Undergraduate Student Profile:
Zachary Baran
I feel as if most kids love rocks, minerals, and fossils, and I definitely was no outlier to this. However, somewhere along the way, those interests took a back seat. When college came around, I decided to study computer science. I started college at the Penn State Hazleton campus and enjoyed it, but when the pandemic came, I suddenly had a lot of time to reflect. Despite liking my studies, I came to realize that not only was something missing, but going forward, I didn’t want to spend any more time stuck inside than necessary because the quarantine causing an excess of being inside. I searched for other majors and pretty quickly decided on geosciences for two main reasons. I figured that studying the Earth would provide plenty of opportunities to get outside, so it checked that box. It would also allow me to rekindle those early childhood interests and help me find that missing piece—passion for the subject matter that I was studying. Now in the final year of my undergraduate degree, I can confidently say that I couldn’t have made a better choice. With this renewed passion, I have been trying to do and learn much as possible with my remaining time as an undergraduate. I work with Dr. Ben Cardenas in the Planetary Sedimentology Lab, and this past spring, I was able to travel to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference to present my research present my undergraduate thesis research on modeling the erosion of paleoshorelines with implications for Mars. Through the lab I have also been able to participate in field work in the western United States, and am a co-author on a published paper. I have also worked in other labs doing various research. I also has an internship at the EMS Museum & Art Gallery collections facility. I am so grateful for all my mentors and advisers for providing these wonderful opportunities, and to have found amazing peers within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. I look forward to graduating by the end of summer 2024 with my sights set on graduate school to continue studying planetary geoscience, with the hope that I can do so here at Penn State. I believe that all of these experiences and opportunities have been invaluable in preparing me for that and whatever else may come next!
Master’s Student Profile:
Ella Do
My early love of art made me want to capture a multitude of tiny observations from the world around me. However, I was usually one to appreciate nature from the backseat of the car. It wasn’t until going to college that I ventured outdoors more, learning to grow comfortable in those spaces. That comfort became confidence, and confidence allowed for curiosity. Like many who stumbled upon geology by accident, studying earth processes both fed and fueled my curiosities about the natural world. After a serious pivot from nearly finishing pre-med track requirements, I left Tufts University with a B.S. in geoscience, a B.A. in French language, and many more questions about current geosciences endeavors and my place within that field of study.
Beginning my M.S. with Dr. Maureen Feineman at Penn State was the first step to getting some answers. Working in collaboration with faculty, researchers, and students at the University of Texas Austin, Tohoku University, and the Consiglio Nationale delle Ricerche, my project investigates fluid behavior in the southwest Japan subduction zone. The downgoing oceanic plate–in the modern configuration, the Philippine Sea Plate–undergoes what is called “slab dehydration” with increasing temperature 8 Penn State Geosciences
and pressure. This fluid loss is driven by diagenetic processes at shallow depths and eventually breakdown of hydrous minerals at higher metamorphic grade. We can use boron concentrations and isotope values as proxies to quantify these mechanisms of fluid loss.
Using exhumed rocks from Japan’s extensive history of subduction events, we have an incredible analog for a continuous sample suite, representative of sediment evolution from initial subduction at the trench to metamorphism at sub-arc depths (up to about 37 miles). Boron serves as a powerful tool to better constrain volatile cycling in tectonic regimes where geologic, seismic, hydrologic, and volcanic hazards pose threat to human safety.
I can’t begin to express my gratitude for my adviser’s patience, guidance, and support. Be it for fieldwork in Shikoku, attending Goldschmidt and GSA, lab work abroad, or this incredible graduate student community–I am immensely grateful. I’ve come to find home in the ebb and flow of being tucked away in lab and surfacing for air–and coffee–among friendly faces. While I haven’t closed the door on a future Ph.D., I look forward to pursuing a geochemistry lab position following the completion of my master’s.
Doctoral Student Profile:
Leah Youngquist
One of my favorite things about geology is the huge diversity in processes, topics, and methodologies that make up the discipline, and I think my research trajectory reflects that. As an undergraduate at the University of Oregon, my research focused on characterizing in-place weathering of bedrock in the Oregon Coast Range. Afterwards, I transitioned into numerical modeling of geochemical systems for my master’s project at Yale University.
Now, I am in my fourth year of my Ph.D. here at Penn State, where I work with Don Fisher. The project that I’m working on combines aspects of my entire research history with a new structural geology perspective. My research tries to understand connections between subsurface tectonic processes and surface erosional processes in Taiwan.
Taiwan is a unique orogeny because it is host to a natural gradient in exhumation depth, where it is older and more deeply exhumed in the north than in the south. This gradient presents a unique natural laboratory in which to examine how subsurface material trajectories might influence surface processes throughout the lifetime of a mountain range. Work completed by Penn State alum Julia Carr shows that boulders, the tools of erosion, get systematically smaller from north to south, a signal that is largely attributed to rock strength that is set at depth during exhumation.
To confirm this interpretation, I use electron backscatter diffraction to determine deformation mechanisms in quartz grains from samples taken along the length of the orogen. Deformation mechanisms in quartz are temperature dependent, so serve as an estimate of where deformation takes place during exhumation. Additionally, I plan to corroborate these temperature estimates using chlorite thermometry. The temperatures determined by these methods constrain where deformation is concentrated in the crust, which, importantly, might or might not be the same as the maximum depth from which material is exhumed. Finally, after completion of field work in coming months, I will be able to perform compressive rock strength experiments to calibrate in-field Schmidt hammer measurements, on which the oft-cited rock strength-exhumation depth arguments lie.
In addition to my academic research, I am also extremely passionate about teaching! I had the opportunity to be the 2023 Summer Assistant for the DEI committee. I was motivated to apply for this assistantship by my own experience of accidentally stumbling into my love of teaching. It wasn’t until I had been told how learning works and how to practically run a classroom to encourage inclusive learning that I became passionate about my role as a teacher. With this funding, I was able to create an overview resource on inclusive and effective teaching. It is my hope that this resource might inspire my fellow graduate students to embrace their roles as instructors, both now and in the future!