Who Becomes a Volcanologist?
Jesse Reimink: Welcome to PlanetGeo, where we learn about the earth. I'm Jesse Reimink. Join me and Chris Bolhuis every week.
Okay. This week, we're really excited to have an excerpt from our interview with Dr. Robin Andrews, Dr. Andrews is a PhD volcanologist, and a science communicator. Extraordinary he's written for the New York times, the Atlantic national geographic scientific American and many others. And he also has a new book out called super volcanoes, what they reveal about the earth and the worlds beyond. We encourage you to check it out as always, you can follow us on all the social medias we're at planet geo cast, and we would really appreciate it. If you would write a review for us on your podcast app, we know we have a lot of new listeners out there these days. Please send us an email. If you're new, we'd love to hear from you. Our email is plenty of geo cast@gmail.com. Enjoy this excerpt and tune in next week for the full interview with Dr. Robin. you interviewed a lot of people for this book. I mean, a lot of scientists, a lot of people who study weird volcano types that you talked about in the book, some of these people we've talked to on this podcast, like Tina Neil, or my way Haas and some really prestigious volcanologists. Did you come away with a. I dunno, a common denominator to people who are interested in volcanoes or was there some common features to the people who are interested in this who really dive deep into these things?
Dr. Robin Andrews: You know what I think it just, I think it varies so much. Like it's quite a new. I mean, I wanted to get into volcanoes because A was stubborn and B I was like, it's so removed from what normal jobs are that you're told about what the people do is that when, you know, when you're a kid, that was like, that's it, it sounds crazy. I want to do that. Um, that was very unplanned, but I was just like, that's it. That's my fun. There's other people. I was talking to there's a volcanologist Jackie Kaplan Outback. I've never actually said the surname out loud, but that's all right. But she's in, um, Washington state and she she's she's in the book and she, she studies like underwater volcanoes. She's like a volcanologist and a seismologist. And she kind of, I sort of did a Q and a with her recently saying. And she got into volcanoes. Cause she has an undying love of physics. It's like a lot of people think people get into volcanology because like, oh, you get to travel and see these volcanoes and yeah, that's great. But why would, why would that be a downside? But she loves physics so much. And she said that when she was in, in our first year, they had like such a good math teacher. Cause there's a lot of massive baldness and the teacher showed them how to drive. Like a few famous equation. The cleaning like equals MC squared. I may, at one point they stood up and applauded because it was like a magic trick being unfolded. And it's like, it's so nice there people, they like physics is so good. You know? So if there is a common denominator, I think there probably isn't one all but a frequent theme is that people just like love an aspect. So much that they would, if he said, I'll tell me about that. And they wanted to tell you about it, they would just keep going on. And you know, it's that like passion for something, not necessarily like she loves volcanoes and those people were selling all kinds of something, but that love is often for something really specific about them.
Jesse Reimink: Oh, that's interesting.
Dr. Robin Andrews: And people have lived through like devastating eruptions. They keep doing it because they. They must feel like, what else am I supposed to do? Like I lived in my colleague didn't so that's a
Jesse Reimink: good point. I mean, a lot of people, including Chris is I think was in some ways inspired by Mount St. Helens as well. And I guess I was curious if there's a lot of, if you, you encounter a lot of things like that, you know, people inspired by a particular volcano that erupted or
Dr. Robin Andrews: yeah. Mount St. Helens is a big one. And I think it's not any, because it was big and because it happened in America as well, but it was one of the first volcanoes that had like a really. International news coverage. It wasn't just like on news, like national geographic did a really like the lipoma eruption in the Canary islands. Recently, I was asking a vocalist called staffer. I was like, how did you get into volcanoes? Do do it for the science, or did you do it? Because like, for days, like this way, thousands of homes being destroyed and he was like, well, yeah, I grew up in Greece. Um, when I was 14, I think it was 40, something like that. He saw an N a national geographic issue, the photographs of the Mount St. Helen's eruption and heard that people had died in trying to study essentially. And he said, that's what had inspired him to do it because he hoped that he could be a similar Vanguard. To help reduce the likelihood that people would die kind of thing. And so sometimes it's just, it's like a very noble thing. And then sometimes you get people like me are just like, explosions are amazing. Yay. So there's a whole range, but yeah. Passion for something about. Like just an absolute zealous drive to do something about them. I've never met a volcanologist. She's like, nah, it's just the job.
Chris Bolhuis: No, by the way, Jesse, I just want to point out that I get a standing ovation almost every day. So
Jesse Reimink: just. When, when the bell rings and everybody stands up, that's not a standing ovation, Chris that's people leaving. Okay.
Chris Bolhuis: All right. That's not where I thought that was going to go. Um, Robin. Yeah. So I really got excited about this. We alluded to it earlier, you painted a very vivid description of melting rocks in a lab. What does this look like? Can you paint a vivid picture for that?
Dr. Robin Andrews: It's not like I sort of thing, ritual melts relatively uniformally. If you just leave it know heat melt rocks are like made of loads of different kinds of minerals. They melt at different temperatures, which is great because if everything melted at the same temperature, that'd be a really weird planet to live on. Like everything's solid, everything's liquid, you know, that'd be crazy. So it's good that things melt at different if they're solid or liquid at different times. And basically you melt these things in labs, partly to see like, oh, what comes out first? Like, what was the. How did the magma put itself together? How does this rock become macro sort of thing? And there can be a little window and basically you just watch this rock, like bleed to death. That's what it looks like. It's just exciting grenades. It's satisfying. If you're kind of a macabre, I would say, do not put chocolate in these ovens. I did that once just to see what would happen and man, that labs smell bad. So
Chris Bolhuis: what kind of temperatures.
Dr. Robin Andrews: 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So wait a minute. You thought it would be a good idea to put chocolate and
Dr. Robin Andrews: I never say it's a good idea.
Chris Bolhuis: It sounds like something Jessie would do I expect better out of you?
Dr. Robin Andrews: No. No. Sometimes you just got to push that big red. Yeah. So
Chris Bolhuis: it just looks like this kind of puddle of like rock and, and, and magma all or lava all at the same time.
Jesse Reimink: If you
Dr. Robin Andrews: heat up high enough, you just get a big, if you get a rock from, um, like a Mount St. Helens, like volcano, these tend to melt, uh, lower temperatures over all the minerals sense Mount. So, so you can just melt the. Pretty easily. I mean, in these ovens sort of things. So it is weird watching a rock melt, though. You do feel a bit like what if I could harness this power for evil or goods, depending on what mood you're in.
Chris Bolhuis: I need. Yeah.
Dr. Robin Andrews: Yeah. I wouldn't put rocks in a normal oven. It'll just be very disappointing. I won't
Jesse Reimink: put
Chris Bolhuis: chocolate in it
Dr. Robin Andrews: and I definitely do not put chocolate in it that smell was
Jesse Reimink: that's it for this week. Olivia Leone is our social media intern. You can see all of her work @planetgeocast on all the social medias. That's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send us a message on, any of those platforms or reach out our email is planetgeocast@gmail.com. See you next week. .
