Geology From Above - Dr. Anji Shah
[00:00:00]
Alright. well, hey, my little friend, doctor Jesse Remick, how the heck are you?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: know what, I, I'm good, man. I'm always excited. I'm always like inspired after these talks with people. I, I just, yeah. I'm, uh. It's a good
Chris Bolhuis: I am too
that it is a good [00:00:30] night. I gotta say though, I'm sick of you making me so nervous before these interviews start because you give me a lot of crap. You throw a lot of shade my way for, for my technological difficulties. But you are on a roll, my friend, every time you're having technological difficulties.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yeah, I'm like 2 for 2 with big
problems here.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. I think you're more than that,
but don't you restart your computer a lot though, like you should do you do? Do you not do
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No. I don't. I rarely
[00:01:00] restart
Chris Bolhuis: ever restart your phone,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: uh, when it wants to update.
That's about Jesse? No. No. You need to do this like every few days you need to shut your phone down. Restart it. Same thing with the computer. Let's go. You need to do better with this. yeah, this was a, I love this interview. I'll actually, I learned a ton here. a large part of our conversation dealt with critical minerals and sand deposits, and those are really.
Chris Bolhuis: Things that you would never, I don't [00:01:30] think anyway, like intuitively put together. Right? I certainly haven't. I don't know about you. I found it very interesting, very exciting, actually, the prospect for this. Um, and that was, that was amazing. question for you.
been, I've been teaching for, you know, a long time.
Right. We're not gonna put a number on
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No. No. No. We don't we don't, we
don't talk numbers here.
Chris Bolhuis: No, we do not have I, Jesse, tell me, have I been mispronouncing Plosser my entire
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Placer or [00:02:00] Placer. how
do
Chris Bolhuis: yes. Is it Placer or placer? Placer. Placer. I mean, I'd say
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No, this is this, this is like, basalt, basalt 1. I, people say it
different ways. I think it might be, you know, the Britishism of Placer, maybe a little
Chris Bolhuis: Well, So, because, it's spelled p l a c e r. And to me
That's placer.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, just like,
Chris Bolhuis: I feel better.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: a a l t is asphalt [00:02:30] or
asphalt. Right?
Chris Bolhuis: So I actually, the, so this came up in the interview. K? I said, Placer and doctor Angie Shaw right away said and It's Placer right after that. And she didn't correct me. She just. Said the word her way,
And I'm like, oh crap. I've been saying it wrong. All these years I've been, and this has been, I actually made a note, Jesse, down below to, you about this, because I didn't wanna forget.
Like I would have been mortified if you would have said, Chris, you've really been saying place [00:03:00] her all these
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You know, I, I've heard it, I've heard it both ways. By very good geologists. Geologists much, much better than you and I. So I think it's, it can go with whichever 1 you want in the end.
Chris Bolhuis: Jesse, I don't give that up as easily as you do.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well,
okay.
okay. I don't have much to say to that.
Chris Bolhuis: Just Um, so we, uh, okay. Just a little bit of doctor Shaw and her expertise here. She's a PhD in geophysics, really [00:03:30] uh, research geophysicist at the Geological survey, the United States Geological Survey, the USGS, which we said. she is really an expert in these airborne geophysics. datasets and has been looking at these, these, as we said, sort of heavy mineral sands in the coastal Carolina area, in the southeast United States.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: She has a interesting backstory. I mean a bachelor's in math and then, um, actually a master's in Applied Mathematics from New York University, and then eventually went on as she describes to get a PhD because she's kind of interested in the outdoors and stuff. So I think [00:04:00] Chris had a really interesting take on education as well, and like.
don't know. Interesting perspective. That's again, just 1 person's perspective, but, particularly interesting and particularly unique, I think as a path to get to where she's at a very high level in the United States, Geological Survey, kind of directing directing large portions of, MRI program.
So,
Chris Bolhuis: I agree, Jesse. She had a very interesting path into where she is right now. You know, she didn't start off like, oh, I have [00:04:30] this love for geoscience. That's the direction I'm going. You she came about this in kind of a very roundabout way, kind of the way I entered teaching. It was
not something I was gonna it was not on my flight plan either at all.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: no, that's right. Hey, well, Chris, I'd say let's get to it here. This is doctor Angie Shaw coming at you.
Chris Bolhuis: Cheers. alright. Well, doctor Shaw, Shah, thank you for joining us. Welcome to Planet Geo, and thanks for, sorry for all the technical difficulties here in getting going, but [00:05:00] thank you for joining us.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: We're really excited to talk to you here at Pleasantview.
Dr. Anji Shah: Oh, it's nice to be here.
Chris Bolhuis: Well, hey, doctor Shaw, is it okay if I can call you Angie, right? Is that Sure. okay? Jesse doesn't allow me to do that, so I have to, I, I always feel like I have to ask, you know, just to be polite, so.
So Angie, we always start our interviews with this common question, and it's because think both Jesse and I have a story of how and uh, like our path into the [00:05:30] geoscience world and the geoscience community.
you talk a little bit about that? Was there like this moment for you or something that happened that led you down this, this awesome pathway called the geoscience world?
Dr. Anji Shah: Sure. Yeah. So I think my pathway is a little bit less typical. Um, I majored in math and was 1 of those nerdy types that always really liked math and physics, and that was a comfort zone. And I had, I struggled with things like biology where I had to [00:06:00] memorize things and, you I I finished, I did a master's in it and, really wasn't finding it.
wasn't finding it. And so I, um, I, you know, I was young and in my twenties and I moved out from New York to the Bay Area and just realized how much I love the outdoors and I love spending time looking at the mountains, looking at water. And the moment I think was when I suddenly found out that I could take all these math, I had math and computer skills, that [00:06:30] I could take those skills and apply them to earth science and that I could actually, you do the quant stuff, but also get field work where I could be out on the ocean or where I could be hiking through the woods and I could do all this fun stuff while doing science.
It's pretty neat.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So
Chris Bolhuis: Angie, I wanna put a pin in what you said about combining your math and physics with the geology world. When we talk about getting into geology and careers [00:07:00] and we we have a fair number of listeners that are very interested in that kind of pathway. And so I do wanna make sure, Jesse, remind me, we gotta come back
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh yeah, I will. Uh, I'm we might be fighting over that question later on, Chris, because I'm really interested in your, in your perspective on that, Angie. because so you have a, you have a Master's, is that right? A Master's in Applied Mathematics.
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah, I have a master's in Applied Math and
yeah. but that's not the final 1. The later thing was the PhD in earth and environmental [00:07:30] science. So that's what enables me to do geology.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: well, Let me ask you what everybody asks. All of us, you know, PhDs in geology, what does a Master's in Applied Mathematics do? Like what was your thesis title, and then what was your PhD thesis on and were they, were they like linked? This is kind of a leading, I don't
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, that's a good
Dr. Jesse Reimink: were they linked in a direct way?
Was there a direct line to them or were you sorta, like going out on a limb in your PhD?
Dr. Anji Shah: gosh. Well, okay, so So if you get a degree in [00:08:00] math, what I was finding is that I was, basically kind of a high end technician there to solve other people's problems. So that was why I went back to school and said, I need to know, get the foundation. Of the science so that I can learn what's the best way to apply some sort of math or physics to a problem.
so my PhD was actually very quantitative. my advisor did numerical modeling of different,[00:08:30] plate, tectonic phenomena. We were actually looking at mid ocean ridge spreading centers and we're trying to understand how the mountain ranges that you see at the bottom of the ocean, how do they form?
Why is it, some of them have a valley? Why is it some of them show a mountain? How big is the mountain? Why is it that big? what are all the different characteristics? And we actually went to the laws of physics to try to understand the real processes. [00:09:00] To say, okay, what is it that's driving this?
What are the forces? What are the thermal conditions? Because you've got volcanoes, you've got a, certain heat distribution. So we were looking at all those technical aspects, but at the same time, I also had this opportunity go out to sea and collect data and to do other things yeah, for about you could spend anywhere from 40 to 48 days out on the ocean in the middle of nowhere.
Chris Bolhuis: cow.
Dr. Anji Shah: And if you don't get [00:09:30] seasick then you're luckier. And if you do, there's a lot of medications. and um, yeah, but that was, you know, and that was another thing and I was lucky my advisor, encouraged me to do this because I wasn't just doing the math and the computers, but I also got to get to see brand new data.
because it's the bottom of the ocean, you have to measure things indirectly. You just can't walk there. It's not very easy. And so, um, we would [00:10:00] look at the magnetic fields, changes in earth's magnetic field, changes in gravity fields. And then, was lucky I was on 1 cruise where they actually did have Alvin dives.
So they had geologists dive down to the bottom and look at the geology and make those observations. So,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: grabbing samples to the sea floor with Alvin, with the arms and stuff. Oh, totally.
Dr. Anji Shah: That's right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Chris Bolhuis: Did you ever get to go down in 1 of those?
Dr. Anji Shah: I got to go once. I did get to go
Chris Bolhuis: That's [00:10:30] unreal. Can you tell me about that a minute? Like what was that like?
Dr. Anji Shah: Well, it was amazing. I mean, it, so at that point I had been studying mid ocean ridges for, I don't know, about 4 or 5 years.
And they were very mysterious to me. And, and yeah, it was just amazing. I was like, okay, here you are. This is what it looks like. And, um, I think the best part, the best part about it though, is what I saw at it, You know, it's a tiny little window, I don't remember. something like 8 inches in diameter or 10 inches, something like then [00:11:00] years later, I got to go to Hawaii to the big island where they have all the new flows and, and you realize that, oh, this is like what we're seeing on the seafloor. So it was kind of cool to make that connection and realize that, are these different exotic locations, but you see the same phenomena going on.
that was kind of
Chris Bolhuis: That is really
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh, that's super cool. Okay, Chris, I think maybe this is, we should just dive right into the kind of the, the sort of education style questions real quick, because. I'm curious, Angie. [00:11:30] because at Penn State, we have, we have some geophysicists who do numerical simulations and you know, the students who, PhD students who start in, in groups like that usually come from different backgrounds, um, you astrophysics or, different fields that come in and have a lot of computer sort of knowledge or, or sort of physics knowledge, I suppose.
And then I have students in my group who are like, like, have biology degrees more or less. Right. And so how did you find, Chris and I grew up in the geosciences, like academically, right? Like we were geology [00:12:00] majors in undergrad,
Chris Bolhuis: Much
Dr. Jesse Reimink: different field and you were kind of exposed to it later, like tangentially.
How did you find. mean, what was the most surprising thing about geology, I guess is kind of the question, and how or how easy was that transition being a volcanologist sounds really cool, but is it too late? Could I pursue this [00:12:30] career still? Like was your experience like in that
Dr. Anji Shah: I guess, I think the, the most important thing is to be patient know, I did come in with this math and computer background and it took a bit of time to learn the geology and it was lucky for me, well, I wouldn't say lucky. It was important for me to be in an educational institution where I had people who were willing to mentor me to help me bridge that gap.
[00:13:00] And, uh, it's
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yourself, did you find yourself overwhelmed with the terminology for a while?
Dr. Anji Shah: sometimes.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you started to I did, coming from a liberal, I went to a liberal arts college and I went to an institution for my PhD that had a, it's Canada, like everybody, you know, geology majors in Canada have a ton of, of classes
Dr. Anji Shah: I think it, it, yeah. I mean, I think it takes a lot of time and I think it's important to just be around it a lot and to keep talking to people and, um, you [00:13:30] start to realize it's like a language people are talking about very specific things then to always be ready to learn something new because there's always something you don't know.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes. that's wise advice. Yes. And, and remember that like everybody else. Doesn't know either or doesn't know different stuff. Like you have something good to contribute, your background because of strength in some ways, you know, the different, your, your different approach is a strength in many ways.
Dr. Anji Shah: And, I will say that, you I, think I was fortunate that I had faculty who were willing to take a [00:14:00] risk with someone who didn't have as strong, geology background as some others. at the same time, also think if you're gonna switch fields, it's very important to have something you can bring to the table that way you're, you're still contributing something.
Chris Bolhuis: Right. It sounds to me, Angie, as though you found a way to marry your passion for math and you know, geophysics is a perfect fit for that. Did, that prepare you pretty well for making that transition?
Dr. Anji Shah: it, helps, but I [00:14:30] think there's still a lot to learn and, I can say that I started off, my graduate work in Mid Ocean Ridges, but. When I was finishing my degree, I realized I wanted to do something much more applied, so I had to start from scratch again and now learn process methods and I applied them to Chesapeake Bay. So I was getting a little bit closer to [00:15:00] land but that meant I had to learn more about sedimentary geology. And we also looked at an impact crater. So I learned about impact craters. you know, So every time, I mean, again, you always want to have something you bring to the table, but also be ready to learn and do new things. And, and again, try and get mentors who are experts to
help you, out.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so maybe we could just finish that thread, Angie. So you, this postdoc was at the Naval Research Lab, is that right? You went to Naval Research? Yeah. And then you went and worked for Raytheon [00:15:30] and we've interviewed, other people who have a defense who've worked in the defense industry as geologists and then have kinda come back in various ways.
was that path like going to work for Raytheon and then, and then I think you started at the USGS after that. Is that correct?
Dr. Anji Shah: Well, you know, when I went to work for them, they weren't Raytheon, they were, dynamics technology, and were definitely much more on the research side they were doing, um, a lot of marine instrumentation. So that was the connection [00:16:00] there. And they were looking at magnetics. of the applications was to look for, like c4 IEDs, that sort of thing.
but I'll be honest, I missed being able to do earth science and I missed the more academic style of research. So when the USGS position opened up, I felt that was a perfect fit because, work they do is very applied, but it's also very technical and it's also research as well.
So that's why when I saw [00:16:30] that open up, I jumped on it and I was lucky to get it.
Chris Bolhuis: that's a perfect segue to the next thing I wanna ask you about, Angie, is you work at the USGS. Can you just tell everybody what a day in the life of Angie is like? What do you do on
Dr. Jesse Reimink: is the United States Geological Survey. Let's, maybe we should get that term out there,
This geological survey. Yeah,
Yeah. No, this is a good question, Chris. I'm, a and I'm curious about this too. I, I think this is,
varies,
Dr. Anji Shah: There's no typical [00:17:00] day. There really isn't. Um, it's all over the map, well, Some days it's very rare, but some days I actually get, I do technical stuff and I get to catch up on the literature. sometimes that's on the side. A lot of times I, well, oh, how do I just I mean, my, own position has evolved a lot over the years.
I've been there about almost 17 years. So when I started off, I did more technical work. Now I'm [00:17:30] coordinating a lot more different, I'm involved with a lot more different projects. So I'm involved with coordinating different groups of people and we oversee, we have this new, well, it's not that new, it started a couple years ago.
We've got this Earth mapping resources initiative program, which, started and that's been a huge part of life now. so there's a lot going on there. I wish I could tell. I mean, it could be anywhere from writing proposals to writing [00:18:00] emails to trying to catch up on literature, to, mentoring younger scientists on various technical things, to giving podcast interviews, anything.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. I mean the full gamut. That's perfect. I, I, um, the earth MRI thing, is super interesting and this is, this is actually how, I mean, saw you give a talk at SEG and I keep Chris can attest to this. I went to the SEG conference in London. I'm not an economic geologist, but I was like, I had some, [00:18:30] some, funds from Penn State to kind of explore the critical minerals world a little bit.
And, I said, okay, I'll go to London. Chris can attest to this. I was quite cranky, uh, just as a human being before that. And I came back all fired up about, uh, the critical minerals. And your talk was 1 of the reasons why. because it was
really
Chris Bolhuis: to see her in London. Jesse,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I, I didn't I didn't know but I did see it. Yeah, I did see Angie give a great talk and it was really exciting. and don't know, you were talking about I think, coastal Carolinas and the, you know, this [00:19:00] geophysical, broadly geophysical surveys looking at heavy mineral sands. And, and so I guess I wanna talk about that specifically.
Like what is the story there, there heavy mineral sands in Michigan, for instance, you know, all these kind of interesting questions, but can you maybe set the stage for the critical minerals mapping the MRI, the earth MRI thing just broadly first for us?
Dr. Anji Shah: it's kind of interesting because there's starting to be more and more recognition about the importance of mineral resources, especially critical minerals. So, [00:19:30] somebody wants to phrase it this way. Everything that we use in our daily lives is either grown or mined. So, that coffee mug, you can think about it, that comes from some clays.
Where does glass come from? The, computers have a much more complex, array of minerals that go into them. if you've got some nice bamboo cutlery that was grown, that's a little different. But so much of what we use [00:20:00] has to come from some material in the earth. Like, I'm looking at my desk right now and, you know, I'm seeing the wood of my desk.
I'm seeing my monitor, I'm seeing the mouse, the keyboard, my, my mug of tea, um, and thinking about where all these things come from. so these things have been important for a long time, but. now we're talking a lot more about critical minerals and what the definition of what a critical mineral is is, is that this is a material that is so vital to our day to day lives.
So you can think of something that goes into a [00:20:30] computer or a cell phone, or goes into an advanced defense system like rare Earth elements are a good example of that, they're so important. But our supply chain at high risk. And rare earths elements are really good example of that because we get most of our rare earths from a single country.
So that single country has a lot of control. We get, used to be a hundred percent, now we're up to about 95%. percent. So if anything doesn't go well with that country, then Our economy could really [00:21:00] be impacted. And these minerals are becoming even more important as we're thinking about climate change and we're thinking about energy transitions and looking for alternatives to fossil fuels for energy.
there's interest in doing that, I won't get into the debate about it. But in order to achieve that, you do need certain materials. For example, um, for solar panels, the material in the glass involves rare earth elements. For wind turbines, they have super magnets in them [00:21:30] that also come from neodymium.
If you want, electric car, the battery, you need things like lithium, other materials for the batteries. So there's a lot of attention coming in in that direction as well. there's been a lot more recognition about the importance of critical minerals. And with that, Congress has put funding behind it.
And so big question is, well, what are our domestic resources? don't even have very good You know,[00:22:00] it happens from not only what are. domestic resources, how are You know, it happens from not only what are domestic resources, how are these things extracted?
How can they be extracted safely without environmental harm or without harm to humans around any health harm? That's a big question. How can they be processed efficiently? How can you manage the waste? So there's so many different questions. The USGS, we come in kind of at the beginning of that stage of [00:22:30] this multifaceted effort.
Which is just saying, what's our domestic geology? What are the mineral resources? So that's where the funding has come in to collect data to better understand what's in our country. But now I also want to bring up 1 thing. It's not only for critical minerals, along with critical minerals, we can also learn things about earthquake hazards, or we can learn about orphaned wells, we can learn about mining waste, we can learn about groundwater resources.[00:23:00]
And this comes from taking geology and applying it to so many, there's just so many different applications that are so important for our day to day lives. So critical minerals are really important, but natural hazards are important. Water resources and so on. So that's kind of the motivation. Okay.
Chris Bolhuis: Angie, A a follow-up question to what you just said. are you saying that the data that you maybe collect or other geologists collect in search of critical minerals, [00:23:30] that that data is used by other people to draw other conclusions that are important to society? Is that, is that what you're saying?
Basically?
Dr. Anji Shah: Yes. Well, um, that's the goal. I mean, we're in the first couple years of the data collection, so the research is really just starting to get underway. But for example, Jesse, that talk that you saw about Carolina Sands. That survey covered parts of Charleston, South Carolina.
Now Charleston was also the site of a magnitude 7 earthquake in 18 86 [00:24:00] that almost leveled the entire city. So everyone wants to know, well, where's the cause to default? And more importantly, what's the risk of another earthquake like that? Should the building codes be adjusted? You how much earthquake reinforcement do you need if you live in Charleston?
It's a huge question. So those same data that we used to look at heavy mineral sands, we also use them to map deep faults buried, 1 to 2 kilometers, or 3 or 4 kilometers[00:24:30] beneath the earth's surface. And that informs us about earthquake hazards. So that's just 1 example and there's a lot of other
examples.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So, uh, that is a really cool 1, and I wanna know more about the methods, but, before we get to that, I'd have a, just a more general question because I know Chris and I have talked about this and going through school in Michigan and then, um, when I, I moved to Canada for my PhD, but especially like the early days in undergrad and stuff, having a geology degree was sort of were a little [00:25:00] weird. You were what are you gonna do with that? People were kinda questioning, what are you gonna do with your geology degree? And my sense is that right now that's not the case. Like, I mean, just news articles. I mean, it seems like every week the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times has an article about critical minerals or about some mining like geology is just in the news in a much bigger way.
Do you, do you get that sense as well? And do you see that from your, higher viewpoint at in the, in the governmental, um, geological [00:25:30] survey?
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah, I think it is the case. I think there's a lot, well, who knows? and I don't know the reasons why. Um, you know, it could be, a lot more concern about climate and about technologies. mean, just think in the news today. There's a very large earthquake in China that did a lot of damage.
It's a very, tragic situation. A number of lives were lost there. know, that,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: just seems like kind of an exciting time to be. I mean, especially on the, [00:26:00] maybe, going through an education system, system, getting a geology degree, I, I think it would be an exciting and promising time to be, a burgeoning geologist perhaps.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Well, Jesse, that warms my heart that maybe, maybe we don't get looked at, like we have a horn growing out of our head when we say we're geologists anymore. You know,
that's the, hope, right?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you'll just get looked at, like you got a horn growing out of your head for other reasons, but, um, okay. Chris, should we focus? I want, I'm, I'm, a I wanna get
Chris Bolhuis: I do, I wanna I wanna shift [00:26:30] directions. Can I take this?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Go ahead. Sure.
Chris Bolhuis: Alright. So Angie, you've alluded to it, and now I wanna kinda dig into this aspect of, of the interview, which is the work that you're doing on these critical minerals, in particular with the heavy sands.
Because I think when people think about critical minerals, they don't think about looking at sand. So tell us about this. What's, what's going on?
Dr. Anji Shah: Sure. Yeah. you see this, especially in the southeastern U. [00:27:00] S. or really anywhere from southern New Jersey to Northern Florida. If you ever walk along the beach, you'll notice sometimes some of the sands have these dark greens. And it turns out that at least in that part of the country, those dark greens actually contain minerals.
they'll form these lines along the beach, kind of like, you'll get a line of seaweed and then sometimes you'll get some lines of sand. And so how do they form? you think about how sand forms, right? So you've got rivers [00:27:30] that will erode rocks as rivers go along rocks, and they erode the rocks and they pick up sediment and transport them.
Or in a place such as Maine, sometimes you'll have waves coming and crashing right on the rocks. And as they do that, they erode sediments from the rocks. Well, this has been going on in the Eastern US for example, ever since the Atlantic Ocean. was Formed. And so those rocks are eroded, by waves, sometimes by tides, sometimes by rivers.
And they take [00:28:00] all that material. Now they also take a bunch of light sands, they get quartz. So you've got all this stuff that gets eroded, but then you keep reworking these sediments because the rivers transport them, tides, move them around, waves move them around, and then you start sorting them.
So I think a nice analogy is you're gonna take, a box of raisin bran And then shake it up. And you notice how all the raisins are all collecting into 1 area. You're sorting them [00:28:30] because, the, raisins are a different density from all the cereal around them. And the more you shake it, the more you're gonna sort them and concentrate them.
that's how you start forming these concentrations within sand. now there's a couple more parts to this, but I don't know if you wanna ask a question. I was gonna talk about what's in those concentrations because of the way these minerals form, it's very important in terms of mining.
But I'm gonna
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Uh, so I, I definitely [00:29:00] do, I wanna know 1, what's in the sands, and 2, I think, I really am curious to see how you answer, like, there enough? Is this enough to, to make a dent in our critical mineral needs?
Dr. Anji Shah: Okay. So, so what's in the sands? Um, you can see these types of sand concentrations, on many parts of the world. You'll see them up in Alaska, and I think there are places in Michigan too. Um, and [00:29:30] the content will depend on the rocks that they eroded. So now the southeastern U. S, this is an area that has been mined for a couple decades and it's actually actively mined.
These sands are actively mined today. So the reason why 3 primary commodities that are in those sands. 1 is titanium, which, is really important. So probably like, so I've heard a number, like 70 to 80% percent of the white cars in the U. S, that pigment [00:30:00] comes from titanium.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh, really?
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah.
It's very important
Chris Bolhuis: know that. Yeah.
Dr. Anji Shah: then,
Chris Bolhuis: look, you learned something
Dr. Anji Shah: um, another place,
then?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Every day.
Dr. Anji Shah: Here's another 1. you know, anyone with an artificial hip or artificial
Chris Bolhuis: I do.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh, yeah. Chris has 4. He's got 2 hips. Chris has
Dr. Anji Shah: Yep.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: 2 knees that are
Dr. Anji Shah: Yep. So, so titanium, it's, kind of inert and it's strong and it's something, it's because it doesn't interact with [00:30:30] our, the rest of our biology. That's 1 of the reason people like using titanium for medical devices. They're also used for airplanes, for aircraft, for ship building because of metal.
So titanium's a huge 1. So there's 3 big ones. zirconium is another 1 that's been mined a lot, that's used a lot in ceramics. so a lot of ovens, like certain types of ovens that can be heated up, that's zirconium. And then the third 1, this is a interesting 1, the rare [00:31:00] earth elements.
And you see those in the minerals, monazite and xenotyme. Now what's curious is now if you look at, well, where do we get our earth elements? Prior to 19 50, we used to get most of our rare earth elements from sands. But then in the 1950s, production started to shift to the mountain pass, the 1 in California, it's a carbonatite type And they're also shifting to China clays. These are clay hosted. so the [00:31:30] production just moved. It was trends, the number of reasons why it switched. But now more recently, there's a couple of companies that do heavy mineral sand mining are very interested in saying, you know, when we dig up all these sands for titanium and zirconium, we get all this monocyte and we wanna process that and get the rare earths out of it.
Now it's a little bit tricky because that monocyte has thorium in it. thorium is radioactive, so it has to be handled [00:32:00] in a certain way, and an issue that they're working with. but, but. They've got stockpiles of this stuff, and so they realize, hey, we can actually make a dent on critical mineral needs.
So there is a very strong interest in doing that. And that's come up just in the last couple years, year or 2 really?
Chris Bolhuis: Angie, that is amazing to me. Jesse, are you shocked by this, that this
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I'm still thinking about your, I'm, I'm still thinking about your hip replacements that you've had, Chris, and how you, how you still [00:32:30] managed to walk after
all the
Chris Bolhuis: You're so happy. Angie, can you please just stick up for me every once in a
while? Because this
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I'm really pleased with
Chris Bolhuis: you know,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I thought that was quite
a
Chris Bolhuis: uh, that was good. You're You're,
really happy with yourself, Jesse.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No.
I I, no, this is real. I, I, yeah, I am. I have a, a couple follow ups on this, Edgy. So my guess
Chris Bolhuis: on. I don't wanna leave this yet though. Okay.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: it's, it's, no, no, no. It's the same theme here. Uh, so I wanna, I wanna, uh, I'm guessing zirconium is in zircon like this.
Dr. Anji Shah: [00:33:00] That's right.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: in my lab at Penn State, and we separate monazite too. density separate them. So like they're heavy, right? So monazite rare earth, zirconium, probably zircon is the main source of that. Where's the
titanium
Dr. Anji Shah: the titanium, yeah, it's in, um, the key minerals are ilmenite and rutile, and then also leukosine leukosine, which is altered ilmenite. And, and they're all, here's the key thing. They're, they tend to be dark in color, but they're denser also. They're a lot
Chris Bolhuis: [00:33:30] Yeah, that's, that's
what
Dr. Anji Shah: pores And that's how they concentrate.
Exactly. That's it. So like if you, you can pan for it,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. No. Exact I mean, that's
that's kind of what
Dr. Anji Shah: Yep.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's what
Chris Bolhuis: Oh, placer. Yeah.
Dr. Anji Shah: A Plaster placer. I don't,
know. Trash or tracer.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: My, my next, my follow-up to that is these minerals, at least a geochronologist, so we use zircon all the time because it's so [00:34:00] robust. And monazite's much the same, like really robust. Um, Is that a downside of mining these things?
Because these minerals are just hard to dissolve. They're hard to break up. maybe that's part of the reason why they're found in placer deposits like gold and diamonds are, is that a downside of extracting this? oh, I guess they're already extracting zirconium out of them. so like
Dr. Anji Shah: I mean, yeah, I mean, getting, getting the elements out of the minerals is something you need to work with. and I mean, rare earths is from, monazite is a tricky 1, [00:34:30] but there's been some recent developments. But here's the key thing though, is that because these are in sand, you've got 2 stages.
1 is you've got to get the minerals out of the ground, and the other 1 is you've got to get the elements out of the minerals. Right? what you're saying is right, getting the elements out of the minerals. That is tricky. And I'll be honest, I don't know that stage as
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You're not a you're not
Dr. Anji Shah: know?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: engineer or a
material
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah, yeah. But I can say this, that getting them out of the ground is easier because it's [00:35:00] all sand. So it's, different from. Certain types of mining where you have to use these noxious, like you have to use, you know, cyanide and other things to get it out here. They just take, they get the sand and they sift it, basically they sift it, they use these spirals.
They, use magnets. They use electromagnetic fields. So that's the nice part. It's easier to get the sand out of the ground. And then your tailings are a bunch of quartz sand. So you put the [00:35:30] quartz sand back in the top soil. You put that aside and then put that on top. Put that back when it's all done.
So that, that's the nice part about it.
Chris Bolhuis: Interesting. Angie. here in Michigan we have these kind of black stripes, as you described them too. A lot of people call them the black sands, but that's a little misleading. because the beach isn't really black, it's just these really concentrated stripes. But here, if you drag a magnet through it, it's gonna come loaded with magnetite sand.
is that different from [00:36:00] what you're describing, like in the Carolinas? The,
Dr. Anji Shah: little bit. You've got, you've got different geology. I know in Michigan you've got some real iron rich rocks there, a lot of volcanics. So I think you, there, you're eroding a lot of basalt. the stuff you see in the Carolinas, it's a bit older, it's been around longer, and a lot of the magnetic minerals they've been around for, hundred million years and they start to alter.
they, some of them can be magnetic, but not as many,
[00:36:30] they're not as magnetic,
but they can have a little bit, they can have a little
bit of magnetism.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: these are, really sands that have just been reworked since the opening of the Atlantic. Like these
things are just,
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah. And then there's
some new ones.
because even today, you know, sands are getting eroded. If you go way upstream, um, they get eroded by rivers and some of the rivers, if they go all the way from the hard rock out to the coast, like the Santee River in South Carolina, does that, then you can actually bring new [00:37:00] minerals down to the coast also.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so, okay, in my really rudimentary understanding of like sedimentation and sedimentary reworking along the coastline is all the light sand, like the courts and stuff like that, is that all down in Florida then? Like, has the Longshore current just carried that down south and all the heavy stuff stays behind, closer
to the Piedmont Rocks, or is
that too simplistic of a,
a way
Dr. Anji Shah: I mean, I, I do think it's a little bit more complicated than that. right, I mean, a lot of the courts does get transported down to Florida, [00:37:30] but a lot of it stays behind and it's complicated mechanisms, you know. Um, so when a wave, it'll pick up a whole bunch of quartz and then leave heavies behind, but then when it comes back, it'll drop a whole bunch of quartz back on the beach.
So it's this
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah,
Dr. Anji Shah: it's complicated. Yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: Angie, a question related to this whole thing about the, accumulation of these heavy sands. that's not really accessible though, [00:38:00] is it? Because I mean, we're, you're talking about beaches and that are probably already being used, and so you can't just go in and, and take it.
So where are you talking about? Are, you are you talking about older sands that are not on the shoreline anymore,
Dr. Anji Shah: That's exactly it. Yeah. So no 1 wants to see a beach get mined. Right. We just kinda wanna sit and enjoy the sun and, you know, you know, have a nice cold beverage or something. Um, no 1 wants to see that. [00:38:30] Yeah. So, but but I like you talking about the beaches. because it's a place where you can actually see the geology up front and close.
You can look at it and you can see it, but the places that do get mined are much further inland. lot of times it tends to be on private land. So the mining company will make an agreement with the owner so places like Roanoke Rapids was 1. There's also areas south of Richmond, Virginia that have been mined.
they tend to be inland, they tend to be areas that [00:39:00] don't have those other types of uses like recreation.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, that makes sense. I'm really glad that I got clarification on that. I was struggling a little bit with the, the mental image.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Uh, so Angie, um, how do you detect these things and, and and how are you leveraging your geophysics? In this way. I mean, this gets complicated I think, so we probably need to stay out of the weeds, but at a high level.
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah, at a high level. so I can tell you actually the, the first, when I first got into [00:39:30] this, when I saw that these sands had a very weak magnetic signature and I could pick them up with a magnetometer, but then I found that really worked best if I was near a beach or if I was offshore.
If you go further inland, closer to where you'd actually wanna mine, it actually turns out we have methods called radiometric methods. Okay? So the way this works, remember that monazite that I talked about that has the rare earth elements in it, it's also got that thorium. [00:40:00] So radiometric methods do is they look at elements that have some amount of radioactivity.
So it could be potassium potassium, when it changes into argon, it releases a gamma ray thorium similarly releases gammas and so does uranium. We have these sensors, they're actually made out of salt crystals, you sodium iodide, I swear, and they can pick up, they can sense these gamma rays and then they look at the energy spectrum of a gamma ray [00:40:30] each, every 1 of them.
And then depending on what it is that decayed, it'll have a certain, like a footprint or fingerprint, maybe that's a better description. And then, so we look at those fingerprints or footprints. And from that we back out. I, take the sensor over here, how much there a lot of potassium there?
Or is there a lot of thorium? Is there a lot of uranium And we can put these sensors in airplanes. And then we fly them over the area. We sort of do like a mow the lawn [00:41:00] kind of pattern and fly over these areas. And should mention the footprint of the data gets pretty big when we're in, in an airplane.
So we're talking, talking several hundred feet for a pixel, if you will. But then we can find,
Chris Bolhuis: how high are you?
Dr. Anji Shah: if we can do it, we'll go 300 feet to 400 feet above ground, which is pretty low. It's very, very low. it's a more populated area, they want us at a thousand feet. And that's just a safety consideration.
Chris Bolhuis: you get [00:41:30] diminishing returns when you have to go that much
Dr. Anji Shah: do, you do because you can think about it. We're trying to look at gammas coming out of the ground. So the further up you are then the lower the probability that that gamma is gonna hit your sensor. So it becomes a signal to noise kinda thing.
Chris Bolhuis: so interesting. Do you have to be in the plane?
Dr. Anji Shah: In fact, I can't. I'm not supposed to be in the airplane and I wish I could,
Chris Bolhuis: Why
Dr. Anji Shah: But, um, okay, so these are special airplanes. What they do is
Dr. Jesse Reimink: too [00:42:00] much brainpower, Chris. It's just,
Dr. Anji Shah: pull out well, to be honest, you
Chris Bolhuis: so so they would allow you on,
Jesse.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: and I could be, they'd be like, no problem. We got, we need ballast in the back. Actually, just
go
Chris Bolhuis: could Jesse go? Sure. Chris, you can come on
Dr. Anji Shah: Well, I, I gotta ask you this. How's your patients and how's your bladder? Because they're up there for 6 to 8 hours at a time, and they're just going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And the other thing is they, the inside of the airplane, they rip out [00:42:30] all the seats because you need the electronics there, you need the equipment, you need, the crystals are in there, so there's nowhere to sit.
And then they just go back and forth and back and forth. So, um, the pilots, I, gotta admire them, that's not an easy job, what they're doing. And yeah, 6 to 8 hour
Chris Bolhuis: Now, are they contracted by
Dr. Anji Shah: So that's right. that's right. With, there are a number of companies, it's a very specialized kind of field, um, very specialized skill set, but they [00:43:00] have the instrumentation, they have the right kind of airplanes. They know how to post process the data. There's a lot of, them, a a lot of technical stuff goes into these surveys we have some of the best contractors out there.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so you're getting these gamma rays and I, I must be, I must say, um, bought a gamma ray spectrometer for our lab. I hate 1 of those handheld ones you can take in the field, but I don't really fundamentally understand how it works yet. we've just been kinda playing with it, a bunch of petrol, just playing with the gamma rays for travel. but, uh, so you, you fly these surveys and it's [00:43:30] picking up well, gamma rays that are different energies.
So I'm guessing uranium and thorium, it's picking up like different, product nuclides, like in somewhere in the decay chain there's a bunch of gamma rays being released. Is that directional? Do you get like a direction if it's coming from the left side of the plane or the right side, or is it just aggregate, all the gamma rays at 1 time from all over are coming in?
Dr. Anji Shah: Oh, that's an
Dr. Jesse Reimink: surprises me that pixel size,
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: pixel size seems small for being a thousand feet in the air, to be honest.
Dr. Anji Shah: um, like, when [00:44:00] we say a couple hundred meters. Well, couple of things are happening. They are partly directional, in that we have, some of them are downward looking versus upward looking, and that's to correct for any radon or other things in the atmosphere. So there is that type of directionality, but what's happening is you're moving across an area and you're always aggregating what you've got.
But as you're moving. The signals are changing. So with the right kind of [00:44:30] processing, you can actually measure pretty well what the differences are. I would say, you know, at least 3, 400 feet, I usually say a couple hundred meters. it's really a normal distribution dominated by what's immediately beneath you.
And I don't think we wanna get into the, the complexities of
that.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: pretty weedy.
So then you follow-up anything interesting with like, handheld stuff on the ground, like boots on the ground measurements or
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay.
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah. In fact, we did do that. [00:45:00] In fact, we did that up in Maine. yeah, that was kind of interesting. I don't know if you saw this bit.
Chris Bolhuis: I bet
Dr. Anji Shah: Yes.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Actually, uh, in this article you guys, there was a big press release about, or big article in science on this, I think, right? Was it a, a Chris, we talked about this I think like,
Chris Bolhuis: did. We did.
Dr. Anji Shah: Yep. Yep. It was, it was strange. We, we were flying over Maine and we just noticed this anomaly in this 1 area. It was about 800 meters by a couple hundred meters [00:45:30] long. Well, no, I'd say about a kilometer by. 800 meters to a kilometer long and a few hundred meters wide. It picked up on a couple of flight lines and we said, what on earth is going on here?
And so were collaborating with a professor at the University of Maine and she said, I'm gonna go look. And he went out and he brought us portable XRF is a way of looking at, quickly, looking at chemistry of the rocks. And he said, okay, this is interesting. There's rare earth elements here.[00:46:00]
And so we said, okay. And so we went and we, we did kind of a, multi faceted study on it. He got a bunch of samples, we did proper laboratory measurements on them. We took a handheld gamma spectrometer, exactly like what you're talking about. And then we did a walking survey much closer to the ground.
because when you're closer to the ground, then your footprint is a lot smaller. It can be just, you know, a few feet at that point. And we looked at that and looking at the samples, it turned out that the [00:46:30] rocks were very enriched in niobium and rare earth elements. And, um, we kinda mapped out the spatial extent of it.
What we don't know is how deep it is, but the spatial, yeah.
No, this is hard. Rock Bet Yeah, it's actually very fine grained volcanic rock. So uh, trachite is the name of it and it's hard rock. And don't know how deep it is, but the dimensions are very [00:47:00] similar to a, there's a deposit in Australia and it's a known deposit because they've drilled into it.
It's similar in spatial dimensions and it's similar, it's also very fine grained volcanic rock. It's similar. It's got rare. earths And niobium. And zirconium. It's got all of those and it's worth a lot. So we don't know if this 1 in Maine is worth that. because we just, again, we don't know how deep it is but
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah,
That's super
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.[00:47:30]
Dr. Jesse Reimink: go ahead Chris.
Chris Bolhuis: okay. You described beautifully the radiometric methods for your airborne geophysics, if you will. how often do you use something like lidar to see through the canopy as well? Because you talked about flying through Maine. I mean that Maine has a canopy of all canopies.
Um, you know, and I've seen some lidar and how it's used to, maybe map out ancient mass wasting events and things like that. Do you use the same technology a lot?
Dr. Anji Shah: do actually, well, it depends on the [00:48:00] method. so I mentioned magnetic methods and radiometric methods. The radiometric methods measure very shallow sources, so like, only a couple of feet. So if we do an overlay on lidar, it actually really provides us the context, the geologic context.
So for example, in the Carolinas, I can see where the flood plain is, or I can see if some sands, if they're from an ancient shoreline or if [00:48:30] it was once more like an a tidal bay or an estuary. So that's a really nice way to use the lidar data. you're trying to look deeper though, like something with magnetics, a little bit trickier because now you've got a separation between what's at the surface and what's down deep.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you could kinda iterate between those, those 2 or those 3 methods, kind of depending on what you're after to get an integrated uh, view. I you published this map, or the surveys from Maine. Right. And then oh, or maybe not published, but [00:49:00] it's.
public information and the Carolinas 1 as well, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania. Uh, anything, have you guys been, working your way up towards us or even to Michigan to go map, you know, Chris's, Chris's mineral sands there?
Dr. Anji Shah: You know.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: guess I'm, I'm asking what's next for Earth? MRI, like
what's the next couple years look like?
Are you
guys just cranking through loads of surveys
Dr. Anji Shah: Yes, we are cranking through loads of surveys. There are tons of surveys and um, and, and I should mention all the data become [00:49:30] public and they're available for free. you just Google Earth MRI acquisitions, you can see what we're up to right now. And, you click on a dataset, if it's complete and the data are out there, it'll give you a link to that so you can always find the data.
Yep. We recently had a survey covering parts of Pennsylvania. Um, we went yeah, in between Pittsburgh
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Cool. Okay. [00:50:00] where I'm at right now. And I mean, my wife, um, I live in York, Pennsylvania part of the time. Um, so Southeast Pennsylvania Well, there's like all this old iron mining, your little copper deposits everywhere, old iron furnaces and stuff like that. So kinda complicated Piedmont geology, be interested to see that.
That'll be cool to look at
once it, uh, comes out.
Dr. Anji Shah: I think some of my colleagues have been looking at Michigan, but I don't know that area as well.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: What of those,
Chris Bolhuis: to give me a heads up on that, Angie. I wanna know what's
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Chris Chris wants to go on the plane as ballast. He can join, he [00:50:30] can join along. real quick 1 I'm sure this is a hard question to answer, but what are you most excited about in the next like, couple years? I'm sure you're excited about all of it, but is there something that's like really kind of a passion project that you're super excited about?
Dr. Anji Shah: I don't know. I'm excited about what we're gonna find next,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay.
Dr. Anji Shah: I just don't know. I mean, we just keep getting these surprises. Like the stuff up in Maine, that was a surprise. you know, some of the stuff with the sands, we learned about. Some of the [00:51:00] larger scale transport patterns and I didn't know we were gonna be able to do that.
We got that from the potassium. That was really cool. You know, we've got a survey coming up. I'm excited about this over the Cape Fear Arch, and I wanna know what the Cape Fear Arch Yeah. In between the border on between North and South Carolina. And this is so interesting because, you know, we think, okay, the Atlantic Ocean opens and now everything is stable on the eastern seaboard.
Nothing's [00:51:30] moving. Well, that's not true. It turns out that there's this area close to the border between the 2 Carolinas that seems to be uplifting. And people know this by looking at the sedimentary history, looking strata. Because you'd expect if nothing was moving, you'd expect it to look like a pile of pancakes, flat pancakes, and it's not what you see.
Instead, you see all these angles and we don't understand it. There's no good explanation for it.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's super interesting. I know. [00:52:00] I remember talking to a geophysicist about this and they said that, oh, seismologist rather, and they, they said that there's like a piece of the lithosphere missing that the mantle, there's like a hundred kilometer by a hundred kilometer part of the mantle root. It's, I think it's a bit more north from there, but it's kinda like gone. And so they're like, oh, maybe it's related to this New England hot spot that passed through. But used the phrase that passive margins are anything but passive was kind of the phrase, which I found really, uh, that was a good 1. I like that 1. so that's cool.
Chris Bolhuis: That's good.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: about the [00:52:30] what the Cape Fear arch, is that, is that how you pronounce
it? Cape Fear
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah. Sort of like the movie,
but with
Chris Bolhuis: Interesting. Yeah. Cape Fear. That's an
oldie.
Dr. Anji Shah: an old age showing my age.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: Are you good with
that?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I just wanna circle back real quick, edgy to the education stuff that we, touched on initially. And I think your, your sort of advice sounded like kind of be patient, right? from your seat, you must interact with a lot of kind of types, academic types,[00:53:00] you kinda bridge this, divide a little bit.
And, especially given your interest in the applied sciences, are there, don't know, are there degrees that are more valuable? Like, we always get, I, I, and I think we, as geologists sort of struggle with this innately, volcanoes are cool, but there's only so many people who can be professional volcanologists, right?
Like, there's just not that many. So, My opinion is if you're interested in volcanoes, go study volcanoes for a grad degree and you'll be able to use that petrology knowledge and [00:53:30] that that chemistry knowledge or that geophysics knowledge in some other field. If you don't wanna be a professional volcanologist working for 1 of the volcano observatories or something there's other value in that.
I, I mean, would you agree with that or would you, you say like, Hey, if you go do applied, science degrees maybe, and just as this is just from your perspective, I'm not asking you to like advise everybody, but what, what's the, there's a tension there I think sometimes between like the passion driven geologists the practical side and
Dr. Anji Shah: Well, [00:54:00] I, I, I don't know if it's changing. I mean, I do, I think a lot of it depends on the individual and, what it is they wanna do and how happy they'll be. And some people Work best in doing pure research, and they're very interested in those questions and they're willing to tolerate all the hoops you have to go through to get a research position and to get a faculty position and to get funding, which is, it's a difficult route.
It's a very competitive [00:54:30] route and a lot of people wanna do it. And, not everyone gets to do it. Even, if you do have that passion, it's hard. Um, and on the other hand, maybe you're interested in geoscience, but you don't feel the need to, to go into pure research and maybe you wanna do something else.
1 thing that you mentioned is you talked about, I think you alluded to skill sets and I think having those skill. sets Is really important. So I it's important to study what you like and what you're interested in. because [00:55:00] you'll be motivated to work really hard. but if you have skill sets that are transferable, then your opportunities expand.
You'll have a lot more doors open to you, and you'll have just more options in the end. And which skill sets are helpful? I don't know. I mean, it's petrology maybe. Um, GIS is always a good 1, Python programming is a good 1. There's, you know, the skill sets that I had way back in the day, I [00:55:30] knew Fortran, you know, no, no one's, no one's using that.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. We, we still have classes that teach Fortran and all the students are very complaining about it because they're like, why aren't we learning Python
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd have the same question. I mean, yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: a completely valid
Dr. Anji Shah: That that was, that was a long time ago. And, and yeah, I wouldn't recommend it now. So, you know, MATLAB would
still
Chris Bolhuis: Angie, so Angie, let's quit skirting around the issue here. Is it [00:56:00] a good idea to get a geoscience degree or not?
gonna put you on the
Dr. Anji Shah: I I think it's on the person, it depends on you, right? What are your interests? What do you want? why are you going for it? What do you wanna get out of it? and are there opportunities? I think there are, I'll be honest, I haven't looked through the ads, but I think, I just think there's a lot of opportunities.
I know that for what we do for magnetics and gravity and radiometric methods, I wish there were more people graduating with [00:56:30] that skill set,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: For sure. Uh, but I, I really like the way you said that Angie. know? Go do something you're interested in because you'll work hard at it and you'll be interested and you'll learn, you'll develop all those skill sets that if you aren't interested in what you're doing, you're not gonna go the extra mile to kind of learn Python because you kind of need it to solve this little niche problem in your masters or whatever like gonna use that, that's, I'm gonna steal that piece of advice and use it. because that's a good 1. I, I think that's valuable developing these like, tangential [00:57:00] skill sets. so anyway. Okay. Well thank you for, thank you for answering that. Very difficult and impossible to answer
Dr. Anji Shah: I think
I answered it.
I
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No. it's perfect though. It's a good, but I mean, it's hard. It's a hard 1. right? Because it's like we all, we all come from our own personal perspective, right? And, and look. Outwards from that viewpoint. And, but it, but it's valuable. And this is something we've, been trying to ask all of the people we've been interviewing recently who are, you know, successful senior scientists or senior researchers like yourself.
what does it look like from your chair? [00:57:30] Because we can only give, Chris and I can only give advice from our own perspectives. And so it's, we just try and get a, get our listeners a summary of everybody's perspective here over time. thank you for for that. We appreciate
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah, I might, if I was 20 years younger, my answer might be different. I don't know. I don't
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes. But you know, thankfully you're not 20 years younger so you can give advice from a, from a c a position of, uh, of, you know, higher level. So we appreciate that.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: sorry I interrupted you
Chris Bolhuis: [00:58:00] Alright. That's okay.
Alright, Angie, so this is May, it's, I don't know. I have 2 favorite questions and the, it's the first and the last. And I really appreciated your answer about why you got into geoscience. So now let's talk about what's been your best day as a geoscientist.
Dr. Anji Shah: Oh wow. there's been a few, you know, I don't know why this sticks in my head, but, um, I was, I, did, uh, my God, I think I was in my 20s and I did this, I was doing a little [00:58:30] solo miniature road trip in the southwest and it was getting near sunset, and I was looking at the horizon and was just looking at the mountains.
And while I'm looking at them, I'm looking like, that's a half graben, You know, and it's this beautiful, beautiful sunset. And then looking at the mountains though, guess, because I, I was new, I was still in graduate school. I had only been in grad school a couple of years, and I had a new appreciation for looking at mountains in a [00:59:00] certain way and seeing the shape and then thinking about the processes that Formed them. And it was something that, you in the old days I would have thought of it, oh, that's pretty. But now I thought, oh, it's very pretty and there's a story to go with it. I could say the same thing with looking sometimes at Sands on the beach also. It's like, I look at
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: That's right. Looking at the world through a little bit of a different lens and understanding our planet, that's such a good answer. [00:59:30] it adds so much more. It, it adds a connectedness, right? that's kinda what
Dr. Anji Shah: Yeah. You know, my, even my aunt, um, she's not a geoscientist at all. She's not any kind of scientist. She, but she learned from a friend. She said, you know, every rock has a story. And, and that's,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: nice.
Dr. Anji Shah: and it's like, I
Dr. Jesse Reimink: a good 1. Yep.
Dr. Anji Shah: they all have their stories.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes. That's a good 1. Well, that is a great spot to end on. thank you, Angie. This has been such a pleasure. I've learned a ton. And I'm very interested in the Sands now too. This is very exciting stuff, and I'm looking forward to seeing some, uh, geophysics from, [01:00:00] from Pennsylvania too.
Uh, we can investigate what's going on there, and if you need people to walk around and follow it up with a handheld gamma ray spectrometer, I guess we'll figure out how it works we we could walk down the road and point it at some rocks too.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, Angie, absolutely. I secondhand everything Jesse said. Learning about the critical minerals and the sands. I don't know. I didn't know that. I didn't, that's exciting that this is, you know, it's it's more viable than I think I ever would have imagined, and and I [01:00:30] think that's very exciting. So thank you so much for sharing that with us, and, uh, thanks for giving us your
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Absolutely. We we really appreciate it.
Thank you very much, Angie.
hey, that's a wrap. Thanks for listening. You can find all of our content on our Camp Geo mobile app. You can find all of our old podcast interviews compiled there in some sort of order. You can also find Camp Geo, our intro, our physical geology.
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Chris Bolhui: Well done,
Jesse. Cheers.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Thank you. Peace.
[01:01:30]
