Welcome to Earth on the Rocks, a show where we get to know the person behind the science over drinks. Each episode will highlight a new scientist in the earth and atmospheric sciences to learn more about their journey, what interests them, and who they are outside of their science.
Host: Shelby Rader
Producer: Cari Metz
Artwork: Connor Leimgruber
Board Operator: Kate Crum, Betsy Leija
Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation grant EAR-2422824.
Hi, folks, and welcome to Earth on the Rocks, a new podcast coming to you from Indiana University. I'm your host, Shelby Rader, and I'm an assistant professor within the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences here. So the idea of the podcast is to give you as listeners more insight into the people who do geoscience research. I myself never had any expectation of being in the geosciences, and I find that that's how a lot of people feel whenever they are brought into the department either as students, or as people who are coming to do research with faculty there. And so this is an opportunity to not only learn about some of the really interesting and exciting research that people are doing, but really to get to know them more as a person.
Shelby:So every week or every episode, there'll be a new guest that I'll talk with, and it's just gonna be a conversation, so that you can get to know more about them and some of the things that they're excited by. So since this is Geology on the Rocks, the idea is that, each of these conversations with folks would sort of and be like if we were having a chat over drinks. And so, each episode will also ask the guest what their drink of choice would be. So mine for today is Ale 8, ale dash the number 8, which is a local drink from where I'm from. It's sort of like a ginger soda.
Shelby:It's really, really delicious. If you're ever in the state of Kentucky, I highly encourage you to pop in somewhere and grab some. A few years ago, I think it started getting carried by Cracker Barrel. So, also, if you're on a road trip or you're in an area with a Cracker Barrel, that's a good place to pop in and try to get one. So my drink of choice for today is Ale 8.
Shelby:And so I felt like it was only fair to you all to first get to know a little bit about me since I'll be the one who'll be, chatting with everybody from here on out. So I'm originally from Kentucky. You may hear a little bit of an accent. I actually can hear it on this recording, which is a little strange. And I grew up in Eastern Kentucky and had no idea that I was even interested in the field of geology, until I sort of got called into it by chance.
Shelby:So now I'm here at Indiana University, and I am a trace metal geochemist. And so that means that I look at metals in geologic and biologic materials that typically are at really, really low concentrations. So, if we are lucky, we're trying to measure metals that are at the part per million level. And so that's like thinking there are a million different elements dissolved in a rock, and I'm trying to find 1 or 2 of them. That's if we're lucky.
Shelby:More often than not, we're actually looking at metals that are at the part per billion level. And so that's like having, the entire population of the United or of the world, sorry, and being asked to find 3 or 4 people with no description of what they look like or where they may be. So it's really, really difficult for us to actually measure metals at that concentration. And so I think it's pretty impressive that we can do it at all. But the utility of doing that is understanding where these metals are coming from.
Shelby:So you might be familiar with metals in some industrial applications, things like copper wire, things like cell phones, your computers, all of those depend on metals. And as we transition to renewable energy sources, we're gonna need even more of those metals and even different metals than we have before. And so from the geologic perspective, understanding where those metals are in areas that they're concentrated or in high quantities is really useful for us to better, prepare for the future. But a lot of these metals are also toxic. So you may have heard of things like, leaded pops and lead poisoning, arsenic exposure.
Shelby:All of these things are really dangerous. And so we also are concerned environmentally in areas where we have high concentrations of these metals naturally in geologic materials and rocks and minerals and soils. A lot of these metals can also transfer or move into plant material pretty easily, which is sort of a double edged sword. So on one hand, it's really efficient to extract metals that we don't want in the soil through growing plants. But on the other hand, if those plants now have high concentrations of metals and animals or humans are eating them, then that's sort of an exposure route for us to have metal concentrations in our bodies that could be dangerous and cause lots of negative environmental and human health impacts.
Shelby:So we're really interested in understanding where these metals are, why they are where they are, and how we can use that to both clean up areas with high concentrations of metals, but also to, better prepare for the future. So I did grow up in Eastern Kentucky, in a small town called Irvine, spelled like Irvine, California, but pronounced Irvin because we're from Eastern Kentucky. And always enjoyed being outside. My sister and I, an older sister, spent a lot of time in the Red River Gorge, which is near where we grew up. And so there was a part of me that enjoyed rocks even though I didn't recognize it as that at the time.
Shelby:But I really never had any intention of going into geology whenever I was younger. Whenever I was in high school, I applied for a student position at the Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Math and Science in Kentucky, which was a residential high school in Western Kentucky on the campus of Western Kentucky University that really centered on math and science education for students in Kentucky. The idea being that this would be an environment to sort of support math and science growth. As a state, we have historically ranked fairly low within the United States in math and science, and so this was an opportunity to sort of foster and encourage math and science education. And so while I was there, I moved there when I was 16, so I lived on Western's campus as a Gatton student.
Shelby:And since it was a math and science academy, we were sort of expected to take certain numbers of math and science courses while we were there. The idea being any high school classes that we needed to finish up, we would take the college equivalent. But we also would have, classes that we could pick from within the math and sciences offered at Western. And so I originally started at the Gatton Academy thinking I was gonna be pre med, and so I'd taken a lot of sort of biology classes and chemistry classes and physics classes. And I enjoyed the content of the classes, but I found that they were not the most interesting in terms of the way that the classes were taught or the way that the content was delivered.
Shelby:And I think it was my 2nd semester of my junior year, at the academy. I took a geology class just by chance. And that was by far and away the most excited that I'd ever seen a faculty be whenever they were talking about the class material. And I think that's one of the things that I love about the idea of of these folks that are gonna be coming onto this podcast later in the season is that everyone in the field is so so excited and enthusiastic about what they do. And so after that, I thought, man, this class is really cool.
Shelby:I kinda wanna take more of these. Like, the the enthusiasm is infectious. And so I took another class the following year, and that was really what hooked me. And that was when I sort of thought this might be something that I wanna do. So I'll never never forget this experience probably for as long as I live.
Shelby:So this was at at Western in the geology and geography department. And the the the class I was taking, it was taught at at 9 or 9:30 in the morning, which, you know, when you're an undergrad, feels very early, and so you don't necessarily wanna be in a classroom that early. And the class was taught that semester by doctor Michael May, and he is one of the most excited and energetic people I've ever met. Doctor May, if you're listening, what I'm about to say, I mean with the utmost endearment and respect. When I was a kid, I played a video game called Crash Bandicoot.
Shelby:And if you're familiar with that game or the character of Crash, Doctor May is like a human version of him. So he's so energetic, so enthusiastic, just is a person who genuinely loves what he does. And you can feel it. You can you can hear it when you talk to him. You can see it in his actions whenever he's speaking or whenever he's teaching.
Shelby:And that's how he was every day in class. And so, you know, he comes in, everybody's sort of on the edge of falling back asleep. And he sort of runs into the room, throws his stuff down on the front table, and immediately just starts looking around saying, how many people in here have ever eaten clay? And everybody just sort of looks at each other. You know, nobody says anything.
Shelby:Nobody raises a hand. We're all just really, really confused as to what's going on. You know, like, it's it's early. Like, maybe we're we're imagining things. And then he just continues.
Shelby:How many people in here have eaten clay? Anybody? Anybody? And and nobody raises their hand. And then he starts to to sort of move around the room again and says, well, how many people in here have have drank a milkshake?
Shelby:And so, you know, sort of slowly everybody raises their hand. You're sort of cautious because you don't you don't really know where this is going. You're sort of confused still. And then he starts running around the room. If you've ever seen the clip of Oprah, where she gives away free cars to her audience, it was basically like that.
Shelby:So he starts pointing to everybody in the room going, you've eaten clay, and you've eaten clay, and you've eaten clay. We've all eaten clay. And he was so enthusiastic about it that everybody in there is like, you know, he might be a little crazy, but also this is probably the most fun I've ever had in a class, especially at 9 in the morning. And so that was really what what got me hooked after that. I thought if somebody can come into the room and be this excited all the time, then I wanna continue to be in this field.
Shelby:So, I continue to take geology classes. I ended up partway through probably my freshman year of college. So, I graduated from the academy. I decided to stay at Western to continue my my undergrad career. And I ended up converting from pre med to a double major in chemistry, because I already taken a lot of chemistry and and really enjoyed the classes, and geology, because now I was hooked on geology because of of doctor May and other folks in the department as well.
Shelby:And so once I I sort of decided to go that route, there was another faculty member in the department, who was looking for students to do research with him. This was Doctor Aaron Celestian. And he was doing incredibly cool research. And so I was lucky enough since I had taken some classes, to end up getting to work with him as an undergrad researcher. And so his work was synthesizing minerals.
Shelby:So we were literally growing our own minerals or our own crystals from scratch. So you got to go into a lab, you had all of these raw chemicals, some were liquids, some were solids, and you were mixing them in different proportions and being really careful about how you're mixing them and keeping record of what you were adding when, then you put them all in this container. The container then went into, what's essentially a metal jacket with a screw top lid. And they're called bombs, which is sort of interesting, but they're high pressure bombs. So they allow pressure to build up pretty easily once you put chemicals in them.
Shelby:And then we would put them in an oven and we'd bake them. And so, we would bake them for one day or 3 days or 7 days. And at different time intervals, we'd pull these things out, we'd let them cool, and then we would now have solid minerals, solid crystals that we had grown ourselves. And so you sort of feel, as an undergrad, like this mad scientist who's getting to take all of these things that you've learned about in chemistry classes and geology classes and actually do it, which was probably one of the most thrilling things I'd done up to that point. And it felt so applied.
Shelby:It felt so real. And so that was sort of the next experience that really convinced me that this was this was something that I might consider. This was something that I I might actually wanna do myself. So with that research, we were, synthesizing minerals that are called zeolites. And these are minerals that have sort of long open structures or tunnels within their crystal structure.
Shelby:And the idea with some of these zeolites is because of those long tunnels, you can, easily exchange different elements into those openings or into those gaps in the crystal structure. And so Doctor Celestian was was interested in looking at zeolites that may be useful for containing and storing radioactive waste. And so this just felt like such a cool project. And another thing that I like about geology and some of the work within the the earth and atmospheric sciences, is that it it feels real and it feels very tangible. So I like to think of of if I had to explain to my parents.
Shelby:So I have 2 great parents. We're really close, but they're not geoscientists. If I had to explain to them what I did, would they think it was useful, and would they think it was exciting? And there's so much of the Earth and atmospheric sciences that fall into that category that it just makes it really, really fun to be a part of. And so that's how I felt when I was working with Doctor Celestian is that this work was just so so useful and so applied and and was so fun, you know, like, you got to to be in a lab and and make things yourself, that I just continued to work with him.
Shelby:I continued to take more geology classes. And then as I was sort of coming to the end of my undergrad career, so I was, you know, in my last year, I sort of needed to think about what was next. And and, honestly, looking back, I was incredibly naive. I had no idea what I was doing. So I'm a 1st generation college graduate.
Shelby:I have an older sister, and she also had graduated college, but her and I were were the first in our immediate family to do that. And so, you know, I had had her insight and some support from from folks that I knew when I was applying for undergrad institutions. But when I was thinking about what came next after undergrad, I really wasn't sure what that looked like. And the department at Western was just so kind and so helpful and so supportive that there were a lot of people there that were were sort of giving me advice and help and assistance in sort of navigating what that looked like. And so a few of them had encouraged me to think about grad school, which I had never thought about before.
Shelby:But I, you know, I thought I really like this research. I really like these classes. Let me just give it a shot. Let me apply to a few places and see what happens, you know. Like worst case, I don't get accepted anywhere, And then I I figure something else out.
Shelby:And maybe I'll get lucky and I'll get a position. So, I knew I wanted to stay in this sort of geochemistry field because I really liked the way that that chemistry was really structured. Like, there are rules that you follow and things that you can predict through that. And geology felt so much more organic. And so you could literally walk outside your door and see geology and interact with geology.
Shelby:And so, sort of, combining those together was just a really fun way to look at the world. And so, I applied to a few graduate programs in geochemistry. And one thing that people may not know about graduate programs in most Earth and atmospheric science fields is that if you get accepted as a graduate student, you actually get paid. And so you don't pay your own way, you get a stop end, and they'll cover your tuition. And the stop end usually isn't large, but it is enough for you to live on.
Shelby:And so, it's an opportunity to continue your education while you're being supported. And so, apply to a few places, and, sometime in the, sort of, late winter, early spring, if schools are interested in in recruiting you as a graduate student, they'll actually bring you out for visits. So they'll they'll fly you to their campus, you get to interact with the department, you get to see campus. And so when I was going through this, that was happening in sort of late February, early March. And the other schools that I had applied to for graduate school were in the New England area.
Shelby:So when I went on these visits, you know, it was pretty gray and dreary. There was snow on the ground in some areas. And the last place that I went to visit was University of Arizona, which is in Tucson, Arizona, Southern Arizona, about 80 miles from the Mexico border. And so when when I went to Tucson in late February, early March, it was 75 and super sunny, and they took us hiking. And that was, that was it.
Shelby:That's what what sold me. And so I ended up, going to the University of Arizona for graduate school. Again, really didn't know what I was doing. Just knew that that I was excited about research there, and the department there, and and being in Tucson. So I moved out there for grad school, and and was there for 6 years working on a PhD.
Shelby:And so through that process, I started to look at metals as they relate to ore deposits. So I worked with an economic geology group there. And so in economic geology, your focus is on these metalliferous deposits. So where are they located? When did they form?
Shelby:How could you find more of them? And so I approach this from a geochemical perspective. So how can we use trace elements and some of their other chemical components to sort of understand how some of these things formed or how they changed over time to help us better predict where we could find these. But I also got the opportunity while I was there to work with the Arizona Superfund Program with Doctor Raina Maier. And that program is a program that looks at Superfund Sites in the area.
Shelby:So Superfund Sites are ones that have been, denoted by the federal government as areas that are of some sort of, environmental concern. And so the arid southwest where Arizona is has a lot of mines, both currently active, but also abandoned legacy mines. These are mines that are pretty old and oftentimes don't have ownership any longer, so there's no one to really oversee, how these mines are sort of evolving over time after they've been shut down. And so if they're deemed a Superfund program, then you can get funding to help clean those up. And so the Superfund program at the University of Arizona did research on how to do that more effectively.
Shelby:So how could we clean things up more easily with a focus on on the sort of southwest arid region. And so through working with them, I started to think about how we could use plants to help remediate or clean up some of these sites, but also if plants were able to offer us any sort of chemical information about the rocks that were underneath. And so that's really, what got me interested in the field that I'm in now and sort of where my career has has progressed is trying to look at this intersection of the rocks below the surface and the plants on the surface. And it's a really interdisciplinary way to think about the world, which is another aspect of earth and atmospheric sciences that I think is really, really exciting and that a lot of people don't tend to think about. So often, you know, if you ask somebody, what do you think a geologist does?
Shelby:They say, well, they look at rocks. And that is true. I think a lot of people do look at rocks in some some capacity, but not always. So so I look at rocks. I look at plants.
Shelby:I work in a lab that's a clean lab, so it's very, very sterile, which is probably also not exactly what you're thinking about as a geologist. And so, yeah, that was sort of what what got me interested in it at the time when I was in Arizona, was working with the Superfund program and with doctor Meyer, and and seeing the ways that all of these different things could could sort of intersect and play together. When I graduated there, I was, again, sort of naive. I I wasn't really sure what would come next. I know that the job market is pretty difficult, so it's hard to find, you know, jobs in academia or or on college campuses.
Shelby:And so I started applying to some positions, that are called post docs, since these are positions that are after you finish your doctorate. And can be anywhere from, you know, 1 to several years depending on funding. So if you have an advisor or a faculty mentor that has funding for longer, then you can stay longer, but that's often pretty hard to come by. And so after I graduated, I ended up getting a postdoc position at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, working with Doctor Richard Gaschnig. And so I moved to Massachusetts.
Shelby:So I've now gone from Eastern Kentucky to Western Kentucky to Southern Arizona, and now back across the United States to Massachusetts. And I worked with him there for a year, and so we were looking at metals in subduction zones. So in areas where you have rocks from the surface that get pulled below the surface, at some point, they're pulled deep enough that they end up melting. And then sometimes that melt makes it back to the surface through volcanoes. And so, we were trying to understand, during this process of pulling rocks down, melting them, and then bringing them back to the surface, what's happening to the metals there.
Shelby:So are they also getting pulled down, melting, and coming back to the surface? Are Are some of them getting pulled down, melted, and then staying below the surface? And can we use metal concentrations, and other geochemical parameters to better understand some of these geologic processes that we can't directly see. Right? We can't go below the surface and observe these things ourselves.
Shelby:And so we try to use some of these geochemical parameters as what we call proxies. So tools to better understand things that that we have to try to observe remotely or through another means. So that was a a really fun, opportunity, and it was it was great to be in Massachusetts for a year. Big change weather wise from where I had been, which was was sort of nice. And so while I was there, you know, you're always trying to figure out what's next because those postdoc positions typically aren't super long.
Shelby:And I ended up seeing a job opening at Indiana University. And so it just so happened to be in the field that I'm in. So in the sort of, trace metal geochemistry realm. And at the time, they were looking for a researcher. So a research scientist who could come in and get a lab, back up and running that had previously been overseen by a different faculty member who had left maybe a year or so prior.
Shelby:And so, again, was applying, thought I didn't have a chance, and ended up, getting the position. So then I moved a few years ago, about 5 years ago now, to Bloomington, Indiana, which is where I am now, and have loved being here. So when I started my position, I was a researcher, and, my only job was to do research. So to to get this lab up and running and to help others facilitate their own research questions. So help students, help faculty members.
Shelby:And then that was in fall of 2019. I think we all know what happened in the spring of 2020. So when the pandemic hit, everything went virtual. And there were some folks from the earth and atmospheric sciences department who retired, you know, a little earlier than they had originally planned. And so now the department was looking for people who could teach some classes that were being offered, and I got asked to fill in and and start teaching a few classes.
Shelby:So for a couple of years while I was here, still a research scientist, also was teaching some classes in economic geology and geochemistry, and just absolutely loved it. It's so much fun to get to interact with students and to see how excited they get, you know, and hopefully be the the doctor May for somebody else whenever I come in and throw my arms around asking people if they've ever eaten clay. Then a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to, interview for a tenure track position here. So a faculty position at IU, and started that in 2022 and have been here ever since. And so through this whole process, I really, you know, am very, very lucky to have ended up where I am, and also was helped and supported by a whole number of people, both as a high schooler, both as an undergraduate, as a graduate student, and as a post doc, and feel just very fortunate to to have had the help and support that I have along the way.
Shelby:And it's always been from people who are really, really excited about what they do, and they love the work that they're doing, and they love the people that they interact with. And that is one of the best things about this field that I hope comes across in all the episodes of this podcast as you continue to listen. In addition to some of of, sort of, the logistics of of those sorts of things, of where I've been and the people I've worked with, Another big highlight in, sort of, the Earth and atmospheric sciences are some of the other opportunities that you get as an undergrad and as a grad student that, maybe aren't that common. I realize now through teaching, especially, whenever we have students who are from other departments that some of the things we do that feel very commonplace to us maybe are a little unusual for others. And one of those is field trips.
Shelby:So when I was an undergrad at at WKU, at Western, that program offers a ton of field trips for students, and they also make it really affordable for students to attend. And so I got to go on some really, really amazing trips. That's another great thing about geology is, you know, you get to to be in some really beautiful places to look at the geology itself. So one of my favorite trips that I ever took when I was an undergrad, was a geology of the Bahamas course. So sounds pretty rough, I know.
Shelby:You probably are thinking, how could anybody manage that? That sounds awful. The geology of the Bahamas course ran over the winter. So Western has a pretty long winter break. It's usually 4 or 5 weeks.
Shelby:And so during that time, the geology department offered this course. So, you know, it's it's, like, 20 degrees and snowing in Kentucky. And if you go on this trip, you fly to the Bahamas, and it's, you know, like, 75 and sunny. And so it was a really, you know, easy decision to make. So I went on this Geology of the Bahamas trip.
Shelby:This was led by Doctor Fred Siewers, who was an excellent faculty member from that department. Another big reason why I ended up in the field that I did. And and we spent about 2 weeks on a a small island in the Bahamas at a research station there. And so, during the day, we would learn about sort of the coral reefs of the area, so we do a lot of snorkeling. And then during the evenings, we'd learn about the geology of the area, and how it sort of impacted some of the other things on the island, and how some of those things are also impacted by things like tourism on larger parts of the Bahamas.
Shelby:So that was just an incredible trip, a lot of fun. Also, while I was at Western, there was a summer course that I took. So it was through a program called Semester at Sea. So it's typically a semester long program, but they also offer summer cruises. And so, in this, summer course through the geology department, there was a small number of us, maybe 15 or so, who, took a cruise.
Shelby:So we went on an educational research cruise ship, and went to 10 different nations in the Caribbean. And we learned about the geology of each one of those and how it impacted their availability of fresh water for the region. And so we got to learn about really, really different geology than what we would have had in Kentucky. And we also got to be in some really beautiful areas, go to 10 different countries that I'd never been to before, and get to meet a lot of really, really cool people. And so that was a really, really great trip led by Doctor Leslie North and Doctor Jason Polk.
Shelby:So all of these were things that, you know, as a student who wasn't really sure what I what I wanted to do were really, really convincing reasons why this was a field that may be sort of exciting. So those were some highlights of mine, whenever I was sort of making my way through the the geology curriculum that really sort of convinced me that this is something that I wanted to do. So, hopefully, this has given you a little bit of insight about me as a person, sort of my trajectory to where I am now, and some of the things that have really inspired me, and and gotten me to where I am. Geosciences as a field is such a fun place to be in. It's something that is really easy to get excited by and offers a lot of really, really cool opportunities to see and do things that you probably never would get to otherwise.
Shelby:And so, hopefully, over the the course of this season of the podcast and getting to hear from other folks in the field, you'll get a different perspective on some of the things that they're working on and that they're excited about, and sort of see the breadth of opportunity in the field. It's a really diverse field in terms of what people are working on and opportunities within it. And it's much much more than, you know, sort of being outdoors looking at rocks all the time. There's a lot of of really fun avenues that you can pursue in the field itself. So hopefully, we'll have you back next week whenever we have our first guest for this podcast.
Shelby:And you'll get to meet someone new and learn more about them. Thanks for joining. Earth on the Rocks is produced by Cari Metz with artwork provided by Connor Leimgruber with the technical recording managed by Kate Crum and Betsy Leijas. Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation grant EAR-2422824.