Well this is the bi-weekly update for the blog! Along with working on mineralogy assignments, marking labs and mid terms and fixing my python coding program I have completed my poster for LPSC and have written a rough outline for my field guide assignment.
On sunday (March 19th) I'll be flying from Detroit to Houston (7:30 am may I add after driving from London!) to arrive at the Woodlands Texas where the LPSC meeting is held. I will be attending numerous talks, most of which are relative to my research and interests, workshops on networking and career advice, the ANSMET session and meeting up with members of the NASA FINESSE Team about Craters of the Moon and general catching up.
I will be presenting my poster on the evening of the 23rd of March in the Environmental Analog Session VI - Igneous Regions and Volcanism. As a reminder, the title of my poster is "Variation in Petrographic of Basaltic Lava Flows with Similar Surface Roughness". I will be discussing my research with Dr Alex Sehlke, Dr Scott Hughes and Dr Shannon Kobs Nawotniak to gain useful research and academic advice and potential compare ideas with Dr Alex Sehlke as our work shares some elements.
On top of preparing for LPSC I have been working on a field guide for Meteor Crater which is one of my assignments for the Planetary Surface Processes Field course. Apparently getting Meteor Crater is easy.....yes easy to find material because it has been extensively studied but it also means I would have to get it spot on! Plus with Oz running the course I'll be embarrassed getting anything obvious incorrect...
I'm not going to go into any descriptions of the geological units because my friends and colleagues will be reading this as well and they have to learn about the crater in the field not before hand (yeah sorry guys).
I'll mention some general descriptions though. Meteor Crater is a simple impact crater with a bowl shape cavity created by an iron meteorite known as Canyon Diablo around 50 ka. The crater is a simple crater because it lacks a central peak, central peak rings and radiating rings outside of the crater itself. The crater is ~1.2km in diameter, rims elevated 30-60m above the surrounding plateau and a crater depth of ~180m. Meteor Crater has been extensively studied since the 1900s by numerous workers (e.g. Barringer, Shoemaker, Kring and Osinski) (unfortunately they were unlucky to realize Meteor Crater wasn't anything like Sudbury).
On a side note I found out last week I am on the next HiRise cycle and will be starting officially with our first meeting on the afternoon of the 16th of March. This experience working on an actual mission will give my the skills needed to stand out for when I apply to the ESA Young Traineeship next autumn. Plus it's not everyday your university offers you the chance to be a part of a mission!
