Wednesday, November 18, 2015

New addition to the lab

We just added a new tool to the Martindale lab, a Labo-Pol-35 polishing wheel. It is really neat!



Essentially the wheel holds sandpaper and so you hold a rock slab on the spinning wheel and it sands down the rock (like a belt sander sands down wood). For a finer polish you just swap to a finer sandpaper until you get a glassy, beautiful polish on your slab.


While there are still a few small things the lab still needs (drying over, more glassware and chemicals etc.), the lab is really coming together. It is starting to look really beautiful and is extremely functional (it is a little messy, but that is because people are using it, yay)!





I am so excited for how well this has come together! This was a big time sink for me in the first few years, but I think it has really paid off.
If you're in Austin and need to do some rock-related science, I have just the spot!

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

First GSA

This week is GSA and this meeting is special.  This GSA is the first GSA where students of the Martindale Lab have been presenting their research!

On Sunday, Anna Weiss gave a great poster about coralline algae and coral reefs!

On Monday Chiara gave a fabulous talk on her research on fossil symbiosis!

And today, Selva gave an awesome talk about her Jurassic Vampire squids!

I am so proud of them!

(and we had fun hanging out with William Smith, aka Roger Thomas)