[Guest bloggers: Mary Reinthal and Chloe Wallace]
In five days, three Wooster geologists prepped and analyzed over 50 samples, ate tons of food, and learned a lot of science. Okay, maybe not tons of food, but we did eat a lot. For three solid days, rising junior Chloe Wallace and rising senior Mary Reinthal were able to dabble in wet chemistry at the Ohio State University under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Pollock. The days were spent in geochemistry labs preparing sieved whole rock samples for ICP-MS analyses.
For those not familiar, ICP-MS stands for Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer. ICP-MS is a system that allowed us to determine trace elements in our samples, which better help us separate lithofacies units into distinctive geochemical groups. This, then, allows for a broader understanding of how and when these units were emplaced in relationship to one another. That’s a lot of information from some geochemistry.
Chloe and Mary in the clean lab.
One of the days, Chloe and Mary were able to get outside and venture around campus and check out some of the sights. But most days at OSU main campus were spent not in the sun, but in the basement, measuring solutions, precisely weighing powders, wearing clean-lab gear, or inputting data into the computer.
Chloe weighing whole-rock powders.
Mary pipetting acids into the vials to digest the samples.
After long days of work, however, we got to peruse the campus scene, and we ate somewhere new every day. It was exhausting work, but the hope is for some good data.
Mary and Chloe celebrating the completion of sample preparation!