Open Day Weekend - 13th & 14th June

For the final time while I am a student, I assisted with the Open Days over this weekend. On both days I was either on a student-led tour with another student or in our main lab, G27, with our demonstrations and professors in our corner! I had a lot of fun this time since I have now finished my studies and I have a lot to tell and explain about the course, uni life, and more. I was on five tours this time (the most I've done over two days!) exploring the earth sciences department and the Wills Memorial Building library. Our station in the lab had field equipment, geological maps, microscopes to demonstrate thin sections, and lots and lots of beautiful specimens!

It really is exciting every time to see prospective students approaching Earth Sciences because I think it is deserving of a little more interest in general! Seeing students already with some knowledge or those with a real interest in rocks and the subject really excites me. Also, I helped out a parent who asked if I knew what a certain mineral in a ring she has was - I think we figured out that she has had a chalcopyrite ring (made from a pebble) for a few years now!

I don't think I will be able to help out at any future open days as I am no longer a student, but I will enjoy them a little more now if I ever attend one in the future!

EarthArt Exhibition Volunteering - 22/5/25

After finishing my studies for the year, I decided to stay in Bristol for a while longer. During that time the opportunity to volunteer for this exhibition came up. I assumed few students would volunteer since it was so soon after the academic year was finished (and I was right) so I knew I needed to help out. The exhibition was showcasing the work of an artist in the department who worked with natural materials and the silts of five different locations along the Avon River - I found it very interesting! My job was to welcome and direct attendees and then help out with the drinks service after the main talk. Luckily I was able to attend the talk as all attendees were going to be in the lecture theatre at that time! If a similar opportunity comes up to volunteer for another EarthArt exhibition, I would love to help out again.

Santorini Field Trip - 22nd-28th April

Kalimera! My final field trip as a student at UoB was with the other Master's students on a week-long trip to Santorini, Greece. It was a culmination of all our field skills and independent working to work through the island analysing plastic on beaches, the Minoan eruption, and how the ancient civilisation was affected by the volcano. In my opinion it was one of the best field trips I have been on with UoB, mostly due to the content, location, and I really like volcanics! The rocks on the island are really interesting so studying they wasn't much trouble and we could all enjoy the beautiful landscape while learning. When we returned to Bristol we finished off the unit with a proposal for a potential project that could be completed on Santorini and an open-field-notebook test. Below are some pictures that I feel best represent the trip!

Dissertation & Instrument Training

On the 3rd April 2025 I handed in my dissertation for the final time. The process was hard at times but in the end I hope it will be very rewarding. I received lots of useful training on lots of instruments and scientific procedures. I was tasked to write my own risk assessment for the whole process in the lab and was given extensive safety briefings and inductions to the labs I would be using. Thank you to Richard Brooker, Hayley Goodes, Ben Buse, Stuart Kearns, and my project supervisor Simon Kohn for all their help. 

Instruments and equipment used for my project are:

• Picking microscope
• Grinding papers
• Autopolisher
• Ultrasonic bath
• Thin sectioning machine
• IsoMet saw
• Carbon-coating machine
• Scanning electron microscope (SEM)
• Electronprobe microanalyser (EPMA)
• Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR)
• OPUS software
• MatLab coding