Fieldwork Diaries

Wires. Bronze Age tools. The Statue of Liberty. What do all of these have in common? Copper! Ed Bunker is a PhD researcher at the University of Bristol where he studies the formation of porphyry copper deposits. In this episode he chats to old university pal Eleni about his fieldwork on an active mine in Chile. Listen along to find out what its like to work in one of the driest places in the world, and why being able to speak football can be as important as speaking the local language.

Carley Schacter (one of Stacy’s buddies from their time in Newfoundland together) spent 4 field seasons during her PhD on a number of remote islands in the Aleutian Islands of the North Pacific. Her work involved tagging Auklets, a type of migratory seabird, to investigate what they get up to during the winter. She chats about the challenges of planning for and working on tectonically-active uninhabited rocks at the edge of the world, how to sleep whilst surrounded by screaming birds, and what to do when someone machetes through the radio communication wire…

What would fieldwork on an asteroid be like? To answer this question Eleni headed to the University of Bristol to chat to cosmochemist and PhD researcher Tim Gregory. He investigates meteorites found on Earth in order to understand the early Solar System. Tim’s dream fieldwork would take him to an asteroid belt. While this is outside of the capabilities of human space travel (for now), unmanned missions to asteroids may be critical for our future survival as a human race! Tim talks to Eleni about the future of space travel and what do astronauts need to be made of… something he learnt from the legendary Chris Hadfield during his time on the BBC series ‘Astronauts: Do You Have What it Takes’.

Francesco Giuntoli, currently at Sorbonne University, Paris, talks to us about his PhD research at the University of Bern, where he worked in the Italian Alps. We learn about how he uses the classical approach of geological mapping to underpin his lab work, in order to understand the complex jigsaw puzzle that is the formation of the Alps. Listen in to how Francesco literally walked in the footsteps of previous geologists, all the while contending with some interesting mountain wildlife, all to figure out how mountain ranges are constructed.

Vincent Rennie from the Open University studies some of the world’s most incredible organisms; microbes that can survive the extremes of heat, salinity and pH, organisms fittingly called extremophiles. Studying them means travelling to some of the most extreme and seemingly inhospitable environments on the planet, including Dallol, Ethiopia, which holds the record for the highest average temperature for an inhabited location on earth. We talk to him about the problems of searching for life in this incredible area and how new technologies could revolutionise this work.

For many of us seismic images might look like a complicated series of wiggly lines, but to researchers like Sian Evans from Imperial College London they are a fascinating window into the deep geological structures that shape our planet. For this episode we find out how seismic data is collected and how it can help us understand the disruptive effect of salt on geology, the plumbing systems of volcanoes and the potential earthquake hazards posed by deep geological faults. Sian recounts her experiences: from pulling late night shifts aboard the RSS James Cook research vessel in the Caribbean, to the toil and bizarre encounters whilst installing seismometers in New Zealand.

We’ve gone international this week by interviewing Hannah Mills, an Exploration Geologist based in Vancouver, Canada. Fieldwork is a huge part of her job, taking her to all the corners of North America. Listen in to find out what it is like working in the most remote parts of Northern Canada, how universities and industry work together to understand how mineral deposits form, and what food is best when you’ve been hiking all day.

Jack Richardson is a geologist and PhD researcher based at the University of Birmingham, where he studies the secret world of salt! Using drones and magnetic techniques he is trying to piece together how evaporite rocks (salts that formed when ancient oceans dried up) have flowed and deformed underground. We talk to Jack about his fieldwork in Nova Scotia, Canada, and find out about the importance of science communication, sleep, and friendship whilst on fieldwork.

In this episode we’ve teamed up with fellow podcasters Liam and Nick from Entocast to talk about some more creepy crawlies (because we didn’t get enough of them in Episode 8!). Liam and Nick are both entomologists and PhD researchers at the University of Birmingham. Listen in to hear about why hornets have a bad rep, what entomologists are really up to when tying their shoelaces, and how to make an Airbnb for bees. After you’ve feasted your ears here, be sure to listen and subscribe to the wonderful Entocast, available on all good podcatchers!

Jes Bartlett is a polar ecologist based at the University of Birmingham, where she is investigating an invasive species of midge in Antarctica. She’s interested in how these little critters survive in extreme polar conditions and the impact that they make on the ecosystems in the region. Jes describes the unique challenges you face when working on remote islands in Antarctica. Have a listen to find out about the beautiful and not so beautiful creatures she came in contact with and what it is like to toboggan down a glacier!