From Ocean Floor to Volcano Summit
Scenes from Ro Kinzler’s geology fieldwork
Ro Kinzler (right) and advisor Tim Grove stand on California’s Medicine Lake Volcano during an August 1991 trip to collect samples for geochemical research while Kinzler was doing her PhD. Behind them are Cinder Butte and the 1,150-year-old Callahan lava flow that Kinzler studied for her master’s thesis. Also pictured are Glenn Gaetani (left), another PhD student in Grove’s lab, and EAPS academic officer Anita Killian (background). “There’s a chance to really prove yourself as an individual in so many ways,” Kinzler says of her field expeditions. From the pressure of collecting the right rock samples to cooking or putting up a tent, there are “lots of ways you have to be effective,” she says. “I think that’s an aspect of field science in particular that doesn’t often get talked about, but it’s important, it’s part of what makes someone good—if you’re not good at that, you probably won’t continue to be a field scientist.”
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