BH: Alright. Hi everyone! Thanks for tuning in. I’m Beck. I’m one of our science communication interns and I have Aurora Byrd with me today.She is one of our Geo-Launchpad interns. So she is a student at Austin Community College in Texas, and is particularly interested in planetary surface processes when it comes to rivers, both on other planetary bodies like Mars and Titan, and just flood management here on Earth.So thanks for joining us, Aurora. To start, could you tell us about the Geo-Launchpad internship and what exactly it is and how you found it?

AB: Of course. So, Geo-Launchpad is a program hosted by EarthScope that helps community college students gain research experience within the geosciences.Interns are matched with mentors in New Mexico and Colorado according to their interests.For me specifically, I’m working in sedimentology and sediment, sort of in that general area.I found out about Geo-Launchpad through my geology professor last semester. She put the internship on our classroom announcements board, and I figured I’d just put in an application, see what happened, and well, this happened!

BH: Sweet. That’s cool. Was it a geology class?

AB: Yeah, it was the intro to geology course, physical geology.

BH: Okay, sweet. Yeah, that’s really cool. So what are you specifically doing for research for this internship? What does your project look like?

AB: Yeah. So, I’m working on Lake Cretaceous heavy mineral beach placer deposits in northern New Mexico.I’m looking at multiple places in northern New Mexico and trying to figure out what heavy minerals are in there. These include minerals like niobium, titanium, and the rare earths. At the beginning of the summer, the first few weeks, it was just a lot of reading, getting myself familiar with the project. Now that I’m into the meat of the internship, I’m doing a lot of looking at graphs, creating plots, looking at connections between different minerals. And pretty soon I’ll be writing up an abstract, writing my poster, and getting stuff ready for the end of the summer.

BH: Cool. So, you’re going to present this project at the end of the summer?

AB: Yeah.

BH: So, when you say relationships between minerals, what do you mean by this? Are you looking for locations or more properties?

AB: I’m more looking at concentrations of different minerals at different sites. I have four or five different locations that we’re looking at specifically. And for example, if we have this amount of uranium in a sample, we want to see how much of these other minerals are there according to that amount.So if we have this amount of uranium, there will usually be about this amount of titanium and this amount of zircon and this amount of niobium, and etc. etc. etc.

BH: So essentially you’re trying to look at smaller concentrations to ultimately know the content of the whole area better?

AB: Yeah.

BH: Okay. Cool. Well, that’s really interesting, and I hope it’s been really fun. So you’re doing this internship, are you in New Mexico?

AB: I’m in New Mexico. I’m in Socorro specifically.

BH: Cool. Okay. So you’re doing this research, what is your favorite part about doing this internship? What else are you doing besides just your research while you’re in New Mexico?

AB: Well, my favorite part of the internship is honestly just the science itself.The fact that I’m actually contributing to the entire wealth of human knowledge. I’m not just replicating known experiments in a science class, but I’m actually looking at data, making connections, and I’ll eventually be publishing that.And even outside of that, meeting the other interns has been great, coworkers at the Bureau, just meeting people, really. Just this past weekend I went out with three other interns to mine for rocks. It’s been great.

BH: That’s really cool. Do you get to go out and see New Mexico, you know, outside of work?

AB: Yeah. I’m lucky that I was close enough to New Mexico that I could just drive here. So I have access to a car to actually go and explore all around. And it’s one of my favorite things to do outside of all this research. The other weekend, not this past weekend, but the one before, I climbed Mount Taylor near Grants, New Mexico. That was an experience.The weekend before that, I went to the Very Large Array west of Magdalena. That was really cool, actually seeing the big radio telescopes that they have. And even before the internship started, I spent a couple nights in Cloudcroft to explore the Sacramento Mountains and the National Forest. So it’s been great going out, especially just on my own, and immersing myself in the nature of the state.

BH: Yeah, it sounds like you’ve been really taking advantage of it, which is really cool.

AB: Absolutely.

BH: I’m glad, I don’t know if it’s been too hot for you down there.

AB: I’m from Texas, so this is actually cooler and a lot less humid than I’m used to.

BH: I guess that all works out. Cool. Well, so outside of this internship, you are still a student and still a person. What are some of your hobbies that are not science-related?

AB: Oh, of course. So back home, I actually play cello with my local community orchestra, the Williamson County Symphony Orchestra, and I’ve been playing with them since 2021 or so. I’ve really loved that experience and it just provides a richness to my life. Before I started geology, I actually received an associate’s degree in jewelry. So I do a lot of that in my spare time. So a lot of the stuff that I wear day to day in terms of jewelry is just my own work.I specialize in repoussé metal work, which is basically taking a sheet of metal and hammering out shapes in said metal.

So for example, this bracer that I have here is one of my favorite works that I’ve ever made. It took a long time, but I really love how it came out.

BH: Wait, can you show it up to the camera a little bit better? I want to see it. You put that on your arm?

AB: Yeah. This thing right here has little cardinal flowers, and I have this basically in a pair, and I’m told that I look like Wonder Woman with them.

BH: Yeah, that is so cool. And you’re right, just getting to be like, “Yeah, I made this”, is really awesome.Do you ever sell it, or is it just purely for the love of the game?

AB: Right now, it’s just purely for the love. Maybe if I have time in the future I might, but we’ll see.

BH: That’s cool. You also don’t want to turn it into a job if you don’t want to end up hating it or something. Sure. It’s a fun hobby for you.

AB: Yeah. Exactly right.

BH: Cool. Well, I know you’re still a student in college, so you’re doing this internship and it’s really cool and exciting. Do you have an idea of what you think your next step, science or not science-wise, would be after this internship?

AB: Yeah. Well, after the internship specifically, we have the GSA meeting in San Antonio in October. So, I’ll be going to that, doing my poster and all that, and that’s going to be fun.

BH: Are you presenting this research at GSA?

AB: There will be a poster, yes. I don’t think I’ll be presenting proper, but there will be a poster.

BH: Oh, I would call a poster a presentation.

AB: Yeah, absolutely.And outside of that, it’s mainly just going to be getting back to school. I’m a rising sophomore, so I’m just going to get back into school, into the brunt of things, take classes, and I’ll be applying for a four-year college this coming school year. Right now I’m looking at UT, it’s my home school. I’m also looking at University of Arizona and maybe, if I get lucky, Brown University up in New England.

BH: Hey, why not? You never know.Well, that’s really cool. I wish you all the luck, all the luck, all the best, as you move forward with your science journey. I hope that regardless of whether you end up sticking with science for the rest of your life or not, that this internship has been useful and exciting for you.

AB: Oh, absolutely. It’s been great.

BH: Sweet. Well, thank you so much for this interview, and thanks everyone for watching. Stay tuned for our next one.