UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS


glaciers of Olympic National Park and the concrete jungles of Portland and San Francisco.


The next year I was fortunate enough to take a field geology


and research course on Big Bend National Park on the Mexican border in Texas. Thankfully, geology doesn’t fully relinquish its secrets until meeting in person, so we hopped boulders up a mountain to characterize a landslide, hiked through can- yons searching for evidence of rifting, measured strike and dip of beautiful strata at the intersection of the Laramide and Appalachian orogenies, and veered off the trail in search of radial dikes in the open desert. The remarkably beautiful and fascinating harmony and form of earth processes that I observed in these two opportunities solidified my certainty that the study of geology was my destiny.


Later as I dug deeper into my geology classes at UNC Chapel


Hill, I came to appreciate how scientists were able to read the earth’s history from fossils and formations like pages in a book, and then how they were able to relay it to the public. As I sat through fascinating lectures, I realized how important my professors were in my professional and personal development, and I yearned to be that source of inspiration for others one day— I realized that my dream was to become a university geoscience educator. Being an educator and academic would position me to be a voice speaking on behalf of the earth, by both guiding continued human development in an environmentally sustainable model, and by educating a number of students who would go out and do the same.


My interests currently lie in igneous petrology, plate tecton-


ics, volcanology and mineralogy, but I’ve not met a breed of geology I didn’t enjoy. I have the fortunate problem of liking too many parts of geology.


Thankfully, I can be sure that no matter what sub-discipline


I study in graduate school, it’ll be within the great umbrella of geological sciences, and that I can always continue to learn and investigate new, different, and exciting fields well into my career as a professor of geology. And for that I am so grateful, because every morning I will wake up with a smile on my face, lucky enough to hear another new song of the earth, to read another page in the fascinating history of our planet, and to discuss with brilliant students, researchers, and policy makers about the wonderful planet we are blessed to share.


Spencer Wilbur, SA-8092 University of Arkansas, Arkansas Section – Foundation AIPG funded It was one of the hottest days that sum-


mer and growing up in Arkansas, where the humidity was so bad that walking forward sometimes required the breast


stroke, saying it was hot is me being modest. On that day, I had just finished tennis practice: myself and some of the other kids where messing around with a magnifying glass and were trying to set leaves on fire. At the time I had no idea what I wanted to be or where my life would take me, but, in this moment, I was so mesmerized by the ability a magnifying glass had to concentrate the solar power of the sun into a ray suitable for a super villain that I knew I needed a job where I would never be found without one. Little did I know, I would one day begin walking down a path filled with the bones of bird- like monsters, enough mysteries to fill the library of Sherlock Holmes, picturesque scenes that not even Bob Ross could paint


26 TPG • Jul.Aug.Sep 2019


in a life time, and to top it all off I’d have a magnifying glass and hammer in hand at all times. I’d begin my journey into the annals of a prehistoric universe, with the title “Geologist”.


Growing up I was always an impressionable child: what-


ever I happened to witness in a movie or see an older sibling do I would immediately try to imitate, or become obsessed with. Leaving my adolescence behind and entering the over- caffeinated world that is undergrad, I never lost my easily


“


I want to be a geologist because I love a good story.


influenced personality. My first semester I was undecided on a major and was working on getting through my general elec- tives with the hope that an academic epiphany would occur at any moment. It just so happened that I was taking general geology that semester and it happened to be one of the only classes that could maintain my immediate attention. Walking into lab every Thursday I would get so excited to sketch and scrutinize layers of muscovite and biotite or to imagine the gargantuan igneous province that could create something as light and gritty as pumice while simultaneously sculpting the smooth conchoidal fractures of obsidian. I was becoming obsessive, spouting facts I had learned in class that day to my friends at dinner, doodling volcanoes in all my other notebooks. I had decided on a major.


As I trudged through the barracks of obtaining my bach-


elor’s degree, I recognized a uniqueness that geology possesses, unlike all other stem sciences. In the process I eventually added on a math minor and physics major to my degree plan. What these other classes taught me was indispensable and could only benefit me as a geologist, but it was all so defined. I always loved a good mystery growing up, rather it be in a movie or a book: I loved the idea of finding clues and hints to unriddle a problem. Here lies the uniqueness: geologists are the detectives of an earth unseen. They are the ones on the front lines of discovery, covered in dirt and usually spotted wearing a flannel; they are the heroes of the underground. It was not until the summer of my junior year I was able to witness this at first hand.


That summer I was granted the opportunity to head into a


land peppered with black bears, dark oceans filled with mam- mals larger than semis, and rivers that dipped and dodged through a maze of karst geology more intricate than a block of swiss cheese. This place was Prince of Wales, Alaska. I was there as a cave guide, but entering these caves never ceased to amaze me. I would witness layers of calcite that oozed like fluorescent snot and told stories of floods and chaos, or the bones of bears and fossilized critters that linked migration pat- terns that biologists had been trying to understand for years: I realized geologists were the liberators of these lost secrecies.


I want to be a geologist because I love a good story. If you


were to hand a rock to most people they might “ooh” and “ahh” and exclaim “What a pretty rock”, but a geologist can transport you to a land of dinosaurs and abyssal plains where ferns grew over your head. I have an admiration for story tellers and a severe character flaw: I want to be the most interesting person in the room. I can’t imagine anyone better to be than a geolo- gist. I hope one day to tell stories that inspire people, cause a mind to wander, and create a desire to decipher the anomalies of the natural world. That is why I want to be a geologist.


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