Blog Post #1
First of all, I have to say I was completely surprised by the Cosmogenic Nuclide lab. I thought it would this large and white lab like in movies. But, I wasn’t disappointed. I was still very excited to start working and helping out there even though I found out I can’t work with the acids. At the lab I learned that rock samples are processed with HCL, HF, and Nitric Acid to isolate the Beryllium in them which is analyzed so we can understand how old the sample is. Then the ages of the samples are analyzed to figure out how the landscape has been changing over time.
At the lab, we have to wear gloves at all times and our lab coats and protective eye googles as well. On the first day, Kim joked about how the work was tedious. I thought she was just kidding or thought I expected scientifically fabulous tasks. I thought how could science be so tedious when it’s so interesting. But, she wasn’t wrong. On my second day, I was sieving all the new samples that Kirby, the lab assistant, was crushing with the machine. It felt good to be doing some work especially when I could see the difference in the grain sizes in the samples I sieved.
But, the next day I mostly weighed stuff like falcon tubes, recorded their weights and washed some beakers and other scientific utensils. But, soon I graduated to more interesting work such as washing rock samples and pouring them into Nalgene bottles that would soon be filled with HCL. And today, I had the most interesting job yet. I learned how to pipette liquids into other containers so they could go through the mass spectrometer. It was fun to do it, even though I’ve done it before at school, because it required a greater level of concentration than it did when I had to do it at school.
I was really excited to start this internship because I was excited to learn a lot. I was also excited to meet and be around other people who liked Earth Science, especially because no one at my school is interested in it except me and a few teachers. I didn’t know what I wanted to learn, but now, after learning the basics of how the samples are processed at the lab I think I want to know more details about the entire process and how the data from them is analyzed. I think I’ll do more research on that. I also might start studying ahead for my chemistry class next year, just for fun, because it seems more exciting now that I see it in action at the lab.
Blog Post #2
So far my experience at Stanford has been great. It’s been very informative working in the Cosmogenics Lab and I learn something new there almost every day. Last week I got to go out in the field with Kim and Kirby to Joseph D. Grant County Park to see them in action.
They are studying the Calaveras Fault there. It is actually right under the trail we walked on. They showed me a dried out water stream which had been kind of broken apart because of the right lateral movement of the fault. They also pointed out the different kinds of rock they are going to collect the next we go there and told me how they got there. We even saw a sandstone boulder as tall as my waist with a huge vein of quartz and I learned that a rock hammer is the standard scale in photographs, for a geologist. Even though being in the field was fun and refreshing after being in the lab for so many days, the hike that day was the hardest one I’ve been on in a long time, especially since we had to go off the trail.
I also enjoyed going to the Hopkins Marine Station. It was fun to observe creatures like anemones when the high tide started coming in and they started opening up. It was fascinating for me to see so many tiny creatures living together and how they adapted to the tides. I even saw a tiny fish and plenty of cute seals. I think the best part of the trip was the part where we got to take the sea creatures out of their tubs and hold them for a little while. My favorite was the brittle sea star. I also touched a sea cucumber and held a live sand dollar. The sea cucumber felt smooth and slick whereas the sand dollar felt like wet concrete on top and Velcro on the bottom.
I’ve also enjoyed looking at the collection of mineral collection in the Mitchell building especially because I’m working towards starting a rock collection for the Earth Science Club at my school. My favorite in the collection is the geode with the purple crystals, but I don’t know what it’s called because its plaque fell down! Anyway it has also been fun exploring the Cantor Museum and the Stanford Campus in General and having lunch with the other interns. So far this has been my most productive and enjoyable summer ever.
Blog Post #3
Since my last blog post, I went out into the field again with Kirby and another student, Katherine. This time we went to Sanborn County Park because they wanted to study the fault movement there. They pointed out several geological formations there such as a sag pond and a site where a landslide occurred years before. I lost my sunglasses there but it was still worth going out into the field and seeing what real geologists do firsthand.
Other than that, I’ve mostly just been working in the lab. Even though it can be boring, knowing you are contributing to something important still makes everything somewhat fun. I also got to give a lab tour for the other interns. I’m glad I did because it gave me an initiative to learn, what happens to the samples in the lab, in more detail. And I also enjoyed seeing what the other interns did and where they worked.
This summer has also been my most productive summer ever. I feel grateful that I got to work in the Cosmogenic Nuclide Lab because this summer I have learned so much while working there. It was a great experience to work in there. I have learned so much and met so many great people in the past two months. And I will most definitely miss Stanford and the people I’ve met there.