EpicEarth Podcast: Recent Episodes
Ashley Bosa & Bryan Rosenblatt
Welcome to the EpicEarth Podcast! This podcast is a product of Boise State University students as part of STEM Outreach through the Geoscience Department.
The concept of the podcast was developed by Ashley Bosa, Bryan Rosenblatt, and Scott Gauvain - all BSU graduate students who want other people to know how AWESOME geoscience careers are and want to highlight some of the Epic Earth events taking place right now! The episodes of this podcast focus on students - both graduate and undergraduate - and their research. We also interview professionals inside and outside of the Geosciences whose primary purpose is to advance STEM fields. STEM students and faculty spend a lot of time promoting their research at conferences and other formal settings, so we wanted to create an informal platform for people to talk about the incredible things they are working on and express and share our excitement over current Earth events and research.
So, join us as we travel all over the world. Explore nature from the comfort of your chair. Dive into the world of glaciologists, hydrologists, biologists, paleontologists, physicists, seismologists, and a whole other host of scientists. Take a journey with us around this Epic Earth.
We cannot be more thrilled to introduce our guest this week! Sharon Backhouse is the Director of GeoTenerife, a UK and Spanish company that organizes field trips and training programs in the sunny Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are a topographically- and bio-diverse archipelago south of Spain, and west of Morocco. Apart from their stunning beauty, they also are the site of the 2021 La Palma eruption - a highly destructive eruption for many living on and touring the island. Join us as Sharon tells us how her journalistic background brought her into the world of volcano story-telling, and the many reasons why "getting the whole story" is facilitating what we know about and how to better prepare for volcanic eruptions. You won't want to miss this episode, as Sharon shares some explosive stories and reflections (not just about volcanoes)!-Recorded: Mar 2023
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Join us this week as we interview Thomas Farrell, a PhD Geoscience student at Boise State. If you ever need to know the time...as in, deep time...then Thomas is the person to ask! Thomas literally floats through life (not figuratively...he's seriously one of the hardest working students we know!), as his research takes him on rafting adventures through the multi-colored, and fossil-ridden Grand Canyon. The aim of the game? To constrain processes affecting the environment 494 million years ago (during Cambrian times)! And the craziest part!? He can do this by analyzing one of the tiniest components in rocks, a trace mineral known as zircon...honestly, it's mind-boggling how small the zircons are and the effort into getting a good-quality sample. When he's not literally conducting blasts from the past with his zealous zircon zapping, he's humbly humming over the passage of time. So, hop in the raft, and hold tight as we take you on this stratigraphically Epic journey!
-Recorded: Mar 2023
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We think if sediment transport had a theme song, it would be Tina Turner's version of "Proud Mary"...you know, because all that sediment is "rolling on the river." See...we can make puns and jokes in literally any field of Geoscience...including river science. Also, singing a song might be a little easier to digest than the impressive research areas of Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulics that this week's guest, Nicole Hucke, studies! Nicole is an amazing PhD student from the University of Idaho who researches seasonal river fluxes and how snowmelt and summer monsoons affect sediment suspension and transport and river systems during high-flow events. She also teaches us that, just like elephants, rivers never forget! Join us as Nicole regales us with type-2 fun, but hilarious, tales from the field, including one Elk who thought her equipment was a toilet. We think it's safe to say, you'll be streaming this episode in more ways than one this week...don't forget to bring a towel!
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Meet Nora Honkomp, a MS student in the Raptor Biology program at Boise State University - or as she likes to call herself, a "certified bird nerd". Join us as she elaborates on her research in the global change ecology of birds, more specifically, migratory raptors, whose seasonal migratory patterns may be changing due to changes in the climate and the environment. Nora also espouses citizen scientists and teaches us why community science is like the beneficial paparazzi of the bird world! (Yes, even the bird communities have their George Clooneys and Julia Roberts). There's no fowl play in this episode, only the reminder to look up to the skies more often. And we all know you'll be raven about this episode once you listen to it!
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Did you know glaciers are a lot like checking accounts? There's a budget where adding snow and ice to them is positive, and there are all the expenditures in the billions of gallons of water that are lost from glaciers every year. That's how our next guest, Aman KC, describes his research in Kalaallit Nunaat, which we commonly refer to as Greenland. Join us as Aman tells us how remote sensing is used to study the fascinating, yet rapidly declining, tidewater glaciers along the periphery of this landmass. AND..., as if that's not "cool" enough, Aman also teaches us some Nepalese words that you can practice as well! We don't know how Aman stays so cool in this warming world, but what we do know is you won't want to miss his Epic interview!
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If you didn't already know, there's another side to studying volcanoes. While most people think of the "big picture" aspects of volcanoes (like the lahars that Ashley studies) they don't often think of the small-scale aspects - which are JUST as important. Join us as we interview BSU Geoscience Ph.D. student, Jade Bowers, who uses petrology like a detective uses clues to understand a rare phenomenon - mafic magma that erupts explosively! Learn why studying the texture, mineralogy, and chemistry of the magma chamber can tell us A LOT about how and why a volcano erupts (or erupted in the past) in a particular manner. You won't want to miss this explosive episode.
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Join us as we interview STEM enthusiast, Earth Science junkie, and one of the coolest people doing amazing outreach in the community, Mattie Honea. Mattie currently works in Boise State's COBE Career Services, but her background with the Discovery Center and Girl Scouts has provided EPIC STEM opportunities to hundreds of youth in the Boise area. Mattie shares with us some of her favorite stories about teaching kids about coprolite (fossilized feces) and the opportunity to interact with Sue the T-Rex. Her tenacious and passionate personality to bring youth, especially girls, into STEM careers is infectious...and the outreach bug is definitely one you want to catch. Tune in to learn why!
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This week, we interview Ph.D. Geoscience Education Research Candidate, Greg Shafer. If you're wondering what the workforce and job perspective for geoscience career paths look like, then you'll want to listen to this episode. His work is pioneering the way for research and influencing how private and public sector agencies are advertising, offering, and recruiting young professionals into the workforce. Discover why Greg is like a compass, guiding and calibrating students through the minefield, which is life after undergrad. And hear his wild field story about an encounter with a cottonmouth snake. It will leave you on the edge of your seat. We also put Greg through the wringer of "Would you rather....". You don't want to miss his educated and well-thought-out answers!
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Join us as we interview one of the most laid back graduate students you'll ever meet, Maggie Holahan. She may be studying a "stressed" volcano that has to blow off a lot of steam, but Maggie uses her knowledge of the outdoors and her research with infrasound to understand eruption patterns of Steamboat Geyser - currently the World's most active tallest geyser tucked away in the heart of Yellowstone National Park. Learn why Maggie's research is analogous to a heart-rate monitor and what research looks like when you work with National Parks. We probably don't have to tell you this, but things are about to get steamy....
- recorded October 2022
If you'd like to learn more about applying for Federal and State jobs, reach out to Maggie - who has a LOT of experience working with these agencies, or visit the USGS, NFS, or NPS websites, or www.USAjobs.gov.
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Meet Angela Seibert, a down to Earth BSU Master's student, working in the Boise Center Aerospace Lab (BCAL). She's a quiet scientist but with a big heart! Angela does it all, from rollerblading to snowsports, to painting to fighting the good fight in environmental justice. She does all of this while using LiDAR to make 3D models of peatlands and measure vegetation structure. The Earth is warming up, but Angela is keeping it cool - join us as we hear all about her striking field story where she and her field partner had to save some equipment from a lightning storm rolling in, and her awesome work on the BSU Community Garden.
-recorded October 2022
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/epicearth/support
Listen as we interview Bryan Rosenblatt, a Boise State University Masters student, whose research takes us to Chile. Bryan uses infrasound to study Volcán Villarrica - an open-vent volcano with a small lava lake. Find out how fluctuations in the lava lake and geometry of volcano craters can change the frequencies produced by the volcano, and how this relates to trombones (another interest of Bryan's!).
- Recorded: July 2021