the inner workings of the ground beneath us

Post date: Jul 11, 2013 5:31:57 PM

When I first stepped into the Green Earth Science building, I had no idea what to expect. My hands were clammy and my feet were cold as I climbed the steps onto my advisor’s floor. I was nervous to say the least to meet my advisor, the post-doctorate soil scientist from Missouri as I stepped into her office. Debra Hausladen, my advisor for the next two months, surprised me by her cheerful spirit and welcoming vibes. She seemed unfazed by the seemingly incoherent research topic that I struggled to understand at first. I knew I was in for a wild ride with her as my mentor. Yet, as I began to work with her, I began to grow accustomed to the lab environment, which it seemed to me like it was an environment of its own.

We created an assortment of mediums, each with its own purpose. We created a medium for the geobacter bacteria, a Wolfe’s Trace mineral solution medium, and a groundwater medium to test the movement of Arsenic V and Arsenic III in. We started to grow and maintain our two geobacter and Clostridium bacteria solutions, transferring the bacteria into different test tubes, incubating them, trying desperately to keep them alive, and testing their absorbencies. We began to create growth curves for the two bacteria to try to calculate how many cells are in a solution at a certain optical density. I learned how to operate many different types of machinery in a lab setting, from different weight scales, to fume hoods - which we use to keep our experiment totally anaerobic.

Most importantly, however, I began to finally understand some of the inner workings of the ground beneath us. I came into this program without really contemplating the complexity of what goes on beneath us. I am just now starting to realize just how wonderfully complex (the good kind of complex) the subterranean can be and how much we as humans can study this wonderful world literally lurking under our noses.