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Semester #4
began in the field. I spent four weeks at the Santiaguito
Volcano Observatory in Guatemala. The first week, I was joined by
several other scientists, including: Bill Rose, Gregg Bluth
and Samantha Reif (from MTU); Andy Harris, Mark
Davies, Rob Wright, and Jeff Johnson (from Hawaii). I spent a few
days helping where I could and then settled into a nice routine of
collecting thermal and gas measurements every day from around 6:00 am to
approximately noon, when the clouds rolled in. Data began to add up
quickly and I was glad to have brought many CDs along. I returned to
school and instead of jumping into looking at my data, I was faced with the
very real issue of having to develop some software that would allow me to
do just that. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no background in
programming. I simply have never done anything of the sort. So,
I found myself learning IDL (Interactive Data Language). I found the
best way to learn it was to just start doing it. And it has taken me
an entire semester (and then some - part of the summer as well) to really
get to know the programming language and its syntax. It was very
slow-going and it took a lot of patience and guidance from my advisor,
Matt. Finally (it is now July), I have developed some basic
programming and have seen my data. I have only looked at the most
recent data from Santiaguito , but it's really exciting. I am able to see nice
correlations between thermal and gas spikes in the data. Also, I've
recently acquired the seismic data and am looking forward to incorporating
that as well. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere!
Another thing I've been working on this semester is
understanding the different funding sources that exist. With
the excitement our first mini-DOAS has created, we've decided to build a
second one. This, of course, requires some funding. My advisor
has been kind enough to involve me on this little venture and show me the
ropes. The first step was to acquire a $500 discount from the
spectrometer manufacturer by creating a website, which would advertise our
use of their product (www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/vc_web/tools/doas_1.html).
Next we hit up the resident Remote Sensing Institute here at the university
for another $500. Finally, we applied to as many grants the
university offered. I was awarded a $2500 scholarship (which I am
excited to put towards the new mini-DOAS). Matt, my advisor, was
awarded a $1,000 research grant and a $1,000 "Advisor of the
Year" award, which I had written a recomendation
letter for. So, we are very excited to be in the process of putting
together another MUSE. This is our new name for the equipment and
stands for Mini Uv SpEctrometer.
This process of digging around for funding has actually been very
helpful. I now know a little more about the available funding
sources.
Finally the end of this semester has found me looking forward to a very
frightening thing - my written comprehensive exam. The process has
been under scrutiny lately and most of the students are being used as
guinea pigs in an attempt to find a good way to test our abilities.
The professors originally wanted to move away from the general geology-type
questions and try a more project-based way of testing. Asking questions
which should lead you into beginning your Intro and Background chapters of
your thesis. Excellent idea - that's what the students said.
But after a few trials, some of the professors think that it has become too
specific to the student's project and now wish to include some more general
questions again. I have no idea what to expect and am finding it
extremely difficult to near impossible to prepare for this exam.
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