Dr. Jesse Reimink: uh, it's, it's busy. There's grant deadlines due, there's papers that got rejected that need to be resubmitted. You know, it's kind of end of fiscal year deadline stuff going on right now. But you, Chris, are wearing a different shirt. Than the one that you've recorded the last like four episodes in. You usually have your blue flannel hoodie on and you have a northplace jacket.

Chris Bolhuis: I do.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: theme, but different actual [00:01:00] like over.

Chris Bolhuis: actually no. The theme is way different. that hoodie that I usually wear. that thing is a piece of crap. It has a big tear in it.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: seen, I am trying not to be offended that you always wear it to record podcasts with me.

Chris Bolhuis: I don't know, it's just comforting to wear. I like it.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay. Fair enough. Hey, office hours. We have as usual some great questions from you, the listener. Thank you for sending 'em in. Keep it up. These are really interesting and it's [00:01:30] actually kind of I think that today's one is in particular a

Chris Bolhuis: Well, we have two today.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Good point. What? What are we doing?

Chris Bolhuis: we got a question about careers in geoscience and what our advice is to whether they should go back and pursue this kind of passion that they have. So that's, that's the first one. And the other question dealt with mass spectrometers and new advances and yeah, updates and techniques,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, that's right. The first one. I mean, I think we should, Chris, if [00:02:00] you think so, we should cover the first one first because that's like a meaty discussion, I think. And there are several people who have emailed us kind of in the same theme of career advice. Like A lot of them are kind of, do I go back to college for Geology or not, or do I go to graduate school for Geology or not? Basically, kind of in the theme of, as you said it, do I pursue this passion academically or not? And I'd be really curious to hear your thoughts on this, Chris. Um, I find [00:02:30] it hard to give really personal advice on this front, like it's such a deeply personal. Question. we can weigh in, in general, uh, is the way I feel, but what do you think, I mean, what are your thoughts when, when people are, you know, struggling with this?

Because I think you did when you were, you know, going through the process

Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, I de I definitely did. It's really interesting that you say what you just said because my take on that question is, yeah, I have something to say to that. and it maybe it's because it is so personal to [00:03:00] me because I did go through this very kind of crisis, I guess, if you will. Um,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: So what was that in your personal life, maybe first, or how did you experience

this?

Chris Bolhuis: I had no idea what direction I was gonna go. I just knew I was gonna go to college, but I didn't know why. you know, so I did go right outta high school and I, I dunno, I spent the first year and a half in my. College career, just taking general ed classes and, and then really starting to sweat because nothing grabbed me. I didn't know what I was gonna do. And [00:03:30] my dad always, my dad had always said, Hey Chris, you're gonna, you're gonna know it's just gonna land in your lap and, and when it's there, you'll just, but I was running out of . Faith you know, something better grab me sooner. I'm just gonna end up going in a direction for no particular reason.

And that's really almost what happened. I mean, shoot, Jesse, I was, I was taking business classes. that

was my major right before Geology

business

Dr. Jesse Reimink: that would've been an unhappy crystal heist

Chris Bolhuis: Can you see me in

business? What, uh, that's No. I, I [00:04:00] shudder to think about this. So, when I found Geology, and, you know, I've told this story so I'm not gonna retell it, but I knew that this was it, right?

this was something that I was excited about and really that's the first time that that had happened. And, I knew this was it, and so I didn't know my trajectory though at that point. I didn't know what path I was gonna take. I just knew that it was gonna deal something with Geology. It had to be,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: And you were what, a junior in college when this happened?[00:04:30]

Chris Bolhuis: I was a sophomore. Yeah. Sophomore. Yeah.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: and then, so you graduated with an earth science degree, right? If I

Chris Bolhuis: No, I did not. Nope,

I did not. No. I graduated with a degree in Geology and then I got married right away after, after I graduated and Jenny and I moved out to Oregon for a year. And then, just for personal reasons and so on, we wanted to move back. Jenny really She's got a close connection with home and she wanted to be closer to home.

So we moved back and that's when I had to decide, all right, what am I gonna do now? [00:05:00] I needed to change my trajectory because at the time I didn't really wanna do environmental Geology. It and again, I, I would. Rethink that now. I think it's a very exciting field now, and I would look really hard at going in that direction, but at the time, that wasn't my thing, and so I did have to change directions and it was not an easy path.

I had to go back to school for two more years and I had to do my student teaching so I could chase my passion, which [00:05:30] was to still be heavily involved in the field of geoscience.

Just now I want to teach

Dr. Jesse Reimink: so you went back to get the teaching degree is what you kind of went back for. Okay, gotcha.

Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. and that worked out great, Jesse, for me, because I had to do all the hard stuff.

I had to go to field camp, I took structure, I took said Strat Calculus, all this stuff, right? whereas if I had just gone into teaching and I had just went the earth science route right away, I wouldn't have those [00:06:00] experiences. And I think those experiences provided me with the confidence to do what I do in my Geology class, you know, make this a Geology field course that's three weeks long.

I. That whole experience in Grand Valley just provided me with the confidence to go ahead and plow forward with it.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay, a comment, and then two questions. The comment is, first of all, I think you got your undergrad degree before oil had been discovered probably so, like it was really, there was no career [00:06:30] opportunities in the geoscience field apart from teaching now. I'm kidding.

But have you, the question is really, have you, Have you looked back or, or have there been second guesses or what led you to go into teaching with the Geology after getting a Geology degree as opposed to, I guess, the environmental side?

You know, can you, can you kind of tease apart that decision or that decision process?

Chris Bolhuis: Are you asking, if I regret not going the environmental

Dr. Jesse Reimink: not regrets. I know you, you're like, you know, you're, you don't have regrets, right? And so I, you [00:07:00] make a decision and then you don't really look the other direction. You don't look down the old path that you could have taken, really. And so that's not really my question. My question is, can you kind of tease apart that decision you made between environmental or geoscience industry or being a, like more of a practicing geologist out there versus the teaching route, that fork in the road, you know, what did that decision look like for you?

Chris Bolhuis: yeah, I remember having this discussion with Jenny, it was a tough thing because, she was teaching elementary, she'd got a job right when we moved back.

And so for me [00:07:30] to, Not be working and go to go back to school full-time and pay tuition. So not only am I not working, I'm also paying

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah,

Chris Bolhuis: tuition and I'm married, you know, I'm not living with mom and dad anymore or you know, I don't have any support that way.

that was tough. I mean, we were poor and I don't regret that at all. But we were absolutely poor so what led me to the decision is, You know, I, I had to take a bunch of classes that I didn't want to take to go the [00:08:00] teaching route, but I had decided that I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a teacher and I didn't wanna work in the environmental field, but I didn't want to take these classes either.

And, you know, you know exactly how Jenny is. She's, she looked at me and she's like, well, is this the path you want to go? And I said, yeah. And she said, well, suck it up and do

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, quit being a baby. Like what are you complaining about? Go do it. Yeah.

Chris Bolhuis: Right. And, and so that's what I did, Yeah. I really did not want to take some of the classes, and to be [00:08:30] quite honest with you, it was, it was a bunch of chemistry that I had to take yet, and um, that just didn't do it for me, you know?

And so that was the only thing that kind of held me back, other than the financial side of it. I could have just gone on and gotten a job, you know, in the environmental side and, and gone to work. But Looking back, I made the right call for

Dr. Jesse Reimink: so bringing that forward to like, advice today to people who are, you know, maybe in that same position who are deciding, maybe it's grad school, they're thinking about, or maybe it's going back, maybe they got the business degree and are thinking about going [00:09:00] back to get a geoscience degree. I don't know.

I think I probably know what your advice is gonna be, but I'm not sure I want to, what do you think?

What are your thoughts?

Chris Bolhuis: I think follow your passion. I mean, always. I think that's always gonna be my advice because I'm passionate about, My job, I'm, I'm passionate about what I teach and I'm really grateful for it too. every day I try to remind myself of how lucky I am to be in my situation, and that's just because I, I get to do something that I absolutely love.

[00:09:30] and I can't understate that. I mean, I, I think that passion in all facets of our life is just one of the most important things to have. And so,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: You know, the, the bull Heiss are passionate people. You, you guys are, you know, to, to an individual passionate in various, in various things. What I know about the Bull Heiss is, is that they are passionate. Indeed. So I, I was actually, I was thinking to myself, yeah, I wonder what Crystals say, but in retrospect, I should have known that this is how [00:10:00] you would answer it, right?

Like,

Chris Bolhuis: Well, well, okay. What about you then? Like what's your take on it?

Dr. Jesse Reimink: so I guess a little bit about my path. went to college knowing I wanted to do Geology because I'd taken your class and we've, talked about this before, right? Because of you, I knew I wanted to go do Geology, but that's not to say that there were not times along the path that I sort of second guessed what I was doing.

I do really distinctly remember having this discussion with a, a mentor of mine at the end of undergrad. When I was deciding am I gonna go to grad school or not? and I was sort of [00:10:30] like, I, I said, I'm not sure if this Geology thing is just a sort of a hobby that got too big in my life or not, because it kind of felt that way.

Like, okay, I like collecting rocks. We talked about this in a recent episode. Like, I like collecting rocks. Did that get too big in my life? Like, do I need to do a major in it? What am I gonna do with this degree? And I think this might be particular to Michigan or to the Midwest in the time that.

I was coming of age and the time that you did as well. there was not a big geoscience industry in the region. you know, as environmental [00:11:00] consulting or teaching, and that's kind of the two decisions. The ones you had were the, kind of the same ones I had with an undergrad degree and then I went to to Canada for graduate school and kind of the world blew up in front of me, meaning like the options were laid out that you can go be a minerals exploration geologist, you can be an oil and gas geologist, you can do a lot of different stuff with a Geology degree.

and I chose the academic route. So I guess all that to say I don't feel that it was the only path to take, but I, I did struggle with it and it clearly was the right one, [00:11:30] but, um, I struggled along the way with, with that decision. Should I go to grad school or not?

Chris Bolhuis: well, okay. Well then answer the question cuz you're kind of being roundabout with this. Like, should, you know, we got a question. It was pretty direct. What do you think? Should I go

back?

Dr. Jesse Reimink: I mean, I'm really hesitant to give advice on this, like it is a deeply personal thing. Like you, you kind laid out, you know, it's a rela you have a relationship to consider. You have location to consider. Like there's a lot of factors. You have financial abilities to pay for college.

Like all that is a consideration here, right? Now [00:12:00] what I will say is that the geoscience job market I know for a fact has changed a lot and there are so many new geoscience related industries that are opening up. I saw a chart recently of carbon technology companies, the fundraising of carbon technology companies, and they are raising billions of dollars they all need geochemists.

So like a geochemistry degree is like newly valuable. used to be able to just go maybe look for gold or maybe look for oil. And now there's this whole wide [00:12:30] world of employment sectors that kind of need geoscientists to go work for them. And I don't really know what that'll look like in 10 years or five years when somebody finishes a degree.

So it's hard to say, oh look, you can go do this job now. That's a hard one because there's so much changing right now. But I think the degree will be valuable in a way that it maybe wasn't for you. And I, so it, I don't think it necessarily has to be just a passion decision. Right.

Chris Bolhuis: I think you're right. I mean, it's hard to go wrong. If you're really in love with something, it's hard to go wrong following [00:13:00] that. I agree, it's hard to say, well, yeah, this is what you should do. And so our disclaimer out there is this is just what we think,

you know,

and, you know, everyone needs to do what's right for you.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, two guys on a podcast. but I, I will say my advice also differs depending on what we're talking about, like an undergrad degree is kind of a, a bigger, commitment in many ways. If you don't have a geoscience degree and you're thinking about going to get an undergrad degree, that's a big time commitment.

Financial commitment, a master's [00:13:30] degree is in some ways kind of a lower commitment in a weird way. Like if you have a geoscience undergrad and you're thinking about going and getting a master's degree, That's a two year thing. It gets paid for you, or at least you get some living stipend, so you're not going more into debt to get the

Chris Bolhuis: Well, let me interrupt you. That depends on what kind of master's degree you get. If you're getting a research, master's degree, then you're gonna get funded. But if you're taking classes, then you're gonna have to pay for that.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's a good point. There are new programs, like one [00:14:00] year Master's programs that you'll pay for. But I guess What we have in our department is the two-year thesis based master's of science degree, which is funded for you.

You, you at least don't go into more debt. You know, you get a living stipend, which is small, but allows you to live without going into more debt. A PhD is a high-risk thing, like you gotta know, in my opinion, before you go into a PhD you gotta gotta know what you wanna do or like why you want the PhD.

Don't go into a PhD, that's a four year commitment. You don't go into more debt, but you also

don't make

Chris Bolhuis: you're Jesse, it's like an eight year commitment, [00:14:30] you know? Then

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Hey, I was five years, five, just over five years.

Chris Bolhuis: well, and then your post doc. We gotta throw

that in

Dr. Jesse Reimink: it's true, but it, it, you know, you don't make any money for a long time, which is, uh, which is a financial sacrifice in a way.

Chris Bolhuis: I bought way too many beers for you. I just felt bad. We would get together. I'm like, okay, I'll buy again. Jesse, you know, you

you have

nothing.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Jesus dude's like 26. Like he can't buy his own beers. What's going on here? That's funny. Yeah. But it's true. It is a, [00:15:00] that is a, it's a big commitment. So I kind of feel like an undergrad is kind of more of a commitment than a master's and then less than a PhD. So I think my advice kind of depends on the degree you're sort of talking about.

Um,

Chris Bolhuis: And also to the direction that you're gonna go. You know, there are some directions where a bachelor's degree, a four year degree is the, it's the working degree, but there are other directions where master's is the working degree, and then of course academia's gonna be a PhD. So it depends upon that Also, like what. avenue you want to [00:15:30] follow Once, once you make your decision about, all right, I'm gonna go into Geology, while there's so many different roads to take. So

there's,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's, really true. Chris and I just actually saw, uh, back to the employment thing, I just saw a stat that the projections are by 2025, we will have. a deficit of a hundred thousand geoscientists i e. We will need a hundred thousand more geoscientists out there in the working industry than we will have, trained to do it.

So there's gonna be a demand for geoscience skillsets, and there's gonna be a demand for like blended [00:16:00] skillsets are growing minor in our program is an earth science policy minor. and this is a really. Popular, um, field to go into. States are hiring geoscientists in that kind of policy, or maybe not geoscientists or scientists in that kind of policy and science communication sort of blended mode.

So that's a big opportunity for people to kind of scratch the edge of geoscience, but also scratch another itch for themselves, um,

Chris Bolhuis: Think, think about this too. Getting a a bachelor's degree in Geology and then [00:16:30] going on to get a law degree, something like that.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh my goodness. Talk about marketable man there. There's people in art program who get, uh, geoscience degrees as well as a double major in finance and oh my God, are you employable with that? I think like, especially with some geochemistry in there. a really, really powerful combination, in the growing economy of geoscience.

The future of geoscience employment, energy sector's turning over, all this stuff's happening. That's super

exciting. So

Chris Bolhuis: That's right. [00:17:00] And I think there are jobs that are going to be Geology related in the next decade or so that we don't even know about yet at this point. it's a dramatically different than even when you came out, but it's dramatically different from when I came out.

I mean,

it's just

the, it doesn't even look the same.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: I think the, sector when I came out of, when I graduated college is very similar to the, the sector when you graduated college, like, you

know, I we're like 15 years difference or something like that. It, it's, It was pretty much the same, but I think [00:17:30] between my generation and the current generation, it is light years difference.

it's kind of crazy. I mean, I'm teaching, in this fall, I'm gonna teach an entrepreneurial geoscience class because there are just so many startups that are happening that are in the geoscience space of various, like parts of the geoscience space that I think we kind of have to get a, a grasp on where this industry might be going because our undergrads, they might go start companies in this space and that would be, Really great for everybody.

so there's just loads of opportunity. So

Chris Bolhuis: [00:18:00] Okay.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: maybe I'm giving advice to say, go back, maybe I'm talking myself into saying, you know, pursue the

passion cuz it's

also gonna be practical.

Chris Bolhuis: and mine is John, just go follow your dreams and follow your passion. How, you know, how can you go wrong, you're gonna find your

way.

Um, and I, I believe that, but it is personal and so that, know,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, it, it, yeah, it could be tough, recognizing that it can be a tough decision at times. For sure.

Chris Bolhuis: All right. We have another one, Jesse, [00:18:30] about mass spectrometers and updates on like new techniques. So this is right up your alley. Um, so why don't you give this one a whirl. This is by Richard, you know, talk a little bit about the technique and, and is there new stuff on the horizon

with

mass spectrometry?

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh man. There, you know, I, so I can't claim to know everything that every lab group is working on, but there's a lot of stuff always going on with mass spectrometer development. our lab, my lab, we've. [00:19:00] Decreased in some aspects in part cuz we can't get funding for the, the projects and there's more interesting stuff going on I think.

So there's like projects kind of die without completing them necessarily or, or going as deep as you want to go. There's always stuff with mass spectrometers that are being developed. The most recent and most impressive stuff I've seen recently is like the sort of micro mass spectrometers.

So things they're trying to put on spacecraft or things they are putting on spacecraft to go measure isotope ratios on Mars or on the asteroids that they're going to go visit.[00:19:30]

Chris Bolhuis: That's crazy because I've seen yours and they're big, they take up a whole room,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: ones I work on are big. And you wouldn't be flying these into space.

Chris Bolhuis: no.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's a

Chris Bolhuis: Um, that's crazy. Okay. do you lose accuracy with these smaller ones?

Dr. Jesse Reimink: well, they lose precision, right? So you, you basically make larger, you make data points with larger uncertainties. But like, if you're trying to get a measurement from Mars, We have very few measurements from Mars. So any data is more valuable than [00:20:00] no data, right?

So it kind of doesn't even matter how big the uncertainties are because the questions are so big. We don't know like what is the atmospheric composition, around Mars or Venus, like, we don't really know that stuff. So, we do hydrogen, but not

Chris Bolhuis: We, we do, yeah. We, they, they do because they, they talk about on Mars, like deuterated water versus non deuterated water, and the ratio of deuterated water, which deuterated water is reference to deuterium, which is H two. It's got a neutron in the nucleus, and the vast majority of [00:20:30] hydrogen is just H one with.

One proton and no neutron. So it's heavy hydrogen, And based upon the ratio of that in Mars, they are able to then walk back how much water has been lost by Mars. So how much water they think it had. That's really, really cool science if you ask me. because Mars doesn't weigh enough to hold on and retain that lighter hydrogen, but it does weigh enough to hold on to the deuterated.

[00:21:00] Hydrogen in the water, and so sorry I interrupted you and

kind of

Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's, no, no, no. That's. That's. good. So, so like, you know, going and trying to put a rover down that can measure the hydrogen sub composition of the, the minerals on the surface as opposed to just, when we look at spectroscopically or fly a, a satellite through the orbit, through the atmosphere, we get a measurement of the current atmosphere.

And so how did that change over time? How's the H one to H two, the deterioration to hydrogen ratio? Of Mars atmosphere changed over [00:21:30] time. You can look at like hydrated minerals on the surface, alteration minerals on the surface. And so some of the really cool mass spectrometer advancements are the sort of micro mass spectrometers that they're putting into orbit.

Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Uh, question for you then is, radiometric dating a part of this discussion.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Ooh, good question. Not that I know of.

Chris Bolhuis: Okay.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: although,

Chris Bolhuis: here a second?

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And then I, I, I have an, although I have a qualifier to that, but

Chris Bolhuis: Of course you

Dr. Jesse Reimink: heard. [00:22:00] Yeah.

Chris Bolhuis: Of course you do. so there somebody is using this technique to date when quartz sand was deposited.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes.

The

best way I've ever heard this described,

the best way I've ever heard this described it as the quarts getting sunburned and the more sunburned the longer it sat in the sun for, which is a great description

Chris Bolhuis: Right, but, but then they can determine when it was deposited because then it gets buried, so it's deposited, it [00:22:30] gets sunburned, and then it gets buried. So they can kind of pigeonhole the point at which the sand was deposited, which normally is really. Difficult because, working through the Geology of that, this is really exciting stuff. I want to be specific about this then? Is the cosmic gen dating that I referred to, like sunburned quar sand, is that a new advancement?

Dr. Jesse Reimink: No, not really. That's been around for a while. that's always getting more precise though. So like radiocarbon. [00:23:00] Radiocarbon labs have this massive mass spectrometer. I mean, this thing takes up a huge room, not just one room, but many, many rooms. And that's always getting more and more and more precise because we can count one carbon, 14 out of a million carbon atoms. Or we can count one carbon, 14 out of a billion. And so how well can you count that one atom is kind of the key thing. And you need a really big mass spectrometer to do that. So that keeps improving sort of gradually. More gradually

though, I'd say. Yeah.

Chris Bolhuis: Okay. All right.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: so [00:23:30] that's a, a quick and dirty update on mass spectrometer stuff.

Chris Bolhuis: okay. Well, I mean, it is really, really interesting stuff. In fact, it was just today that I came across the. I had never thought of it before. I'd never heard of it before, of dating the deposition of a layer of sandstone, court sandstone. I'd never heard of that before, and I was just like, wait, what?

That's no way. That is so freaking amazing. Like, uh, unbelievable.

It was exciting.

so.[00:24:00]

Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's a fun day learning about this stuff. See above, pursue your passion because you get to just research your passion all day long.

Chris Bolhuis: Well, no, I, I still, I'm still in the phase of my life where I have to plan out when I'm gonna take a p during the day, but, you know,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, it's on the

horizon when you can actually not,

Chris Bolhuis: teacher. Yeah,

Dr. Jesse Reimink: out your, uh, bathroom breaks.

Chris.

Chris Bolhuis: right. That's right. I look

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Hey, uh, I think that's a wrap on this Office Hours episode. Keep sending us questions. These are great. We love answering 'em. We love kind of [00:24:30] sitting around stewing about how to answer it best, which ones to link together into an office hours episode.

It, it's great stuff and everyone's asking us great questions. So send us an email, planet geo cast gmail.com with all of your questions. You can visit our website, planet geo cast.com. There you can support us. You can subscribe, see all of our past episodes with transcripts.

You can see a couple pictures of Chris out in the field there with his, uh, what do they call gym teacher sunglasses on, I think, uh,

Chris Bolhuis: Hey Don. You shouldn't say that cuz your mom was a gym

teacher, so

Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:25:00] true, It's true,

Sorry, mom. And if you want to learn all the basics of geoscience in, an audio form with the key images you need, go to the first link in our show notes. That is Camp Geo, our conversational textbook for the geosciences. And if you have questions on that or feedback, let us know.

Send us an email. There's a contact us link on that platform.

Chris Bolhuis: Cheers.

Dr. Jesse Reimink: Peace.

[00:25:30]

Jesse Reimink

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