I lava good volcano - with Dr. Elizabeth Kenderes
Hi, folks. Welcome back to Earth on the Rocks, the show where we get to know the person behind the signs. As always, I'm your host, Shelby Rader, and joining me today is Dr. Elizabeth Kenderes. Elizabeth, welcome to the show.
Elizabeth:Thank you for having me, Shelby.
Shelby:So Elizabeth, since we're gonna get to know you over drinks today, what would be your drink of choice?
Elizabeth:My drink of choice would be hop water.
Shelby:Oh, okay. So can you tell us a little bit about hop water for people who may not be familiar?
Elizabeth:Yeah. So hop water is kind of like LaCroix, but flavored with hops. It's a non alcoholic beverage, and it's just kinda like bubbly hop flavored water.
Shelby:So it sounds like you're obviously a hops fan, which I feel like could be a little bit of a a controversial view depending on on who's listening. What is it about hops that you enjoy?
Elizabeth:Oh, it's got like an earthy flavor to it. So I just I don't know. Maybe earth scientists really like the earthy flavors.
Shelby:Yeah. Hop water is is really good and a great alternative for other other types of drinks. So you're also part of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department here, and you do some really interesting work and some really incredible teaching. So if someone were to come up to you and say, you know, what sort of scientist are you? How would you classify yourself?
Elizabeth:So the simplest definition of what I do is I am a petrologist, specifically an igneous petrologist. And what that means is I study rocks of an origin from a magma to a lava, how that magma and lava becomes a rock. And so I look at those types of rocks, and I try to decide, okay, well, what's your story? And I use that information for a lot of different things. A lot of times I'll tell people that I study volcanic processes and understanding how volcanoes erupt, why they erupt, and how we can think about that for present day.
Shelby:Yeah. I think that thinking of it as storytelling is such a really good way to view it. I think that way about geosciences in general, like, these rocks can tell you a story, and in some cases, a really complex story, a really old story. You can learn so much just from, you know, a field area or a handful of samples. And I think the idea of understanding volcanoes and processes related to them is probably something that a lot of folks are at least somewhat familiar with, this idea of of volcanoes.
Shelby:So what sort of got you interested in this field in the beginning? Was this something when you were younger you thought, oh, man, I just think volcanoes are really cool and I wanna go into this? Or did this happen later in life? Or what what was that sort of transition like?
Elizabeth:Yeah. It was definitely a a later in life sort of thing for me, which I think is the case for a lot of people in our field. I've always liked rocks. I've always collected rocks. I've always kind of enjoyed going to the beach and bringing them home, and my mom would hate all of these extra rocks that I'd bring home
Shelby:every Yeah. They're heavy too. I mean, the weight adds up.
Elizabeth:Yeah. Definitely. I always liked science, and I went through a lot of different science fields when I was in my undergraduate. I think I started in biochemistry, I kind of moved on into engineering, both of my brothers were engineers, and I was in a geotechnical civil engineering track.
Shelby:Right. Okay, that's a mouthful.
Elizabeth:Yes. And so I really enjoyed taking a geology class in that. And then I was like, oh, here we go. This is what I want to do. I can apply all of my sciences, everything that I'm really interested in, and I can do it all with earth science.
Shelby:I think that that I mean, that's not an uncommon situation for people to come into it later in life. So what was it that when you took that class, you sort of knew that's what it was for you?
Elizabeth:That's a really good question. What I liked is that it applied all of the different sciences. It wasn't just I had to commit to physics, or I had to commit to chemistry, or I had to commit to biology. It was that I could take all of those, and I could actually apply it in a way that was relevant to where society was going, and ways that I can actually help the planet, where I felt like a very tangible understanding of what goes on in this planet. And I really enjoyed that.
Shelby:Yeah. I think that that the geosciences in particular are, like, really well versed in taking all these different STEM fields, social science fields, even art fields in some cases, and then applying them in a way that feels very tangible. Like, you can go out and see these things. You can measure these things. You can look at at samples.
Shelby:And I think that for me was really rewarding. It sounds like for you was really rewarding. So, yeah, that's that's sort of a nice way to draw you in. So Yeah. At that point in undergrad, you changed majors, I'm assuming?
Elizabeth:I did. I completely changed my whole career path. What I actually wanted to do is I started to take courses where I was concentrating in hydrology. I was gonna be a low temperature geochemist, believe it or not. And it was in my senior year that I had this really amazing professor, and she asked if I would willing to work on this project that she had with some rocks that she had in Montana.
Elizabeth:And it was this really weird rock type that she called a carbonatite. Okay. And I was like, oh, it's this. And it's this really explosive volcano that's very rich in rare earth elements. That's a big thing.
Elizabeth:We want rare earth elements. And so I was like, oh yeah, let's do this. And so that completely switched my career again. And instead of this idea of me wanting to work in hydrogeology, I was gonna go work for the EPA. All of sudden it was like grad school.
Elizabeth:Grad school's a path that you can go on to. And I had no idea that I could go to grad school and not pay money. And I ended up going into a program and from there on, it's it's been petrology. So
Shelby:So you mentioned you started out thinking maybe you'd be a hydrologist. Can you tell us what that aspect of geosciences entails? So if someone were a hydrologist, what would they be looking at?
Elizabeth:So what I wanted to look at as a hydrologist is I wanted to look particularly at groundwater contamination and understanding the kind of pollutants that we have in groundwater and surface waters and how to clean those up effectively. And I pictured myself working for the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. There's all kinds of things around that with testing water and understanding how these pollutants are transmitted through the ground or through surface waters. And that was something that was really interesting to me.
Shelby:Yeah. I think that that's, I mean, that's a field that a lot of folks, a lot of students end up going into from our department too is is sort of like environmental testing of these sorts of things. But then you were presented these really weird sort of compositionally strange rocks, and then that hooked you further in a different direction. So these were samples that you already had on hand.
Elizabeth:Mhmm.
Shelby:And when you were an undergrad, what sort of experiences in terms of research did you get to do with those?
Elizabeth:Yeah, so the samples had already been analyzed for their chemistry. So I had chemical data on what the composition of those rocks were. And they were also turned into thin sections, which are these ultra thin slices of rock that we glue to glass slides and look at underneath the microscope. And so my work was literally spending three months of my summer trying to teach myself what the chemistry of these rocks meant, because I had never had a petrology class. And I taught myself how to look at these rocks in the microscope.
Elizabeth:The program that I was in was very much more focused on kind of the environmental side rather than this petrology side. So I remember picking up a textbook and literally teaching myself how to do this.
Shelby:That's no small feat. No. For folks that are listening that have not seen a thin section before, it's exactly what Elizabeth describes. And in my mind, before I'd seen one, like you see a rock and they're usually opaque, oftentimes, you know, a range of colors, but some skew pretty dark. And so you think that's what they're gonna be like when you cut them.
Shelby:But when you cut them this thin, they're actually see through and there's some coloration, but not a lot usually. And when you put them on a microscope, you can change different aspects of the microscope and sometimes they'll end up being incredibly beautiful in a microscope. Like I think thin section photos of rock samples are beautiful artwork. I can remember as an undergrad, there were folks that, you know, would like take pictures through the microscope and then end up having the pictures blown up and framed. So if you're listening and you haven't seen one of these before, you should Google rock thin section images.
Shelby:And, yeah, they're not what you would think for a rock, don't think. They're pretty cool. So after you do this project, you decide, like, hey. I think I might wanna think about grad school. And so you go to grad school with this idea of being in the sort of petrology, the high temperature geochem field.
Shelby:And so what sort of project did you get to work on while you were there? And where were you for grad school?
Elizabeth:Yeah. So I went to the University of Missouri for graduate school, and I got to work on another weird rock type called a pegmatite. Pegmatites are also very useful resources for lithium. Lithium is a big commodity right now. Back when I was looking at it, I was thinking mining was going away, right?
Elizabeth:But I was looking at these pegmatites, and I was looking at how the lithium is transported during the crystallization. So when it goes from molten rock, a molten magma into a crystal, how does that happen? And my focus was on understanding how the lithium was exchanging with other elements to form acids as this magma crystallized, and how that actually helps form gem minerals.
Shelby:So that's, I think, a really interesting aspect of this. So can you talk a little bit about sort of what is a gem mineral? Because that's probably something that once people hear about it, they'll be a lot more familiar with than they really think in terms of of geology and its applications.
Elizabeth:Yeah. When you think of a lot of the jewelry, like you think of maybe diamonds. Diamonds are used for lots of jewelry, but usually you only see these very clear, very pretty diamonds. Gem quality refers to minerals that have that kind of clarity. They have that jewelry desirable aspect to it.
Elizabeth:But not all diamonds are pretty. Many diamonds are actually almost opaque looking, they have inclusions in them that remove that clarity from them. And there's a question of how do you get a clear mineral versus one of these like kind of, okay, well, it's just a rock on the side of the road. And understanding the difference in what kind of conditions form the mineral pretty or not pretty?
Shelby:Yeah. And and like these gem quality minerals are minerals. They're from geologic processes, but are probably something people encounter, if not every day, then pretty frequently, whether it be themselves or with other people, that is an aspect of of geosciences that they're interacting with. When I lived in Tucson, Tucson has one of the largest gym shows in the world. It happens every February.
Shelby:If you're ever in town during that time, definitely check it out. I knew of gems before that, obviously, but had never had never experienced gems at that magnitude. It is crazy how big and beautiful and clear and pure some of these things can be. Yeah, there's like an entire subfield of geosciences that focuses on these these gems. And the fact that you were sort of doing research related to how these things formed, but looking at unusual elements is that's a really cool project to get to work on.
Elizabeth:Yeah. Absolutely. It was a it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.
Shelby:And when you were working on this project, you were in the field, you were in the lab, you were some combination. What did that look like?
Elizabeth:It was a combination. So I also consider myself somewhat of a field geologist. I had two weeks of field work that were associated with that project where I went to Southern California, we went into these cool pegmatite mines where we actually went underground and collected samples from different portions of this pegmatite. And took those samples home and did a lot of prep on creating something a little bit different than thin sections, but thick sections, which we used to do a couple other different analyses on.
Elizabeth:Did some chemical work on those thick sections, and then most of my time was actually spent in this tiny little room that's about half the size of this room, no windows, spending eight plus hours in there. Yeah.
Shelby:I think a lot of a lot of labs I've been in are set up in a similar way. It's a small room. It's usually not very aesthetically appealing. There's almost never windows. So when you go in there, you feel like you're you're, like, isolated in your own world.
Shelby:You don't know what time of day it is, if the sun's still out. But yeah, that often goes hand in hand with some of these analytical So when you were in the field, had you been underground before that? Into an underground mine?
Elizabeth:Not into an underground mine, no. But that is where I first discovered that I am very afraid of underground mines.
Shelby:Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like? Because I'd say for a lot of folks, they probably have never been into an underground mine, and it's like a whole another world.
Elizabeth:It is. It's it's kind of intimidating when you see there are supports. And I don't know, maybe the support should put you at ease because you know that the roof is not going to collapse on There are very important engineers that are there assessing the rock and the stability to make sure that it doesn't collapse, but seeing the need for a support when you are some number of feet underground. It's quite intimidating. And knowing that you had to actually blast through the rock to get in there, that creates fractures in the rock, and it it can be a little intimidating thinking, okay, could collapse.
Shelby:Yes. Yeah, it is a little unsettling at times. Yeah. Also, depending on how far underground you go or how deep in you go, at some point the air becomes really stagnant too. And so you're used to just being, you know, in a building or outdoors and in the air more or less feeling fresh.
Shelby:Like, if there are things that make it not so fresh, you still you can tell that it's moving. But when you're in some of these deeper mines, yeah, you can even in your headlamps. There's no lots in a lot of these. You have lots on your headlamp. You can see sort of like dust particles that are just almost sitting.
Shelby:It's like they're not they're not falling. They're just sort of hanging out, and it's a really almost thick feeling when you're down there breathing it in and out. But it is yeah. It's a different experience for sure. Also, I was at Arizona so we had a geoscience department.
Shelby:They also have a mining engineering department. And so Arizona as a university had bought land near somewhat near campus that had a very small deposit on it of copper. So nothing that was valuable enough for a company to want to extract, but there still was something there. And they would use it as a training ground for the engineering students to come in and actually like learn how to drill and blast and reinforce walls and things. So they had us come out at some point to map the underground systems because they were wanting to find the area that would be most geologically stable to put in a new entrance.
Shelby:And so while we were there, we were there off and on for several weekends. At one point, they were practicing drilling and blasting. And so they asked if anybody wanted to try their hand at drilling a hole to then put a blast in, and and I volunteered. And so I got to drill an underground hole for blasting, and it's this, like, huge pneumatic drill that's set up on a tripod. It's pretty wild.
Shelby:I have a video of it somewhere. But very weird experience, but a lot of fun to get to do. But, yeah, underground mines are a strange place that could be a little unsettling.
Elizabeth:That's awesome. What a cool experience.
Shelby:Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Never in my life will I get to do that again. So I'm glad that I jumped at the opportunity. Part of the work that you did while you were there was looking at fluid inclusions.
Shelby:Right?
Elizabeth:Yes.
Shelby:So I think that's also a term that people have probably never heard of. So can you tell us sort of what those are, how you look at them, and what they can tell you? Because it's a pretty fun thing, I think.
Elizabeth:Yeah. It actually really is. I didn't appreciate it as much when I was doing it because I was stuck in that little But fluid inclusions are tiny bits of water mixed with some other ions that get trapped in minerals as they crystallize. And you actually don't see them with the naked eye usually. I actually have some pieces of quartz that have visible water that you can see moving.
Shelby:That's really cool.
Elizabeth:Yeah. But for the most part, they're less than a millimeter. And inside of these fluid inclusions, it has the history of what that magma looked like as the crystal was crystallizing. And so what we can do is by measuring those fluid inclusions, we can measure a lot of things like the temperature that that mineral crystallized, and the composition of things around that crystal. And that's also how I was able to understand those acids and how they were interacting with lithium and forming these really cool gem quality crystals.
Shelby:Yeah. I think the idea that you have this original liquid that is now trapped in a solid mineral, and you can use it to understand processes that you weren't there for, that you can't go back and repeat, and in some cases are really, really old. Like, the fact that that even happens at all is pretty wild. So when you're looking at these fluid inclusions, how are you preparing the samples? So you mentioned these thick sections, and then what you maybe do with those afterwards?
Elizabeth:Yeah, so essentially the thick sections are thicker than thin sections. Thin sections are 30 microns thick, okay. Thick sections can be a couple millimeters, and it's a matter of polishing them and looking
Shelby:at
Elizabeth:them underneath the microscope, but then we actually break them into smaller little chips. And we take those chips and look at them under a fluid inclusion microscope, which can actually heat up and cool down that sample to 600 degrees Celsius all the way down to like negative 40 degrees Celsius so that we can look at how that fluid changes as we heat it up and cool it down.
Shelby:I know that you were stuck in a small room doing that, and I get why you wouldn't appreciate it at the time, but it sounds like a really cool thing after the fact, like after you've gotten through the suffering of being isolated for Trapped. Hours at a time. Yes. Yes. Trapped like a fluid inclusion.
Shelby:Yes. Yes.
Elizabeth:But that I also got to play with liquid nitrogen, so that was kind of fun.
Shelby:That's always a good time. So after you sort of finish up your time in graduate school, then sort of where did you go or what did you do after that?
Elizabeth:So I had some visiting positions. I discovered in graduate school that I really loved teaching. I TA'd for pretty much every course that I could while I was in grad school. And I really wanted to find a good place where I could teach and share kind of the passion that I've developed about this earth. And so I had a couple visiting positions.
Elizabeth:I did get a permanent position at another institution, and then ended up finding IU. IU is a place that I've always kind of wanted to come work at for some weird reasons, family reasons, but also I had spent some time in Bloomington prior to this, and I really liked Bloomington. So when the position opened up here at IUB, I immediately applied for it, and been here since 2021.
Shelby:And we're very lucky to have you here. So when you came here, sort of what have you been doing since 2021 while you've been here?
Elizabeth:So I've been primarily focused on teaching. I have had some undergraduate students who have done research with me that's actually picking quite up this semester. But I've been focused a lot on teaching. I teach this one class every semester. It's called Earth, Our Habitable Planet.
Elizabeth:And that's one of my favorite classes to teach. It's been such a cool experience to be able to teach this class.
Shelby:Why is that? What makes it sort of your favorite?
Elizabeth:So it's an introductory course, but it is focused on the earth as a system, and connecting all of the spheres, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the geosphere, the biosphere, and understanding how things that happen in one place have huge impacts in other places. My students just got finished talking about the ocean circulation, for example. And we're talking about this in terms of ocean transporting heat and moving heat from the Equator towards the poles, but also understanding how changes in that circulation system can affect weather patterns, which can affect flooding patterns, which can affect the biosphere and things living near coastlines. Something really cool that we kind of talk about is this idea that warm water is brought up all the way through the Atlantic to towards the North Pole. And that circulation right there, if that changes even in the slightest, can have impacts on the monsoons that happen in India.
Elizabeth:Thinking about just that simple fact is so interesting to me, and it's so cool to see students recognize those kind of big scale connections.
Shelby:Well, think that those sorts of things are so important for anybody to think about because I feel like it's really easy for all of us to get so wrapped up in our day to day lives and think about things that we're going through, but to really step back and realize just how interconnected all of us are, how the planet is, and like you're mentioning these sort of feedbacks between things that initially you would think are completely separate from one another. Yeah. The earth is just a really amazing place. Obviously, we we both feel, you know, very excited by the whole thing. And then you've also taught quite a bit at our field station.
Shelby:Right?
Elizabeth:I have. Yes.
Shelby:Can you tell us a little bit about sort of the idea behind those sorts of courses and what that's like?
Elizabeth:Yes. For earth scientists, understanding the earth is one aspect. And we can get a huge understanding of the earth in the classroom. But there's something more that comes from being able to actually get out there and put your finger on the things that you're learning in the classroom. To actually be able to see in three dimensions what's happening, and whether or not that is in relationship to rock structures, or different rock types, or understanding how groundwater might move through these rocks.
Elizabeth:There's so much more that you can get from just being there, and seeing those processes in three dimensions.
Shelby:Yeah. And because geosciences is a field that you can go out and see these sorts of things, it makes it so much more exciting to sort of take all these things from the classroom and then actually apply them in a way that that has immediate impact. So I think both of us went through field camp as a student. And so from sort of the student perspective, what was that like for you? What were some some highs or lows if students are listening to this and thinking about attending a field camp themselves?
Elizabeth:Yeah. It is very intellectually and physically demanding. I remember being out there and feeling like I couldn't do it some days. But getting out there and actually seeing it and like accomplishing the task. So I feel like field camp was one of the first places that I kind of struggled, where it wasn't immediately like, yes, I get this.
Elizabeth:I had to work through that, and so working through it for the first time can be really intimidating, and you can feel like you couldn't do it. But I think it's so important to make it through that, and to recognize that you know what, sometimes you're gonna come up with struggles. This is gonna happen any time in life. And making it past that struggle, being able to go beyond that and understand it is such a great feeling. And it feels so much better being able to understand it after struggling than immediately just getting it right away.
Elizabeth:Yeah. And that's what I loved so much about field camp, and that's actually why I wanted to be able to teach field camp in the future, because I love the students that struggle. You don't expect your teachers to say, I wanna see you struggle. Yeah. It's the students that struggle and then overcome that struggle that I see so much growth in.
Elizabeth:And so, while I don't want you to struggle in a way that's gonna be like terrorizing to your mental health, I do want you to feel that feeling of, yes, I can get this after having struggled. Because that's such a huge life lesson.
Shelby:Yeah. And there's something so satisfying about about sort of pushing through that. I can remember when I was a student at field camp, we had this one day where we were in the fields, like Elizabeth said, it can be pretty physically demanding. And, you know, for the most part, there are exceptions, you're sort of out there rain, snow, sleet, hail, sunshine.
Shelby:And so we had gone out in the field. We were in this canyon for the day. And when we started out, it was pretty cold but slightly above freezing. And we were sort of at high elevation, and we were gonna walk our way down this canyon for several miles to low elevation back to where our vehicles were parked, and we were gonna be mapping the whole way. So when we start the day, it's just above freezing and rainy.
Shelby:And it's like not hard rain, but it's this very consistent drizzle, you know, like, don't really wanna be out in it, but you are. And then as the day went on, the temperature continued to drop. And so we went from this rain and drizzle to sleet to then snow. And it got so cold that our compasses, we use these things called Brunton compasses that have this little dial in them that spins around to help orient you north south. They were sticking, they were freezing.
Shelby:And so yeah, you're like, oh my gosh, when is this day gonna be over? You know, like, want to be back in these warm vehicles and go home. But then at the end of the day, when you actually do make it through and you get back to the vehicles, that was the first time during field camp. And there were several other times where once I was there, I was like, you know what, I'm really proud of myself for sticking it out, like for having a good attitude during it. And this is an experience that I will never have again because because I likely am not gonna voluntarily put myself in these conditions very frequently.
Shelby:And so, yeah, like embracing some of the difficulty, but also the ability to overcome it. That's a really satisfying feeling that I hope every student gets to experience at some point.
Elizabeth:Yeah. Absolutely.
Shelby:One of the other things I think for me was a struggle. Maybe maybe your field camp experience was slightly different was the food. We we had sandwiches every day for lunch. So you like pack a sandwich and take it to the field. And the first probably three and a half or four weeks, it's not so bad.
Shelby:But those last two weeks, you don't wanna see a sandwich for the rest of your life in that moment. I mean, that changes, but in the heat of the moment, you're so tired of seeing sandwiches.
Elizabeth:I still have not eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich since my student year in field.
Shelby:Yeah. There's just something about having the same things for pretty much six weeks straight, it's hard to get past.
Elizabeth:Yep. So even as an instructor out there, we we have the sandwich option. I have not brought a sandwich out. I have taught out at IU's camp for three years, and I'll take carrot sticks, cheese sticks, tuna salad, anything but a sandwich.
Shelby:Yeah. That's very fair. So if you're listening as a student, planning to go to field camp, keep in mind, especially those last few weeks, you might want some some lunch options outside of the sandwiches.
Elizabeth:Yes.
Shelby:As an instructor now, so sort of on the other side, what have been some of the things that you've really enjoyed about being in the field and also at IU's field station? It's a really beautiful area.
Elizabeth:Oh, it is. I mean, it is amazing that we have this station that is, it's ours. I mean, it is property that we have to bring students and to house students and to teach them about the geology. It's in Montana, and it's in a place in Montana that it is outstanding geology. There are few places in the Western United States that we see so many types of geology overlapping.
Elizabeth:And to be able to bring students out to this place that realistically they would have to travel to hours away in multiple directions anywhere else in The US, that they can see all of those things so close to our home base, I think is really an amazing thing. So the planning for where the field station is is actually outstanding. It is the perfect location, and I've absolutely loved teaching out there.
Shelby:Yeah. It's a beautiful place. I go out for a very short period, and it always feels like a vacation because, yeah, the geology's really great. The area's beautiful. It's so different from this part of the country in terms of of what it looks like.
Shelby:It's just a lot of fun to be out there.
Elizabeth:Yes. And for a lot of students, I mean, this might be their first time going to the mountains. And to be put in such a beautiful and remote place is a really life changing experience.
Shelby:Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people, no matter which field camp they went to, have that feeling. Like that's such a formative period of their undergrad career, because it it oftentimes is the first time they've been in a in an area like that. And, yeah, like, living and eating with the same people for six weeks is a pretty intense experience. And so it it does sort of, you know, change your perspective on things and hopefully in a good way.
Elizabeth:Yeah. Yeah. You do develop a lot of social skills. Yes.
Shelby:Yeah. Not by choice. So I'd say one of the things, like, you're you're known for really great teaching and you also have become known, I'd argue, especially at the field station for your nail art. Oh. And and for a period, even had a stint as sort of a nail art, like social media presence.
Shelby:Right?
Elizabeth:A a little bit. A little bit. Yes.
Shelby:So can you tell us a little bit about that? Because because it was mentioned at least on an earlier episode of the podcast. But yeah, I think a lot of people attribute sort of the nail art to you.
Elizabeth:Yeah. Yeah. So I love doing my nails. I have them done now.
Shelby:They look great for folks that are listening.
Elizabeth:I was actually planning on doing geode nails Yeah. For today, but I ran out of time. So there is this perception of a geologist that they are dirty, that they go out into the field and they have to dress a certain way and look a certain way. And 2017, I decided to stop. I was like, no.
Elizabeth:I'm gonna change their perception of what a geologist has to be. And I started doing my nails, and it was really cool to just be able to do my nails and connect with students on that kind of level because they'd ask, oh, where'd you get your nails done? Oh, I did them. But then I continued to do them in the field, and I had students saying, how do you have such long nails in the field? Don't you break them?
Elizabeth:How do you keep them nice? And so I just, I kept doing it because I could. And I wanted to show that, hey, I can still be out dirty geologists in the field. Yes, I'm digging around in the rocks and have nice nails.
Shelby:And and so you ended up having a social media presence and essentially becoming an an influencer, I would argue. I don't know if you would embrace that term, but I mean, you had a pretty good good following. You were getting, like, free shipments of things
Elizabeth:from getting free products. Yeah. So it was it was pretty much during COVID when I was locked in that I was doing my nails maybe once a day, once every other day. And I was starting to get companies saying, hey, do you wanna try out this new line of product and do your nails, post some videos, post some pictures, and I was like, sure, I'll take free product.
Shelby:Yeah.
Elizabeth:So so now I do have a whole nail room in in the house that's dedicated to all of my nail products.
Shelby:That's incredible. Do you still influence?
Elizabeth:I do not, no. I actually stopped taking pictures. That was the thing that I found that was starting to make me not enjoy it so much is the pressure of taking the perfect picture to post. And once I stopped taking pictures of my nails, I enjoyed doing it again.
Shelby:Well, and and like you said, it's a really good way to connect with with students, with other faculty that are at the field station, with, you know, like folks that you're interacting with off and on on the the street or in the classroom. So I think it's really cool that you do it. You do an excellent job, and it's sort of a fun aspect of, like you said, of what geoscientists can be that people maybe don't always think about.
Elizabeth:Yeah.
Shelby:So if you were to talk to some of those students and, like, give them advice if they're listening to this and thinking, oh, this might be a career that I'm interested in, or if you could go back and tell your younger self something, what would that would that be or what would that look like?
Elizabeth:I would say if you have an interest in earth sciences or atmospheric sciences, go for it. There is so much opportunity. There is so many different things that you can do with earth sciences. And it doesn't necessarily have to be If you decide you hate field work, you don't want to be out in the field, you don't have to be out in the field. You can be in the lab. If you hate lab work
Elizabeth:You don't have to be in a lab. If you like working with people, there are so many opportunities to be able to work with people with outreach, with teaching, which is what I enjoy, but also with public, and public education, or public outreach, or working with public policy. There are so many avenues just by understanding the earth, and by understanding those earth processes that this field can open up for you. And so if you love this, if you love what you're learning in this, there is going to be a job for you.
Shelby:I think that's great advice. And yeah, there's so many things that the geosciences are intertwined with that that can lead to really fulfilling careers, both explicitly within geosciences and and outside of geosciences, that I hope that that folks who listen to the show have started to understand or recognize the diversity of career paths that come with this. And, yeah, a lot of it can be really fulfilling. So that brings us to our last segment of the show, which is our yes, please segment where we each get on our soapbox for a minute and talk passionately about something that's excited us in the moment. So, Elizabeth, do you wanna go first or do you wanna go second?
Elizabeth:I'll go first.
Shelby:Okay. Alright. Then I will time you. I'll give you a notice whenever you have thirty seconds, fifteen, and five. So if you're ready, this is doctor Elizabeth Kenderes' Yes, Please.
Elizabeth:Alright. Yes, please. Can we talk about recognizing our mentors? I had a student reach out to me last year and tell me how much I had impacted her career. And that was something that really hit home for me.
Elizabeth:It was something that was very amazing to have this student think so much about what I did that she wanted to reach out to me a year later.
Shelby:Thirty seconds.
Elizabeth:This is something that I hadn't really thought about when I think about my past mentors, and talking about the ways that they've impacted my career. And I wanna make sure that they understand how much they have impacted. Fifteen. And so I've been reaching out to all of my past mentors and telling them all of the ways that they have helped me to get where I am today. And I just wanna encourage others to do the same.
Shelby:Perfect. And right on time too. I think that is is such a good message because, you know, most folks that are in this sphere, most folks that are in education do it because they love interacting with students. And, you know, like getting to see them every day is really nice, but then also getting to hear when things are going well for them afterwards is also really, really rewarding. So I am very much the type of person that loves to show appreciation, so I'm fully on board with you there.
Shelby:Excellent. Alright. Now it's up to me. You you wanna time me and you can do the same? Give me a heads up when there's thirty, fifteen, and five.
Elizabeth:Sure thing.
Shelby:Alright. This will be my yes, please for the day. Alright. Yes, please. Can we give some love to mascots?
Shelby:So I wanna talk specifically about one mascot that has become my favorite mascot. This is Ellie the elephant, who is the mascot for the WNBA champion New York Liberty. If you are unfamiliar with Ellie, please look her up. She has the look, the personality, and in my opinion, most importantly, the moves, is one of the best mascots that I think I've ever seen. I come from several institutions with very well known mascots like Western Kentucky University, which has a big red blob as its mascot.
Shelby:So it's always in the running for the ESPN mascot bracket. So I really have a lot of love for Ellie. She does great performances, great shows. Growing up, it was sort of a pipe dream of mine, still is, if I'm being honest, for me to be a mascot. I can't imagine anything better than being unrecognizable and getting to to just dance and have fun.
Shelby:So please show show some love to Ellie and other mascots too.
Elizabeth:Wow. You have that perfectly done.
Shelby:Well, I've I've done this once or twice before. But, yeah, I think mascots are such an important and fun part of sporting events, and some of them are really creative. Some of them are really weird, and that's why people love them. I think about pretty much all the mascots from Philadelphia, you know, which I I love, but they're all very strange. Ellie is fantastic.
Shelby:Again, one of the best mascots I've ever seen. Big Red from my undergrad institution is also a very strange mascot that gets a lot of of local support. One of my best friends when I was in undergrad, still one of my best friends, but he was one of the mascots while we were there, and I got to go with him on several events to to, like, help him get in and out of character. And it yeah. It just is a lot of fun to see the joy that they can bring to people that are are there.
Elizabeth:Yes. My husband has been sending me reels of Blue, who is the Colt's mascot. And every day, I get reel stuff.
Shelby:Okay. You need to get him on to Ellie the elephant, big Maybe we can get some more support behind her.
Elizabeth:Alright. I'll do that.
Shelby:Okay. Thank you, Elizabeth. This has been a great opportunity to have you on. I appreciate you coming.
Elizabeth:Thank you for having me.
Shelby:And for folks that are listening, we hope to see you next week when we have a new guest. Earth on the rocks is produced by Cari Metz with artwork provided by Connor Leimgruber, with technical recording managed by Kate Crum and Betsy Leija. Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation grant EAR dash 2422824.
