[Rockhounds] It's Aaron

[Jim Murowchick]

Hi Aaron,
    Welcome to the list. It's exciting to see your enthusiasm, and I think
you are on track toward a very interesting and satisfying career or serious
avocation.
    My dad was the Chief Mineralogist for a company that mined phosphate in
Florida (IMC, Inc.), feldspar in South Dakota and North Carolina, chromite
in South Africa, apatite and nepheline in Ontario, and probably a few other
things I didn't know about.  He was also a mineral collector (I have his
first self-collected specimen--some pyrite from near Chicago), so our family
vacations largely revolved around where he wanted to go collecting and what
mines we could get into.  We used to collect shark's teeth in the Florida
phosphate mines when I was a toddler, and the collecting bug has never left.
    The travel to collect or visit mines (sometimes on business) let me see
most of the US and much of Canada before I was in high school. At home, I
was always fascinated with the variety of industrial problems he dealt
with--identifying unknown phases in products, developing methods for
staining or analysis, etc.--a lot like detective work and I've always
enjoyed solving puzzles.  He taught me how to properly use a petrographic
microscope by 6th grade and brought home all kinds of samples and thin
sections to look at.
    By college, though, I wanted to be a biology major.  I took an
introductory geology course at the University of Illinois with a 3-day field
trip, loved it and changed majors. I'm still interested in biology (insects,
especially), and geology now takes me to places with neat rocks AND cool
bugs.
    I'm now a university professor teaching mineralogy, geochemistry, and
other geology courses (22 years at UMKC).  I get to work with lots of
students, even high school students doing science projects, graduate
students working on their PhDs, and professional colleagues.  I've been
fortunate enough to do research on nickel-molybdenum deposits in southern
China and the Yukon, gold deposits in British Columbia, phosphate deposits
in the Marshall Islands, and lab studies on iron sulfides (pyrite,
marcasite, mackinawite, others) both in the US and in Wales.  The methods I
use to study crystals are also useful outside geology, so I've helped with
research in pharmaceutical science, archeology, criminal investigations
(forensics), characterizing various works of art, and characterization of
deteriorating architectural stone. The skills obtained for geology are very
widely applicable to other fields.
    So my advice?  You need a career that will (1) support you financially,
and (2) that you enjoy and can become good at.  Many of the people on this
list have careers that are not in geology, but fortunately they are able to
pursue it as a hobby.  I count myself blessed because I not only love what I
do in geology and teaching, but that people actually pay me to do it!
Travel, camping, interesting work (even fun) in the laboratory and the
field, meeting and working with some really neat people--what more could you
want in a job?
    If you are ever in the Kansas City area, I'd be happy to show you and
you family around our department. We also have a very nice mineral and
fossil museum that is open to the public.
    Sorry for the long e-mail,Aaron, but it really is exciting to see your
enthusiasm.

Cheers,
Jim
Dr. James B. Murowchick
Associate Professor, Geochemistry and Mineralogy
Department of Geosciences
University of Missouri-Kansas City
5110 Rockhill Road  /  420 Flarsheim Hall
Kansas City, MO  64110
816 235-2979   murowchickj at umkc.edu

  


On 7/22/09 7:25 PM, "Shawn Hendricks" <leinani35 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi group,
> It's me Aaron. My mom Shawn signed us up for this group. I am going to be a
> geologist, gemologist, paleantologist, or something like that when I grow up.
> I have a big question, when and how did you become interested in geology and
> what do you do now that you are grown? I want to see what interesting fields I
> could get into in the future and what I should prepare for. Also, I do think
> that whatever I do, digging would have to be a major part of it. Do you have
> aanything really important that you learned, or some advice that has stuck
> with you through your years? Anyone wanting to answer please do. I use these
> emails and such as part of my Language Arts for homeschool as well as my
> geology study. My mom helps me type cause I'm so slow at it so it may take a
> bit for me to get back. Thanks
> Aaron Hendricks
> 
> 
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> 
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