The project has three major objectives:
1.) Enhance spatial reasoning skills by allowing students to explore 3-D environments without traveling to a specific field site. 2.) Make field experiences physically accessible, and as such all students benefit from increased accessibility. 3.) Encourage students to connect across spatial and temporal scales. |
Cameron assisted in writing code and developing projects for Geomechanics and Numerical Modeling, a course I developed at Bowdoin College. Students learn foundational mathematical and physical concepts including diffusion, continuity, and the Navier Stokes equation! They take this knowledge and apply it to geologic problems. Students write their own code to model how warming surface temperatures affect the depth of permafrost, how glaciers flow in a changing environment, and how fault scarps erode overtime. |
Ryan is now pursuing a PhD at UC Santa Barbara.
Ryan's project combined Raman spectroscopy and zircon (U-Th)/He dating to better interpret the thermal history of the Ancient Gneiss Complex, Swaziland and South Africa. Raman spectroscopy can be used to independently and quantitatively assess the extent of radiation damage within the zircon crystal lattice. Ryan used Raman data to determine damage zonation within the crystal lattice and the role of damage annealing in some grains, or parts of grains. |
ZHe dates show variable resetting which correlates with independently determined damage levels using Raman. The more damaged grains yield younger dates that were more readily reset by Karoo burial. For both samples THe dates are older than ZHe dates from the same sample and AHe dates are fully reset to 100 Ma as a result of Mesozoic Karoo unroofing. |
I am committed to the advancement of women and other underrepresented groups in science. I began working with the RESESS (Research Experience in Solid Earth Science for Students) program in 2014. RESESS is supported by UNAVCO and brings in talented students from underrepresented groups and matches them with an intensive earth science research project in Boulder, CO. GeoLaunchpad, another UNAVCO sponsored internship program provides Colorado community college students with geoscience research experiences.
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During the summer of 2014, I helped lead a weekend long geology field trip through the CO Front Range. In the summer of 2016 I was the Graduate Assistant to the RESESS program and acted as a mentor to the interns and helped teach communication and writing seminars. In 2016 I was awarded a NSF supplemental grant for professional development. In 2017, I helped coordinate the programs, organized and planned for the internships Summer 2017. I taught several skills seminars and communications seminars, and organized a daylong science communication seminar and weekend-long field trip.
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