worst thing I could do is turn on my webcam and be a talking head or do a PowerPoint presentation.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: Who's going to watch that?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's a snoozer.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_04: But on a whim, I thought, well, maybe I'll turn on my webcam and talk people through this earthquake data and the ground deformation and you know, like the data that we're looking at as scientists here in Iceland and see and see if there's any interest.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_04: And that took it to a totally different level.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_04: That was like the huge, I mean, that was a spike in everything.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, my viewership went up dramatically.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_04: And then, of course, the way it all played out in Iceland, it wasn't just me, but it was the drama of the moment.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_04: There was these earthquakes, serious earthquakes and shaking where a town was evacuated in one night.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: Ultimately, there was an eruption.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_04: There was the town and the community in Iceland building these large verms, these earthen barriers to protect them from the lava flows.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you couldn't have scripted this any better if it was a Hollywood movie in terms of like the plot points.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_04: And because I was kind of the only one, I think, doing that.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it helped that I was um kind of a calm voice.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_04: Like everyone was getting the sensationalist media takes on things.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I was just kind of like, hey, yeah, we might get an eruption.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: And here's what it's if if we get an eruption, here's what's going to happen.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: And it's, you know, if it rolls into town, that's gonna be bad, but it's not end of the world, it's not we shouldn't go to Iceland kind of thing.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: So that was like the big kind of bump, the big inflection point um in the channel.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and see now I already forgot the second question.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, how saturated is the YouTube space for GitHub?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I'm I'm genuinely I'm kind of curious about this.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Chris and I have talked about this.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like geology is it's interesting and it's very important, and more people should know about it.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not it's not history, it's not people don't gravitate towards it in the same way.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so do you think it's saturated or not?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's the question.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_04: I don't okay.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think it's saturated at all.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: I think, you know, um in the YouTube world anyway, there there was there's Nick Zentner.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_04: Nick is awesome.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: He's, I think, like a great model and has done amazing things with outreach to the public with science.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_04: He does tend to focus mostly on Pacific Northwest in his region, which is great.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's what he's mostly interested in.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_04: So I saw a huge niche in other places or my regions or things I can get to, because I travel regionally around the West and I'm like, oh my gosh, if I just go down to I can be in Yellowstone in like four hours, and like how many cool things can I show them in Yellowstone?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_04: Here's Ash Flow Tufts, here's hydrothermal features, you know.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_04: And so I don't think it's saturated on.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, then there's Rachel Phillips, who you guys have interviewed, GeoGirl.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, there's Myron Cook, who is in Wyoming.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: He's got the big gray beard.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_04: He's kind of like the Bob Ross of geology.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: He does incredible videos.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_04: He doesn't do many of them, but when you see one, it's like a like an Oscar-winning performance with just amazing editing and cinematography.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean, there's only like, and there's more than just those four or five, but there's not that many of us.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: So I feel like there's more niches to fill.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: I get requests all the time from people back east saying, hey, can you come out to Tennessee and and do a random road cut here or talk about the Wachita Plateau in Arkansas or just places I just don't know and I'm not going to get to.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I have to, I feel bad turning them away and telling them, hey, I hope someone pops up on the radar sometime soon that can help provide information, geologic information, and interpretation about your region.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: For the listener, there's uh a uh Philip Prince is somebody, I forget what his YouTube tag is.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's I think models.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he does a lot of Appalachian stuff.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's good.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've never worked in the Appalachian, so I don't know much about the basic geology.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: So for my G, you know, inter-level class, I kind of want to make it relevant.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So talk about the Carmeling Gap or talk about the Ridge and Valley, specific places that people would know.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've turned to his videos just for, again, the Appalachian sort of geology specific little stories.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and he he does a good job.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_04: And he's, I think he's more of like a geomorphologist.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_04: That's kind of what the sense I get.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_04: And he does a great job with like Google Earth and LIDAR and such.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's important, you know, matter who jumps into the arena, at least for me, sort of, I don't want to say this the wrong way, but like staying in my lane.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: I I am only gonna do videos and focus on things I'm comfortable with.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: And Rachel and I had this conversation too.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_04: Even though she and I have degrees in geology, we're very different geologists.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_04: She's biogeochemistry and lab stuff, and I'm a structural geologist, and so my roots are in other areas.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_04: And so there's things and topics and places that I'm probably never gonna do a video on or cover because I'm not comfortable with it.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_04: Now, that being said, I do try to educate myself.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: I'll read papers or a field guide and be like, yeah, I think I can talk knowledgeably about this, or there's a cool story here.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_04: And that's ultimately what I'm trying to do is figure out cool places, cool stories, and a way to explain it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I've been told by people that I explain things well.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_04: And I think as scientists, we don't do a very good job of communicating to the public by and large.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_04: We are trained.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you think about it, we we go into school, just like all three of us did in college.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: And what are we taught?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_04: We are taught to write technically, you know, here's how you're gonna write a paper, here's you're gonna write an abstract, here's how you're gonna communicate, here's how you're gonna give your first conference talk or presentation or poster presentation.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: So the system grooms us to be a professional, and they should.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not saying that's wrong, but I don't think we do a very good job traditionally of preparing professional scientists, like geologists, for okay, now go back to someone, now go back to your grandma and explain it to her.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_04: Jesse, go explain your PhD research to your next door neighbor in a way that and don't talk down to them in a way they can understand.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_04: Because we learn all the technical jargon, we learn the cool terms, and then we infuse that into our writing and our communic oral communication, and that's one of the biggest obstacles where we lose people.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_04: And then we it sounds like we're condescending because we're like, oh, Cenozoic exhumation of the metamorphic core complex, and you know, then we lose people in that kind of jargon when you can really explain it, I think, with different words.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: Just think of some other synonyms, words that most people know, you know, like exhumation.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, we're just gonna lift the rocks up and expose them.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, why didn't you just say that?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I agree completely with that.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I uh just to touch on this, Chris, and then I think you want to ask a question.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I I I agree completely that yes, we've been sort of trained to speak, you know, in a in a certain jargon for sure.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and that I think that's fine to have, you know, this the sort of scientific community speaking in their jargon, because it's just a simpler form of communication for geologists to talk to each other in jargon-rich environment.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think, and I think it's something we do really well at Penn State in our graduate student program.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Once they get more senior, they are kind of forced to do this kind of process.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, distill it down.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don't dumb it down, but distill it down.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a writing class that one of our very, very prolific professors teaches where she says, Okay, write your thesis in one page, like the the thesis proposal, okay, cut it in half.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, cut it in half, okay, cut it in half, all the way down until you're only allowed five words.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is your thesis in five words?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And those five words have to be very, very precise and specific and not jargony.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like the that's a really, really hard exercise for students.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what you're saying, my point, my whole point in this story is I think it's harder to do that.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to do that.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not an easy thing.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different mindset, yeah.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe a learned skill to kind of distill topics down.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I and I think where I'm at, Jesse.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry to jump in again, Chris.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: So but as you can go to sleep, we'll wake you up when we're when we're ready for your question here.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_04: Chris is just uh he's more polite than you and I.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: We just jumped in.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_04: But I think I think my position here and being asked by the local rotary club to come talk about local geology or being asked by the neighboring historical society, I think that has totally prepared me to do that.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I think maybe, I don't know this, Jesse, but like where you are at a bigger school and university, you're living at the other end of the spectr.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_04: Most of your interactions are at the more research professional level.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's where a lot of your interaction is.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_04: So you're developing those skills.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like if I had to go right now and give a technical presentation at a GSA conference, I would sweat it.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_04: But if you ask me to go into a room with 200 people, just regular citizens, and explain something about geology or hey, go teach them about different fault types, no problem.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's kind of what I do every day.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, go ahead, Mr.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Bollis, you're raising your hand back in the in the Oh, I can, I can, I can speak.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much, Jesse.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I want to ask, did you do a live stream kind of a play-by-play on the recent eruptions in Iceland?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I've been doing several of those.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_04: Those have been going on since that first eruption in last December, and then there was an eruption in January, in February, and March, and May, and August.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_04: And um, yeah, so you've probably seen me on those.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And this is crazy.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: I had you uh playing virtually all day in my classrooms, just in the background on the whole because I went to Iceland the summer for three weeks with my podcast on that.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, I just put this together.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, wait a minute, I've seen this background, I've seen this face, you've seen it just messy up.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sean and everybody else, Chris is a little slow on the uptake these days.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let's put it that way.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean great.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, come on.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, he's just putting, he's just there's just some disconnected things he's just brought together.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: So right brain, left brain.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: They just started communicating with one another over there.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't happen very often either.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, one of one of what real quick, one of the coolest things that happened with the whole Iceland live stream thing was I was contacted by a company called NatureEye, and they said, Hey, we see, because I was just, you know, reporting on the data, looking at the webcams which are publicly available.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_04: And they said, Hey, we have a new company.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_04: We have drones in Iceland that you can fly from your location in Idaho.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_04: And we would love for you to fly our drone over the these eruptions when they're taking place, provide commentary.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, are you kidding me?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_04: So it was in first of all, I was floored that like the technology existed.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like, really, this is something.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: And then it just turned out to be a great partnership.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: I just did one um on Sunday, even though there's no eruption going on.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: We flew over the, you know, very young lava field and over the spatter cones.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_04: And it's still just as cool to see, you know, when it's not erupting.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um that that that definitely added another level.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that the Iceland eruption, there were so many webcams like fixed on that thing.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: It was probably one of the most well-documented eruptions I've ever seen.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_04: And so the fact that I could just tap into these webcams on the internet and then show people and then like explain it as it's happening was like just really just good luck and and just good fortune.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: That is so cool.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: What is the company called?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Nature I Nature I.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: That is so cool.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_04: So you can sign up just and they're doing it a lot with schools now, Chris.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: So you could actually they're letting the kids operate it and stuff, and they're doing a lot with schools now because it's not just Iceland, they have other locations around the world like Machu Picchu, and some are geologic, some are like you know, other types of places in Africa.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's very cool.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_04: Where you can fly the drone and take pictures and get them uploaded.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_04: And it was it difficult to navigate and marry at the same time.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think how I would do that.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds impossible.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_04: No, I don't multitask well.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so if you do watch those, the sometimes when I'm flying the drone well, the the commentary kind of just peters out a little bit.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um and it's harder than you know, I have a real drone.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_04: And if you've flown a drone, you know it has like little thumb joysticks, like a video game console.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_04: And so you know it they're they're touch sensitive, so you can just push it a little bit and the drone goes forward a little bit.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_04: The way to do it with with natri, though, is you have to use your keyboard.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's not touch sensitive.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_04: You push go forward and it just goes forward with no, it's just one speed basically, and you push up and it goes up.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's a little bit, a little bit more wonky, but it still works well.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, it's pretty awesome.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_04: Just cool technology.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, what are the safeguards in that, Sean?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of, you know, they're not gonna let some 10-year-old drive this thing into the lava floor.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_04: So there is an operator on the ground.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_04: So there's a a guy in Iceland named Johan, who's actually there.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_04: He physically gets the Starlink system up and going, puts the drone on the ground, puts the battery pack in, turns it on.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_04: He's on the headset with me, and then he's like, okay, yeah, we're ready to go when you are.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_04: And then he turns the controls over to me.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_04: And then once the battery gets down to a certain point, either he flies it back or it'll just fly back.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: And then he's also there to make sure he'll tell me like my ceiling height, like, hey, don't go above this elevation, don't go below this elevation.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_04: There's a someone there, a drone operator, to make sure you don't fly it into a mountain or you know, nosedive it into the lava or whatever.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that is amazing.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: I never heard of that before.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Really cool.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Check it.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: You might like it for your classroom.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: It would be cool.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: Very cool.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's just that's amazing.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Sean.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna transition here.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna shift directions.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you co-authored or authored Geology Underfoot for Idaho and Roadside Geology, two of our favorites.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um spent a lot of time with Roadside Geology driving around, roadside geology books driving around.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we're collecting that's yeah, absolutely.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're the best.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: So one is I have an older version of the Roadside Geology for Idaho, and it's by Alt and Hindman, I think are their names.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, David Alt, and yeah.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: So now is this just a totally different edition of it?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what was that process like?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Can you describe that?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I guess I gotta rewind a little bit.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: So the first book I wrote by myself was Geology Underfoot in Southern Idaho.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like you guys, I'm a big fan of the Mountain Press series, and every year they come out with a new title, and Geology Underfoot's a little different because it's more in depth than roadside.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_04: Roadside's just, hey, you're driving down the road.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_04: Roadside's like, hey, you're driving on Pennsylvania Highway 22, mile marker 31, you'll see this, then you'll see that.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's just it's highlights.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_04: But the underfoot book is meant to get out of your car, engage with the landscape.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe you hike a trail, go to an overlook, whatever.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_04: It tells you specifically where to go, what to look at, asks you questions, and then tells you kind of and teases out the story as you go.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I was a much bigger fan of the Underfoot series, which is a newer series.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_04: There's not as many titles.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_04: So they'd come out with a new one every year.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember thinking, oh boy, please, please book Gods.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_04: Will you please give us an Idaho one?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_04: That would be so cool.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_04: And I just got sick of waiting for it.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_04: And then just one day I thought, maybe I could do that.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_04: And so I just emailed the publisher and said, here's an idea.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_04: And they said, Well, send us a proposal.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't really even have to send in an outline.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't even have to really send like a sample of writing or it's different than like a regular book, right?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_04: If you're gonna write the next Harry Potter, you're gonna have to write the whole book and then try to get it published.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_04: I basically was allowed to, they're like, hey, if you write this thing, we will publish it.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_04: And so I wrote that one first, the underfoot book.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: What when was this, Sean?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like roughly 2017, 2016.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, somewhere in there.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_04: And that was great.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: So I picked 22 sites in southern Idaho with different themes and how to get there and and what you're gonna see.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_04: And and then for the roadside book, and then a so a couple years later they said, Hey, the roadside book from the 80s is is very outdated.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's black and white.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I, you know, Alton Heinman have written written a lot of great books, but one thing that always bugged me in that specific book was that they put out in that book the idea that the Snake River hotspot originated from a meteorite impact, which there is absolutely no evidence for.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_04: But yet that because it was because it was in a book and it was in print, the general public had that's all they knew about the Snake River Plain.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_04: And so I had to keep fighting that myth that no, there's no evidence for meteorite impact.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_04: It's a cool idea, but like, well, it's in the book.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_04: And so I was like, uh.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_04: So they contacted me and said, hey, we'd like you to write the roadside new edition Roadside Geology of Idaho.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, I can't, because Idaho is huge.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_04: Idaho is 500 miles from north to south.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_04: I live in southern Idaho and I know the geology pretty well.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_04: I'd only been to northern Idaho like once or twice.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_04: There's no freeway system up there.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_04: It takes nine to ten hours of driving through the mountains and canyons to get up there.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_04: I am not an expert in that.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, but I'd be interested in co-writing it.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_04: So I teamed up with two other authors, one of which is in Northern Idaho, Keegan Schmidt.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so we worked on it together kind of over COVID.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's a completely rewritten book with new road law.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_04: And if you really look at the old ones, they don't make a whole lot of sense.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_04: Like you're driving on a highway, they have like a tangential article or side note on the page that's not even something you might even be able to see from the highway.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um we wanted ours to be more in the vein of these newer books they have out, which is, you know, okay, at milepost 22, look for this, and you know, and actually what you're gonna see from the road.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_04: And so so it was a fun project, and definitely doing doing it with two other people was helpful.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_04: We just kind of split up the state geographically.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, Chris, you do this part, Jesse, you do this part.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_04: And it was hard to kind of blend all the writing styles together.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_04: I wrote the introductions anyway.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not you three dirt bagging in a car for like three months.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: There was only one time.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: The three of us were only physically.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm envisioning.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_04: The three of us were only actually together once.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_04: We met at Paul Link uh has a condo in Sun Valley.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_04: Is that where we met?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's where we met.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_04: I have one of probably one of the only few copies of the book where all three of us signed it.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's cool.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because Keegan's up in Lewiston.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Link, I see quite a bit.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_04: He's retired now.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_04: He's at Idaho State in Pocatello.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we just we we split the state up geographically, drove our road logs, wrote it.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, there was an editor that kind of was there to kind of blend it and put it all together and keep us on track.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: So this is such an interesting uh you're the first person, Sean, I've met, that has done this for Roadside Geology.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, so first of all, a little plug.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: People can buy signed copies on your website, right?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of both these books.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a link.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there's a link there.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll put a link to your website, the show notes here if people are interested in that.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh the question is you you kind of touched on like ideas that are now not taken seriously are in a textbook.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore the public believes or says, hey, it's in the book.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: What was your filter for that?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: In a hotly contested scientific kind of topic, if you covered any, what was your filter for I'm putting it in the book versus I'm not?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how much consensus do you need to have to put it into a book like this?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: Uh if thoughts um that's a good yeah, it was tricky because there were certain topics or themes or locations or geologic events that were not set in stone, no pun intended.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so in my writing, I tried to just say what we knew like, hey, the origin of basin and range extension is controversial.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_04: There's many models, but here's one.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: Or I'd list, like, hey, here's here's a couple of the ideas we have.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_04: So I try to not dig a trench in one specific area, but like let the viewer know that, hey, this this isn't not consensus.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_04: We're still working in this regard.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: But here's here's a here's our model.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I tried to be more specific using those kind of terms that this is the leading hypothesis.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_04: This is the current model rather than kind of dealing sort of in like absolutes.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, ultimately you we did kind of have to pick with some things like, okay, you got to talk about this event.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_04: Which one of the three models are you gonna give the most writing attention to?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so there probably is little bits of biases in there.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_04: And just like anything, if I could go back, I'd probably change some of it and you know, rewrite this and that.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, that just strikes me as a pretty intimidating you know, position to be in to kind of because like you said, yeah, it's such an amazing the how that how that kind of research in this very, as you were talking about before, very scientific literature and back and forth and in debates that are totally in the weeds, how those get translated down to progressively down into books like this, and then the public, and there's a lag there sometimes, right?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like the late heavy, I don't know, Chris and I were talking about the late heavy bombardment.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like the scientific community thinks that is completely false and was made up in the 80s, but it's in every intro textbook still, you know, and and so it just takes a while for these things to kind of get out of circulation, these ideas a little bit.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so that task of writing just seems frankly very intimidating to kind of cover that stuff.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like though, the roadside book wasn't that hard because most of it, the road logs are pretty easy because like milepost 22, there's an outcrop of Silurian limestone.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_04: Like, there's no controversy there.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_04: We know here's the rock type, we know the age.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_04: If you stop, you might find fossils, whatever.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_04: But you're right in writing the introduction, which dealt more with like the physiographic provinces and the themes and Snake River Plain and the Yelstone hotspot.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_04: And so we put things in there as current as we could, like the whole Siletsia idea of this, you know, large igneous province that kind of got run over by North America, which wasn't on my radar like 10 years ago, but now there's more and more evidence building towards, yeah, this is actually how this anomalous hotspot that just pops up 17 million years, this is how it gets started.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so we put that in there, and undoubtedly someone in another 30 years or less or more will rewrite the third edition and be like, oh, we'll see in those other guys, like they were out to lunch.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: Here, here's what we know, here, here's what it is, and that's science.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the nature of it, right?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just uh be being the person, being the decision maker at that point, I think uh I appreciate your insight into that because it's always struck me as kind of an intimidating, you know, sort of thing to do.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but you were able to use the book, right?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you were able to use the first edition, I would imagine quite a bit.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_04: Honestly, Chris, you know, and no, no disrespect whatsoever to those authors.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think I use it hardly at all.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um there was so much more information.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_04: Like they, since 1988, there's like so much more.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_04: I had geologic maps of roads they didn't have.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_04: I had geology field guides to roadside stuff or published theses or journal.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_04: I had so much more at my disposal, and I leaned more heavily on that than the stuff they had written.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so, I mean, it really is a complete rewrite.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_04: They really are separate books, even though they cover the same area and some of the same themes.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_04: There's a pretty stark contrast.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_04: We have very rich, colorful geologic maps of every road that we cover, which is pretty cool.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_04: And those were done by a great uh geologist and graphic designer in Montana.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_04: So but kind of back to Jesse's point, there's no, it's not a peer review process.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_04: So when the three of us decided, yeah, that this is correct, and this is, you know, quote unquote correct, and the editor didn't know.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_04: She she knew a little bit of geology, but she's not a professional geologist, so she's just making sure that we don't go past our word count and it all formats well.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so there wasn't a lot of safeguards to like, you know, we did, I think, send out some parts of it to geologists that would know.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like, hey, read read this through and make sure there's no red flags, or did I st what did I screw up here just to kind of get eyes on it?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_03: But it wasn't like vigorously vetted or anything.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, almost more stressful that way, perhaps.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I agree.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I just my stress level just rode.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can see Chris getting worked up, the veins coming out in the middle of the forehead there a little bit.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, but I I do want to say, Sean, that that is what a contribution to the community, though.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: Seriously, I mean these books are I have found them invaluable in and you're right, Geology Underfoot and Roadside Geology are very, very different books, but but you use them for different purposes, and it's just a it's a it's an incredible contribution to the community.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: So like hats off to you for taking that on, because I think that's a lot of pressure and a lot of work and yeah, it was fun to work on.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_04: But that being said, I mean, here's the interesting thing.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_04: People have asked me, like, are you gonna do another one?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_04: And at the time I did earmark or sort of reserved for Mountain Press, the publishing company, I said, hey, leave the geology underfoot in northern Utah to me, because I know that area well.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_04: Also, I'd love to write that one.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: That was my intention four or five years ago.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_04: But now with the YouTube thing, I've realized, I mean, if you think about how many books I'll sell like over the course of my lifetime, it's a drop in the bucket compared to how many people I can reach using these video formats.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm not saying I won't pursue that, but right now that's lower on my radar because, you know, like a book about geology is going to limit your window.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_04: A book about southern Idaho geology, holy cow, that's a really narrow lane.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, most people won't even know it exists.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_04: So you just can only reach so many people.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_04: I know how many copies our books have sold, and I'm proud of that work.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_04: And books give you like, I think, a little more street cred and clout, I suppose.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_04: But but in terms of like reaching people with geology education, uh the videos are a far more effective way to do it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing I I that I certainly thought about when we were talking about with Rachel, and it's the same with you, Sean.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, uh, you know, one of your videos reaches more people than any of the public I've ever published anybody's ever read, right?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's kind of it's it's really just it's really amazing.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it is just totally cool and amazing.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so I amazing, but probably depressing a little bit too, because you put a lot of work into your research.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, but I they serve different purposes, right?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I but again, but it's just amazing.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: The reach is just kind of unbelievable.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: So on that, on that note, I kind of have a question now that we're coming back to YouTube a little bit.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you strike me as somebody who loves to learn.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: How have you experimented with your YouTube content?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I saw, I forget which video, maybe it was a recent one, where you were you were, you know, you're out in the field, you're recording video, and then you kind of turn to the car hood and you had a you know sketch drawn on the car hood, and then you kind of go back to the outcrop and you kind of go back and forth.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that struck me, it just really reminded me of teaching field geology courses.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is something you do in field geology, right?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: You say, here's the outcrop, look at this, then turn to my little notebook I've gotten drawn, or my whiteboard I've drawn, and then go back and let students look at the outcrop.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is that something you've experimented with?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: How has your YouTube teaching methodology changed?
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's changed a lot.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_04: I think there's been some like improvements.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, this is embarrassing, but if you watch the old Death Valley ones, you'll see that I'm in the frame the whole time.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_04: Like the I have the camera selfie stick out at arm's length, and my head is in the entire video because I didn't know anything about the YouTube world and all the kind of whatever videos I watched beforehand, that's what I saw, as I saw a talking head.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_04: And so I thought I had to do that.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_04: And at some point, after I did those Death Valley ones, I had a viewer say, Hey, you know, you don't need to show us your head the whole time.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_04: You can show us the rocks.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, that's brilliant.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_04: Because I don't want to be in, I don't want to be in the shot anyway.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_04: And so just like, I mean, stuff like that that should have been obvious, and I probably would have figured out at some point anyway.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_04: But like the viewers have been very helpful with their comments about ways to improve, like whether, or one thing I'm awful at, because I'm very kind of like animated and energetic, is like I'll turn the camera on and then I'm swinging it back and forth.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_04: And if you look over there, you'll see this, and then look at that over there.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_04: And people are like, You were making a C-SIP, like we are not.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_04: Blair Witch project or something like that.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm still not great at it, but like, okay, the slow pan.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_04: So what's interesting is when you do these videos, is you're the actor, you're the director, you're the camera operator, you're the producer, you're the sound person, you're the script writer.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's all me out there by myself.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_04: I almost never have anyone with me.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so, in terms of like the diagrams and stuff, I just always think like, is there a way?
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm not a good artist, I'm a terrible artist, but I'm like, is there some way to just make a sketch that will help reinforce that?
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'll take a minute and draw something and just try to show that.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_04: If it's, I think the one you maybe saw was like um, I think it was split mountain.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_04: It was, that's right.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was split mountain.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yeah.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's beautiful.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I I loved it because I thought this is it just reminded me of being in a field geology class where you're, you know, students look at this pointing there, and then turn to the sketch that simplifies it, and then go back and look at it.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just reminded me of of you know sitting in a field geology class.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I loved it.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I was wondering how much that iterated, but that seems like it comes natural.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean, but it's different than if the three of us go on like a geology conference field trip, then it's like, oh, we got to plug the geologic map, and that's not gonna work as well with with the viewers, not just visually, but like it's too much such technical information.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_04: So what's a cartoon, a block diagram, a cross section that can show how this process or this feature comes to be?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_04: And so I don't think they've changed too much.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_04: I've edited a little bit more, I'm a little more aware of like how the finished product looks.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think there is slow improvement, but I I stand behind all the old ones, even though they're cringy.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, that's good content.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm excited.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_04: We could relate, I'm explaining it well, right?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_04: You guys, same thing with your podcast.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: I might not stand behind some of the early ones.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're pretty, pretty bad audience.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, what is Chr Chris and Jesse episode one?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like how you know.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, it's so rough.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, rough real rough.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_04: But I want kind of I kind of you guys should keep those, right?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_04: Keep those in your archives, just like I keep those old videos as like a reminder.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like, hey, that's where I was.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_04: That's when I had a hundred subscribers, and I was elated to just be out there doing it.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_04: And so yeah, it's great.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sean, I want to ask you about where's the line in terms of how deep do you go?
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: How complex do you get?
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, this is something that Jesse and I we battle this all the time, really.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you do you have the same struggles?
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, how like for like making the videos on a topic or whatever?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: How how in depth do you go?
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know, you're not touching really the depth of your knowledge in this, you're communicating it to everybody out there.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I find that to be a very difficult thing in terms of you know, bringing it down to a level that's understood by the masses rather than the few.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just such a fine line.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, good point.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_04: I think for me, I just I think about the story first.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like what's kind of like Jesse said at the beginning, like, give me your your thesis in a paragraph, in a sentence, in you know, maybe not down to five words, but so succinctly, and outcrops are easy because, like, okay, here, what is this outcrop telling us?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_04: What what information do we have?
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_04: And so so for me, it's starting with like the story.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_04: If I think there's something cool here, it could be a process, it could be a landscape.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_04: And knowing, okay, I'm gonna probably do this in 10 to 15 minutes, so I I'm not gonna try to cover everything.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_04: Like the one I just did down in northern Nevada was like spheroidal weathering in granite.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I didn't spend, even though I could have spent time looking at the mineralogy of the rocks and talking about textures and granodiorite and why there's magma even there, what's the topic?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_04: What's what's the focus?
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_04: And what's the easiest way to explain this?
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_04: Like sh show them the outcrop.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_04: So usually it's showing them the feature, and then going maybe to the the clipboard or the diagram or whatever.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_04: I'm pretty, I don't know, maybe I'm just simple-minded.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_04: I I often don't get distracted by if there's more topics and a bigger story there, I will tend to break it into chunks.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: And I've gone to one location and done four videos, but on four different things.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, now let's look at this Rhyolite lava flow, and there's a video.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, in part one, you saw this.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_04: Now in part two, we're gonna look at this other thing over here.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so, yeah, for me, I don't know.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I'm not I've hardly ever been like blown away with like, oh, this is so complicated.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_04: How am I gonna do this?
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_04: Because I think maybe I just have a good sense for, or maybe I'm just a simpleton of just here's the the story, here's the most compelling geologic feature or story at this location, and I'm gonna tell that, and I'm not gonna try to give them the whole 4.5 billion years at this location in in one yeah.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a that's an interesting way to think about it.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, from the the sort of rock uh from an outcrop, it kind of narrows your focus by definition, as it should, right?
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of on this what do these rocks tell us very conservatively, maybe.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: So how how Sean, are you going to what's your plans for the YouTube channel?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what can viewers sort of expect from you in the future?
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I've kind of added a few series.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_04: They start out with all these field videos based videos.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, the school even gave me, here's something crazy.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_04: I got last year, last fall, I was on sabbatical.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_04: And my project that I pitched to the college as a sabbatical was traveling around the West and making YouTube field-based videos.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_04: And the president said, Yes, that sounds like a great idea.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_04: That's amazing.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_04: So I got a whole semester off of teaching.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I think I'll continue to keep doing the field-based videos, but then I've added things like a little interview series.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_04: I've interviewed Rachel and some of these other people, uh, different scientists.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_04: I want to keep doing that.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_04: I want to maybe add different careers.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_04: So I need to, you know, I'm kind of stuck by myself as the sole geologist, or I need to find a mining geologist and a environmental hydrogeologist.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_04: And it'd be fun to like bring some of those in.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that would be of interest to both the viewers, but also like students.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_04: And then I've just built these little kind of playlists or series.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_04: There's random road cuts.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_04: So that's like the easiest video of all.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like stop at a roadcut you've never seen or hardly seen before, and just get out, roll the tape, and make observations and walk the viewer through what you're seeing, and then hopefully come up with some viable interpretations of what you're seeing.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_04: That's those are easy, those are easy because you don't need any knowledge ahead of time.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_04: There's no diagram.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_04: We're not diagramming anything.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_04: There's no visuals here.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even know how these rocks are.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm just pulling over on the side of the road.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: But that's like uh how a geologist thinks, you know, how how how to think like a geologist.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really I like that's gorgeous.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_04: And and they're they're not like huge view videos, but they have like a real kind of cult following.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_04: Like people really love those because it's it's what they're experiencing.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_04: They're out on little hikes and walks in their neck of the woods and they're working through that same process.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I don't know.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_04: I think I'm gonna do, you know, I'll I'll do more of the Iceland stuff and and just but I pick things that I'm interested in and I feel like I have something to say about it.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_04: If someone pushed me or incentivized me to do something on, you know, the Arctic gneisses that you study, Jesse, I'd be like, well, okay, that's that's not gonna happen because I I don't, but I'd say, hey, I know a guy, you know, or something like that.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody out there who studies it, yeah.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_04: Right, Canadian Shield geology, and you know, like so I I don't know what the future holds.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just gonna keep doing like in my gut what I what I'm interested in, what people seem to enjoy, and just what helps me grow and learn as an individual as well.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's totally cool.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, well, one last question for me, and then I'll turn over to Chris for the last one here.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: How much have you learned by doing this process, by doing this YouTube video?
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my gosh.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_04: Like, this has been like a lot.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's been incredible to learn.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, not the geology that I've learned is pretty minimal and probably the least important thing.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_04: I've learned a lot about people, what people are interested in.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_04: The viewers are incredible.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_04: They teach me things all the time in terms of not just geology, but you know, how the videos could be better or communication styles.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_04: Just I've just learned that there's an audience for everything, that there is a niche kind of everywhere.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_04: And if you're genuine and if you're yourself and if you're interested in the topic, people will probably listen and tune in.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's incredibly rewarding.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_04: It's fun to do.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's really an extension of what I do anyway.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_04: So it's not, it doesn't feel it is work, but it doesn't it doesn't ever feel like work because it's going out and explaining geology to people.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I'm paid to do.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh to be honest, Sean Hall, I real quick, I I'm surprised that you think you've learned very little with regard to geology specifically.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or you mean that's a my that's that's minor compared to everything else?
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think it's it to me it's it's it's it's a lesser amount of growth than um some of these other kind of uh you know tangential things.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean I have learned, I mean, definitely like Iceland geology.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_04: I just had I'd been there, I knew a little bit, and definitely now that I've become an unintentionally sort of like this regional expert, I've dove into papers and read a lot, but I still defer to like, you know, some of those Iceland professors who have worked there their whole lives.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, that's what I feel like my role is is I'm not the expert on anything.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just maybe a good communicator.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_04: And so I learn from the experts.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_04: I read the papers because the public trying to read the papers, they're gonna run into all these roadblocks we talked about.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_04: But I can understand that I can digest it and then I can present it in a way that the public can.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm kind of the middleman.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a middleman.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: So well, Jesse, what do you think?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wish we've taken up a ton of your time, Chris.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we?
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's all good.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: I it's been fun talking to you guys.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this has been fun.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: We could talk for another hour and a half, I'm sure.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll do a follow-up one sometime.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: We'd like to close out, Sean, with this question.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, what has been your best day as a geoscientist?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_04: Oh boy.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean, I think everyone would say a field day, right?
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_04: Like just definitely like being outside.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_04: I think just being, I th it's easy.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_04: I don't have a specific day, you know, like a time and year or whatever, but any day I'm outside with an interested group of people, be it students, YouTube viewers, maybe I'm at a national park and two people wander up and are wondering why I'm writing stuff down or I have a notebook or whatever.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_04: And explaining geology and sharing with people and then watching that click with them.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_04: Like, oh, I get it now.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like just watching the light bulbs go off in people.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm sure, you know, Chris, both of you as educators, you you know what that's like.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's the best reward of all is having those moments.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_04: It helps if you're in a great setting on a nice day out in the field.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's just that's the cherry on on the on the Sunday, I suppose.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_04: But just just I think we're humans, we're we're wired to share with people.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_04: That's, I mean, social media is popular because it's based on sharing and we share things we love.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, Jesse, I just ate at a great restaurant.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, Chris, I just had an amazing drink at this bar or whatever.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_04: And so we just share things we love.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, like you guys, I love geology and education.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's an easy thing to do.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just awesome that there's this platform that exists, but it could be anything where we can share to so many people, like people from around the world.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_04: I get emails from people in other countries, and that's just crazy.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_04: Like, you know, to think that yeah, they they're watching, and here I am in in little Plodunk, Southern Idaho at a two-year college.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I'm no big deal, but yet to these people, I am because I'm this person that's on their screen teaching them and they appreciate that.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_04: And maybe they miss that window in their life where they could have learned some geology or taken a class, or maybe they just come around to it later in life.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's just fun to be able to fill that that void in their life and and and make a difference.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that really well put.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the relationship building aspect is is so interesting and so important.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: And your passion comes across in spades in your channel, and I encourage people to go check it out.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, Sean, thanks very much for the this has been a really this has been a pleasure talking to you about all the all things, and I think your channel's awesome.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: And roadside geology and geology underfoot, those are I haven't read the books, but because I haven't been to Southern Idaho in a long time.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_04: But well, come on out, guys.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_04: We'll take your rafting, we'll go climbing.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be awesome.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that'd be totally cool.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks a lot for joining us.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate it.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's been totally fun.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks so much.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a fan of both of you.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_04: Appreciate all you guys do as well.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, back to you.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: We appreciate you.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you are an educator down to your soul.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's uh it comes through.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_03: All right, thanks, Sean.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's a wrap.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 1:07:01
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• 1:07:04
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• 1:07:05
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• 1:07:09
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• 1:07:16
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• 1:07:18
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• 1:07:24
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• 1:07:28
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• 1:07:30
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• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.