I returned to Craters of the Moon to complete the rest of my field work. I revisited locations which aroused questions for my LPSC poster, mainly the change in petrography. I will be cutting some of my samples for thin section analysis (by some I only mean a few as I already have plenty of thin sections). Most of the samples will be used for XRF analysis to see any changes in the composition of the lava flows. The lava flows visited were the same as field season 2016: Big Crater, North Crater, Blue Dragon, Devil's Orchard, Serrate Flow, and Highway Flow. In total I collected, 4 Big Crater, 1 North Crater, 4 Blue Dragon, 2 Devil's Orchard, 2 Highway Flow, and 7 Serrate Flow. Serrate has the most samples because we (myself and our undergraduate intern Kevin Fan from UBC) walked along the northern and southern margins of Serrate. A map is soon to follow showing where all of the samples were collected. The surface roughness was noted for each of the samples and for a majority I also sampled their surface. It will be beneficial when I discuss the surface roughness's in my manuscript I am still writing.
On the topic of the manuscript, I was not able to work on it as much as I hoped when in the field. Most of time I was out of my motel room and when I returned in the evenings I was really exhausted. Another reason was me writing a motivational letter and new CV for a workshop application, which I will touch base on soon. As far as the manuscript goes I will resume writing it now that I am back in London. I have methodology, results, and descriptions but I still am revising the content in my introduction. My discussion I am completing after I have finished writing out my petrographic and geochemical results. Abstract, of course is left to last. My acknowledgements will now include the Leverhulme Trust Committee as the first of their funding has come through for the fall tuition fee. I am still shocked I got the scholarship :D.
I have enrolled in the planetary science seminar again for this year as I did not present anything last year. I hope we get to discuss the topics we pick a lot more as I felt we kind of quickly brushed over certain topics without actually delving into them in detail. I also enrolled in the Impact Cratering short course. This will be the first official field work I conduct in Canada, and observe the famous Sudbury Impact Structure. I hope to get details on the course when Oz has returned from his family holiday.
In other news, whilst in the field I applied to attend the Rosetta Science Operations Scheduling Legacy ESA workshop in Redu Belgium! If it wasn't for Catherine and Raymond I may have never thought about going for it as the application process said only students with engineering or physics degrees were eligible. Thankfully my experience with CanMars, FINESSE, and HiRISE put me in the same league, and they invited a geologist to join the workshop. I have now started searching for flights, as have my parents because they feel more comfortable if I landed in London UK prior to Belgium. I am going to find it interesting recovering from jet-lag while taking the workshop, I will have to sleep at the right times to make sure it does not interfere.
Quickly back to my research, I found out the rest of the thin sections sent by Shannon (Dr Kob-Nawotniak at ISU) were completed. I am heading this afternoon to pick them up and have detailed analysis and images of them by next week. I will compile the information and images and send them to Shannon to look over. I am still grateful they sent them to us and Catherine and I were happy to contribute with ISU's petrographic analysis on Craters of the Moon.