From Russia with love (of rocks and hazards) - with Dr. Michael Hamburger
Hi, folks, and welcome to Earth on the Rocks, a show where we get to know the person behind the science over drinks. I'm your host, Shelby Raider. And with me today is doctor Michael Hamburger. Michael, welcome to the show.
Michael:I'm so glad to be here.
Shelby:So, Michael, what would be your drink of choice for us to get to know you over?
Michael:Well, you know what? It's a beautiful sunny fall day, and I like the idea of sitting out on a cafe in the afternoon having a gin and tonic with you.
Shelby:That sounds perfectly amazing on a day like today.
Michael:Absolutely.
Shelby:So, Michael, you're also in the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences here. And so if someone were ask you what kind of scientist are you, how would you classify yourself?
Michael:I am an earthquake seismologist, so I've spent my career studying seismic waves in the Earth and all things related to earthquakes and all kinds of connected phenomena.
Shelby:And so you have sort of had an interesting trajectory in in some of the areas that you've focused on in terms of your research and sort of where it has evolved to now. And so if you don't mind, could you sort of walk us through how this all began? How did you first get interested in this idea of earthquake seismology?
Michael:It is a crazy trajectory. And I like talking to students about it because, I did a kind of random walk through my undergraduate education trying out about 5 or 6 different majors. I started in physics and then jumped to chemistry and biology, and then I decided to drop science altogether. And the class that I loved was my Russian language class, which my science advisor had advised me to take. I fell in love with Russian literature.
Michael:I spent a summer, in the early 19 seventies visiting Moscow and then Leningrad, and I thought I was gonna be a a Russian literature scholar. Midway through my career, though, I discovered a geology class that really opened my eyes to a to a new world. And I ended up with a double major in earth sciences and Russian language and literature. Didn't know what I was gonna do with that. And to my utter surprise, I found a job shortly after my graduation that allowed me to combine these two passions, and ended up, involved in a research project in the former Soviet Union in the late 19 seventies, a very early Soviet American collaboration on, environmental sciences, and in this case, protection from the environment.
Michael:And I spent about 3 years working in the mountains of Central Asia studying earthquakes, a field I knew nothing about, doing field work in the Tian Shan and Pamir mountains, and totally fell in love with it. And it was really only after that experience that I decided I was gonna be a seismologist.
Shelby:So you mentioned that there was a class you took that sort of drew you to the field. And I think that that tends to be the experience of a lot of people as there's a sort of moment that pulls them in. So was there something in that class that made you think, oh, this is what I wanna do? Or was there a specific event from that class or just the class in general?
Michael:There was a really remarkable instructor at my undergraduate, institution. His name was Jeli de Boer, really charismatic guy who had grown up in Dutch Indonesia, spoke with a really funny strong accent, traveled all over the world studying volcanic activity and related things. The course was called this is will date the course called Man's Geological Environment, but it was about the deep connections between geology and history and culture. And, it totally got me excited about the fundamental ways we, as humans, are connected with the earth and the way it shapes our history and environment. And the next semester, I took a course with him that was a field geology class, really beautiful, interesting area of New England, and just totally fell in love with the ways that you can learn about the planet we live on by, doing the detective work of looking at rocks and landscapes.
Michael:And from then on, I was sold.
Shelby:And were you in the New England area at the time?
Michael:Absolutely. So I I was an undergraduate at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and I still feel like Connecticut, this little tiny postage stamp of a a state in New England, has every possible geological environment you can think of. It's actually sitting the town, Middletown where the university is sitting in the Connecticut River Valley, which is this ancient rift structure, kind of like the East African rift filled with lava flows and sediments and dinosaur tracks, and, it goes down to the to Long Island Sound, all of these coastal processes, and then up in the highlands are this ancient core of the continent that's exposed every kind of rock you could imagine. So it was kind of a Disneyland for geology for me.
Shelby:And so you also had mentioned that you spent some time in the former Soviet Union. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like? And it seems like at the time at least, you may have been coming at it less from a geological background, but that sort of helped transition you there.
Michael:What an amazing period of my life and what an amazing time to visit there. So, again, I went as an undergraduate student in 1973. The Soviet Union was just opening up then. Nixon and Brezhnev, you know, were meeting the detente, the kind of reopening after the Cold War. So I went with a group of students learning Russian language, but totally connecting with the young people from Russia and learning about Russian culture.
Michael:And then I had this fantastic opportunity to visit Central Asia and the mountains of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. There are places that, westerners had barely been in the last 50 years, and these spectacular mountain landscapes and this rich culture as part of the silk road and the this mixture of, Persian, Mongol, Russian, culture, nomadic people, just a rich intriguing place with dozens of different languages. And, so making the connection between history and culture and then this really kind of scary story about earthquakes. They've had devastating earthquakes in their history. And the project I worked on was really fascinating one, involving what's called reservoir induced seismicity.
Michael:So we were studying earthquakes that are triggered by the impoundment of dams, and the Soviets then were building the largest dams in the world, high in the mountains. We were working on Nurik reservoir in Tajikistan, which then was one of the highest dams in the world, built in a deep gorge, and it was triggering earthquakes. It's an area that already had big earthquake hazards, so there was a lot of concern that these human made earthquakes could actually trigger large earthquakes that could threaten populations living in the area. So fascinating introduction to a kinda specialized corner of seismology, and it's kinda stuck with me all these years.
Shelby:And so at that point so you're fluent in Russian?
Michael:Pretty fluent, a little I'd say a little rusty now. But during that time there, the the 3 years I worked as a post undergraduate student, I probably spent a total of a year and a half living in the former Soviet Union. Often, I served as the translator, not, you know, not professional amateur. And there were times where I was alone with Russian and Central Asian colleagues and had to wake up in the morning and try to talk Russian. And so it got pretty good, and I realized that language is a big doorway that opens connections between people who live in very different parts of the world.
Shelby:Yeah. That was a question I had. It was a little bit of a sort of chicken or the egg question is, was it your fluency in in some of these languages that led to your interest in the region or vice versa? And it sounds like at least for these areas near Russia, it was the the language that got you there and then sort of opened you up to the field of geosciences in the area.
Michael:Yeah. Kind of a crazy thing, and it's I I often encourage students to add a language. You never know when and where and how that will open a door to start in an exciting project unexpectedly. And at the time I was there, very few of the Russians or Soviet citizens spoke English very well. Very few of the American scientists spoke Russian.
Michael:So I turned up as a young person to be a kind of key connector between these two worlds, and it made for just fascinating, warm, and deep connections with the people I was working with. It's the people I was working with. It turns out, especially with the Russians in particular, there was this very strong cultural bond even though we've been completely separated by the Cold War. And, you know, the Russians often said, you know, we're closer and distance in history to Europe, but in fact, they felt close to Americans. Somehow, there was a kind of openness in spite of all of the political tensions and pressures, really warm interpersonal relations.
Shelby:And you're multilingual. Is that correct?
Michael:Yeah. People who'd hear me trying to speak other languages would not say that. I re, awoke a French language that I studied in high school. I spent a year in France, so I got fairly good at communicating in French. And, the last few years, I've been working in teaching in Italy, which has been a totally great experience.
Michael:So I've tried for the first time in about 50 years sitting in an undergraduate class learning Italian, and I got at least far enough that I could speak broken Italian with bus drivers and bartenders and find my way around Italy. It's a wonderful thing. Languages are something that both are barriers to communication and they're, potential connectors, and it's a really powerful thing to find. You can communicate with people across those barriers.
Shelby:So after this time as an undergrad in Russia, you come back to the US and then decide you wanna sort of pursue this as a field or as a career potentially. And so so where did you go next?
Michael:So I decided it was time to dig in a little deeper and sharpen my skills. I decided to go to graduate school. And again and, you know, advice I'd give to young people is it's worth doing a little gap period between undergraduate and graduate work to really know what you wanna do with it. So I had been, by then, 4 years out of undergraduate. I went to Cornell University, Ithaca, New York to study seismotectonics.
Michael:So this is the connection between earthquakes and large scale geological processes that make our planet work the way it does. And, I ended up moving into a few very different parts of the world and very different types of study. So I spent five and a half years as a graduate student, but at least a year of that, again, was spent doing field based geosciences, and I spent a year studying earthquakes in the South Pacific Islands of Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, a totally, totally different cultural, geographic, geologic setting, really fascinating and opened my eyes to a yet another part of the world.
Shelby:So through all of these field experiences, are there any that particularly stand out to you, whether it be for their geology or for some of the other things that you experienced while you were there?
Michael:Oh my god. It's hard to say. There's so let me just say, it's one of the things that I totally treasure about the field that you and I are in. It's not just about developing these high precision analytical techniques to study the world or the makeup of the materials in our world, but it's about connecting with the sources of that information. And our discipline is blessed with this totally international connection.
Michael:So earthquakes are very much a phenomenon that doesn't know about boundaries and is very much fostered in international collaboration. So my field work has carried me to a lot of different places that, you know, brings scientists in connection with local citizens to understand the process that shape our world. I would say one of the things I treasure that's really a little bit outside of my field is those connections that you make when you're doing field work. I've had, you know, dinners in a yurt in Kyrgyzstan with, shepherds, and the Russians are very good at great parties after a after a big field expedition. We often did big field experiments with dozens of people involved in deploying instruments.
Michael:At the end of a field experiment, there would be a giant table with dozens of bottles of vodka and a central Asian pilaf and hours of toasts and singing and joyous communion of scientists from all around the world working together. What an incredible pleasure. And I know you asked for one, but I'll just say, in a way, my experience in the South Pacific was in some ways the opposite end of the spectrum, visiting these tiny villages in Vanuatu or Fiji, where by tradition, you would have to make proper, greetings and bring a a gift to the chief of the village and sitting with villagers drinking kava, the local drink of choice, and hearing stories being translated from Fijian to English and then singing and kind of this was in a way the price or the entry gate to doing field work together, but to me, those are among the richest experiences that both made possible that fieldwork and that the fieldwork made possible for me.
Shelby:So you mentioned with this fieldwork, you all were doing things that you refer to as field experiments and deploying instruments. What what what does that mean? What sorts of experiments were you all doing? What instruments are you deploying? What are you trying to measure or evaluate?
Michael:Okay. So enough about the vodka and kava and a little bit of science in here. So, again, my field research started in field seismology, which involves, deploying seismographs instruments, the ground motion recorders that pick up tiny vibrations to record small earthquakes. So often in a new field area, it would involve either temporary or sometimes permanent instruments that would be deployed to monitor earthquakes for a period of months to sometimes years, and with increasing sophistication of how those instruments work and how the data can be used, and then, of course, a lot of time returning to the laboratory and to the computer to analyze that data, getting precise locations of earthquakes, learning about the mechanisms that that triggered the earthquakes relating it to large scale geological or tectonic processes. Midway through my career, I made a big change.
Michael:I got interested in, a kind of new technology in the 19 nineties that involved using global positioning system instruments, GPS receivers, which of course everybody uses now in their phones or their car navigation systems, but there's a high precision application where we can measure locations to precisions of millimeters over distances of 100 of miles, and it turns out we can measure the things that we only dreamed about a century ago, how the continents are moving relative to one another, how faults are accumulating stresses. And so, a lot of the field experiences involved deploying these newly developed high precision GPS receivers in areas that hadn't been studied in learning how mountains are deforming, how faults are accumulating stresses. And then another twist in my academic history, I got interested in volcanoes. So these are powerful instruments to detect the processes that might lead up to a volcanic eruption, and I spent several years working in the Philippines studying active volcanoes and the processes that may build up to a volcanic eruption. So these field experiments often involved dozens of people kind of babysitting these instruments in various corners of the very remote areas of the world, collecting the data, coming back, and analyzing that kind of slow, gradual processes that might lead up to an earthquake or a volcanic eruption.
Shelby:Yeah. I think you mentioning some of the the changes in the technology that you've seen, that's something that always interests me because some of the things that we're able to measure, I think it's surprising even to someone in the field that we have that ability. And so, for reference, for folks who are listening, and Michael, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but oftentimes, on average, these plates that you're measuring movement on are moving at about the same rate as your fingernails grow. And so the fact that we can actually observe that and then use that for sort of hazard prediction is really sort of impressive.
Michael:Yeah. Total total revolution. There are things that we, you know, dreamed about. Actually, the the pioneer in continental drift, Alfred Wegener, a 100 years ago, kind of imagined that we could use surveying devices to test his hypothesis of continental drift. He was way off because we had nowhere near the precision we would need to measure how continents are moving.
Michael:Now we can actually do that. And, you know, for those who may be skeptical about processes of evolution of the earth, we can demonstrate that North America and Eurasia are moving apart at about an inch a year, and this gradual widening is taking place, by occasional sudden movements that happen at the mid Atlantic ridge or at Iceland where the continents are pulling apart. It's a fantastic thing. And then, for me, one of the things that's totally appealing about my field is it has super practical applications that can save lives to be able to predict when a volcano is getting ready to erupt or detect the processes that might lead up to a devastating earthquake. It's something that not many fields of science can boast is that we have the potential to save a lot of lives and really reduce the humans' vulnerability to disasters.
Shelby:And would you say that that's sort of an aspect of what you do is is sort of outside of just the hard science? Let's gather these data and see, you know, if there is a potential for a hazard in a region, but actually sort of communicating that with the people who may be directly impacted.
Michael:Absolutely. So that's something that's always appealed to me about this field in particular, and I think it's peculiar about this discipline that the people who are working in the heart of the geekiest research recognize that there's a direct connection to societal applications. I think for many scientists, that's a little difficult, a little bit of a stretch. Here, it's visible every day and especially when there's a major earthquake like last year's devastating earthquakes in Turkey, we feel a kinda heartfelt connection and a responsibility to do what we can to, you know, mitigate the impacts of future disasters like that. And to a large degree, there have been giant successes in our field that we have learned, for example, how to build buildings to withstand the strong shaking of earthquakes.
Michael:But, of course, there are vast inequities in the world and vast failures that have led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. And so I feel a kinda personal responsibility to take that on. In the last few years of my career, I've gotten much more heavily involved in these kinda practical aspects of hazard mitigation or what it's often called disaster risk reduction, and I think it's something that we can do.
Shelby:And and while you've been at IU, you also have gotten involved in sort of the science policy side of things. So can you talk a little bit about how you got into that portion of this? And because that's a little different than what a lot of sort of folks in science fields get involved with.
Michael:Yeah. So, again, in my discipline, a lot of people are involved in in this kind of gradation between pure science and pure policy. For example, taking the science and creating applied tools like earthquake hazard maps or, you know, planning for, a state or national earthquake hazard reduction program. I've been involved the last several years, for example, with the state of Indiana Department of Homeland Security. Every 5 years has to contribute a report for and preparing for and responding to natural disasters.
Michael:So I've helped contribute sections of that report on earthquake hazards and landslide hazards and a little bit on climate hazards. And, it's an important way that we can contribute our scientific expertise to some practical goals. I'd say compared to a lot of my peers, I've gone beyond that in some ways and gotten involved in some things that are much more on the policy. And One of my biggest leaps was about 8 years ago, I applied for and ended up participating in a program called the Jefferson Science Fellowship Program, which is run by the National Academy of Sciences, but it brings academic scientists in a variety of fields to work in the US State Department and the US Agency For International Development, on broad international issues related to science and science policy. And so I spent a year, with state department in Washington, several months of which were as an embassy science fellow in Nepal in the aftermath of a big earthquake they had had the previous year.
Michael:So fascinating experience that really opened my eyes to the broad spectrum of policy issues related to not just my science, but a lot of different areas of science.
Shelby:And were there aspects of working with the state department or sort of on the policy side that were very similar to things in your sort of day to day academic job, things that were really different? How did that sort of compare?
Michael:Wow. Different in almost every way. The culture of the state department was really foreign to me, almost more than visiting Tajikistan in the 19 seventies or Fiji in 19 eighties.
Shelby:No no feast with vodka bottles out?
Michael:None of that. A very formal place. People dress up in suits and ties every day, which is some, if you know me, that that's pretty foreign to me. And friendly, but a very kind of formal interaction with well organized focused meetings, very different from our academic meetings. They have a tight agenda, half an hour, a series of objectives to get done and with a series of tasks given to each person, and then a lot of, kind of diverse chances to interact with people.
Michael:Also, a lot of frustration about how slowly and how cautious the federal government is. For me, I was super impressed with the people I met, a lot of young, really bright people, really interested in doing some good in the world, but really interesting complicated, wicked problems that they were working on. I happened to be there in the year of the Paris Climate Accords. So got very involved in, efforts to support the American involvement in the international and US engagement around climate issues. So it was fascinating to see, the kind of underbelly of international relations and how a lot of this stuff really works.
Michael:So, totally fascinating and got me involved in some international aspects of science that I hadn't really encountered before.
Shelby:And did you did you bring any of that or any any things from that experience into your time here at IU, whether that be research or teaching or the way you engage with students?
Michael:Yes. It's informed a lot of the way I think about the world. The most tangible one is a program that I discovered, I learned about when I was there called the diplomacy lab program. It was a new program that was developed by John Kerry when he was secretary of state to directly engage with universities around the country to provide the kind of research support for the things that the state department does. And I thought IU would be an ideal candidate for this.
Michael:It's only done through a kind of a negotiated memorandum of understanding. Then there were only about a couple dozen universities around the country involved, now that I think there are 40. It involves working with classes or sometimes independent studies of students who are tackling a kinda complicated problem that the state department has interest in. And since the year after I came back, I've been teaching a course called environmental and energy diplomacy, and I've also been leading the diplomacy lab program at IU. I think since then, there have been something like 50 different courses in, in a half a dozen different schools involving a 1000 IU students in kind of engaging with these real world applications of their, research.
Michael:Mine has been super exciting working with kind of upper level, undergraduates and graduate students from our department, from, the O'Neil School, Public Environmental Affairs, international relations students on issues where science impacts some global environmental or energy issue. And we've worked with embassies in Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada. And, I'm applying for a project this spring that would bring me back to my beloved Central Asian republics to work on a hazard, natural hazard program for the the Central Asian Republics or the former Soviet Union. So it could come full circle this year.
Shelby:And in those experiences, are students going to these places, or are they just sort of working with folks from those communities?
Michael:Yeah. It's totally, based here in Bloomington for all of the projects, although there have been a few interesting examples where students have, kind of leapfrogged out of that program into an internship or other related career track that has taken them to those places. So we are working remotely as kind of consultants for a client. The client is either an embassy or an office in the state department, and it's been super exciting. We have, in the course of a semester, we'll have 3 or 4 meetings by video typically with with colleagues from I've been mostly working with embassies, and then a big final presentation that often has involved the ambassador to that country.
Michael:So a kinda formal thing. Students get dressed up and get a little, you know, formal experience doing a formal presentation to the staff at the embassy. And it's hard to judge exactly, but I think the products that we've produced have been really useful for them at these embassies and kinda planning their energy or environmental programs there.
Shelby:And do you have some examples of sort of these energy issues that would be the focus of this energy diplomacy idea?
Michael:Yeah. So, of course, lots of different kinds of things. About 5 years ago, our students in the environmental and energy diplomacy class worked on a project with our clients from, Embassy Kuala Lumpur. That's the capital of Malaysia. The students were this was the 2nd year of a 2 year project where the students were tasked to do some, focused examination of renewable energy opportunities that the US embassy could connect with the Malaysian government.
Michael:And this was a super fascinating project working focusing mostly on some of the less developed areas of Malaysia. Malaysia, again, is this kind of split country with parts of it super sophisticated, super developed and other areas that are just now coming on the grid. The Malaysian government was interested in developing renewable energies projects that could kind of leapfrog these remote areas into energy self sufficiency without relying on fossil fuels. So our students looked into micro hydroelectric projects, renewable, wind and solar energy projects, geothermal energy, and made recommendations to the US embassy, in order to help, further develop those projects. The last few years, we've been working on natural hazard related projects.
Michael:So we've done some projects for embassies in Mexico and Canada who are really interested, in this case, in how to protect US citizens who are living or working there. And it's kinda shocking at any one time in Mexico, for example, there may be several 1000000 Americans who are there. And if suddenly a bad hurricane or a an earthquake or tsunami hits, they have to know how to, you know, quickly respond or prepare, you know, for an incoming disaster. And so, again, we provided some insights into the range of kinds of hazards and the options for preparing for and responding to those disasters.
Shelby:And so another thing I think happened while you were at the state department that would be pretty important for for people like me and probably of my generation is you you had the opportunity to meet Bill Na. Is that correct?
Michael:That is a little bit of an exaggeration. One of the things that's cool in Washington is a lot of amazing people come there. Bill Nye was at a, as a big global event related to the Paris Climate Accords. I've forgotten what the details were. And, so I was at a bunch of events with, kinda some of the luminaries of the science and environment world, an event with Al Gore, an event with Bill Nye.
Michael:I would like to say that I got to hang and have cocktails with Bill Nye, but I I can just say that I was up close to the stage at an event when he was there in Washington. The chance to see these processes in action and, you know, be at events with the with the secretary of state. And, I did get to put my hand up at an event internal event at the state department and ask John Kerry a question. It's, you really see how, the big decisions of our society are being made and how influential people get involved in kind of supporting that process.
Shelby:Yeah. I think some people would argue you're you're one of those influential people, especially here across campus. So it's
Michael:That's a little bit of a stretch, but okay. I'll take that. And
Shelby:so another thing that you do here that I think is really important and I I know personally has impacted a lot of students as you run field courses as well. Can you talk a little bit about what those look like and what that experience is either for you or for the students on their end.
Michael:Mhmm. Shelby, you were asking me about all my favorite things in the world at the and I guess if I looking back on my I've been at IU for 38 years, on my entire time here. The thing that stands out the most to me is some of my richest experiences is bringing students, especially first time students out to the field, to sometimes areas remote from our little bubble here in the Bloomington campus, is among the most richest and rewarding experience that I've had. And I know it's been a life changer for some of the students. So for about 20 years, I've been taking a group of undergraduate, mostly freshman and sophomore students, mostly non science majors, out to a remarkable area in the Sierra Nevada and Eastern California, as a part of a program developed by our department, but in collaboration with Collins Living Learning Center and the Honors College bringing about 15 students at a time starting in Las Vegas, which is mountains to the east of Yosemite Park in Eastern California.
Michael:It's one of the richest and most beautiful exotic places in the world with active volcanoes and alkaline lakes and high mountains and glacial landscapes. And to introduce students there who have never been to that part of the world is just an eye opening and world opening experience and a total pleasure for me. Not always easy. There are always some bumps along the way, and there are some people who, when they're out there, they realize they don't want to do field work as part of their careers, and that's an important learning experience too. The last few years, I've been teaching overseas courses, an IU semester in Italy as part of the college's Aspire program, totally exciting program.
Michael:Sadly, it's one of the ones that has fallen under the ax as a result of budgetary challenges. But again, each year, 15 or 20, more like 20 students traveling overseas, many for their first time integrating history, cultural studies, art history, classics, anthropology, and geological sciences. And again, to be in one of the most geologically rich parts of the world in Southern Italy and the shadow of Mount Vesuvius and the dramatic landscape of the Amalfi coast and exploring that with students for the first time, connecting it with these historical, cultural, culinary experiences, and travel experiences is totally exciting. And I just know these students who participate in that experience will never be the same afterwards, and it's, it's an honor to be part of it.
Shelby:So I just ran a field trip this past weekend and only to Eastern Kentucky, which I'm obviously very fond of being from there.
Michael:Yep.
Shelby:But it's a 3 and a half hour drive. Geologically, it is different, but not that different from parts of Southern Indiana as compared to the places you're mentioning. But it's still one of the best parts of sort of seeing the students actively start to piece these things together from the classroom in the field and also to sort of see them as a group become friends. Like, you can you can see it in real time through these field experiences. It's a really great opportunity for students to get out and to sort of bond and to make these connections that that hopefully will be really impactful.
Michael:Okay. The question for you. What was the high point of your weekend field trip with this group?
Shelby:Well, I'd say there there maybe are 2 high points. One that will sort of hearken back to last week's episode, had the students try a local drink, the my drink of choice, which is Ale eight. And I I told them if they liked it, let me know. If they didn't, keep it to themselves. So as far as I know, they loved it.
Shelby:It was an absolute hit. So I did see a few people buy 6 packs to bring back to Indiana with them. But then I think sort of on the geologic side, getting students out, you know, in a a place that is still very accessible to them. You know, many of them have cars. They could drive down for a weekend and go back to the Red River Gorge, which is where we were, and and seeing how excited they were to sort of be out and and exploring things that they probably have seen every day in some aspect, but aren't recognizing sort of the impacts of that until they've had it in the classroom and then get to go out and see it in person.
Shelby:And so that's always that's why we do this, I feel like, to get to see that that change in students and to sort of see how their trajectory is impacted by it.
Michael:They will never look at a road outcrop or a hillside again without thinking something about their experience there. And, hopefully, you had beautiful weather this weekend, by the way, which totally can make the difference between how they feel about it. They will have a little bit of sunshine on them when they think about that.
Shelby:Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully. I know a couple of them were talking while we were there. "You know, I was texting my mom.
Shelby:I was texting with my boyfriend and telling them about this and giving them a geology lesson". And so those are the things that, yeah, they're just really rewarding when you have these trips like that.
Michael:And isn't it a totally different kind of learning that they're doing out there? I think about it compared to the classroom. It's a totally different experience for them to be getting their noses up close to an outcrop and trying to look carefully at what the pebbles are and the sandstone and then making inferences about it. Suddenly, they're scientists and not just memorizing, you know, vocabulary terms for an exam.
Shelby:Yeah. And I think that the scale that you can get in the field is something you can never replicate in the classroom. So so the class that this was for is focused on mineralogy and petrology, so minerals and rocks. And so we see a lot of hand samples, you know, things that that we've gathered in the field that they can hold in their hands. And you can see pictures of what these things look like in the field, which is on a much larger scale, but to actually be there is sort of this this sort of awe moment where they see these things that you talk about and how they can impact really large areas or you can look at them in very fine detail like you just mentioned.
Shelby:And so it's, yeah, it's a really, really useful component of of what we do that a lot of fields, you know, don't have have the opportunity to do these sort of field experiences. And so that's one of the the highlights in earth and atmosphere sciences.
Michael:Totally amazing. There's a moment in our California field trip where I always feel like, oh my god. The light bulb has just gone on. They've done a little kinda microscopic work looking at deposits from a big volcanic eruption, and then we go down into a gorge where they're under, like, 500 feet of this volcanic material. And suddenly, their eyes open up, and they realize this was a humongous volcanic eruption, and it's kind of, you know, blows their mind to realize that they figured out what happened and how it happened.
Michael:And it's like being a detective and solving an intractable problem.
Shelby:So do you have any sort of words of advice for folks that may be especially students who may be thinking of this as a field or things you might have told yourself if you could go back when you were in high school or in undergrad and sort of inform your decision making?
Michael:There's something that I think about. It actually still sticks in my mind, when I was a beginning graduate student and totally full of self doubt and thinking I do not have the skills to proceed with this field. It's a my field is a very technical field where people have super strong mathematical and computational skills, and I did not have that at all. And then I read something by kind of one of the visionary leaders of our field who wrote something about our discipline, and it's probably true about all scientific disciplines, is so complex, and there are so many frontiers that are needing of great minds that we can make use of every kind of way of approaching our science, and there's a place for everybody in our field. And it was totally opposite to my way of thinking about science, which I always thought about as a as a selective fraternity of just the best and the brightest, and realized there were things that I was good at and could contribute that other people couldn't.
Michael:And I maybe was never gonna be the theoretical or computational visionary of our field, but I could maybe combine even my experience with cultural or language studies and my kind of broad scientific appreciation for the field that actually could be turned into an asset. So, take those things that you think might be liabilities or barriers and do a little jujitsu with them and turn them into opportunities to do something you love. For me, one of the greatest gifts of my career is that it's a passion for me, and I just feel lucky to be able to do what I do. So no matter what you choose to do, find something that you love and move forward in that direction.
Shelby:I think those are great words to live by. So to wrap up today's episode, we'll do the yes, please segment where each of us will have a minute to discuss something that we feel passionately about in the moment. You're welcome to go first. I can go first, whichever
Michael:Why don't you go first? I'm gonna think a little bit about my yes, please. Okay.
Shelby:So we'll get a timer going. And, Michael, if you don't care to sort of give me you can start this whenever I'm ready to start and sort of give me a countdown. So tell me when there's 30 seconds left, 15, and maybe 5 seconds.
Michael:Okay.
Shelby:And I'm ready Ready. Whenever you are
Michael:Ready and. Go.
Shelby:Yes, please. Give us more of this fall weather. So I mentioned earlier that I've led this field trip. Incredible weather this weekend, but it was strangely hot. And so we finally have the first glimpse of fall at least here in Bloomington.
Shelby:I feel like today, there is something about fall that makes you wanna get cozy. I feel like the daytime temperatures are perfect to be out and about. Excellent field work weather. The night, it gets a little chilly, perfect for a little bit of a bonfire. Maybe you can throw some s'mores on there.
Shelby:And so there's something about fall that is really, really appealing. I am a fall baby. I was born in the fall, so I might be a little biased. But this time of year brings out so much natural beauty as well. So it's another thing about being in the field.
Shelby:You get to see the leaves change. This part of Southern Indiana and Eastern Kentucky where we were was amazing for that. And so I love this time of year, and I hope that we have a lot more of this coming up.
Michael:That sounds so great. It is my favorite time of the year too. So, now I got something I'm thinking about.
Shelby:Okay. I'm ready whenever you are.
Michael:Okay. Let's do it.
Shelby:So this is Michael Hamburgers Yes, please.
Michael:Yes, please. I am totally with you about the fall weather, but I'm gonna mention something that I've fallen in love with the past few years. I know I've driven some of my friends and colleagues crazy about talking about it, but I have just discovered rowing. When I go almost every weekend and often, I'm gonna sneak out on an evening like tonight, a beautiful fall evening to Lake Lemmon with the Riddle Point Rowing Association, and I'm gonna go out on one of those skinny little skulls with either one other person or 3 other person people and rowing about an inch above the water level, looking backwards, so seeing behind behind us as we're skimming through the water at an amazingly peaceful but fast pace, and with a view of the eagles and the kingfishers over the lake and enjoying this natural beauty while getting some exercise, one of my favorite things in the world.
Shelby:Perfect. How long have you been rowing?
Michael:I've been rowing for about, 8 or 10 years now. I'm a lifelong kind of amateur, but I really love getting out and getting away from town a little bit and just being in a in a beautiful place. Sometimes early in the morning, I feel like I'm in some little lake in New England or Northern Minnesota or something like that with just the calm water and the trees turning color and the birds. It's a beautiful thing. Sooner or later, I'm gonna get you out there.
Shelby:Well, we'll see. I'll I'll give it a try. I will certainly be a lifelong amateur, but I'm I'm more than willing to to at least try it once.
Michael:Okay. That's the deal.
Shelby:Thank you, Michael, very much for joining us today. This has been an excellent, opportunity to get to chat with you. And folks, I hope that you join us next week when there'll be a new scientist on the podcast that you'll get to know about over drinks. We'll see you then. Earth on the Rocks is produced by Kari Metz with artwork provided by Connor Leimgruber, with technical recording managed by Kate Crum and Betsy Leija.
Shelby:Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation Grant, EAR dash 2422824.
