Hi Katie!

Yes, I like geology. I used to collect rocks when I was a kid, and I even had a rock tumbler for polishing them. When I was in college, I took an honors geology course. It was a lot of fun. Our class took a 3-day field trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. We went to a couple of caves - we crawled through one of them on our hands and knees with only candles to light the way. We learned about the geology of the Badlands and the area around Mount Rushmore. We also went to a place where paleontologists were excavating fossils. We even went to a rock quarry where we could take home pieces of rose quartz.

Many of the space scientists involved with Solar Week, including myself, belong to a scientific society called the American Geophysical Union. When this society has conferences, they usually include scientists from many different fields. It is always fun to look around the posters at these meetings and learn about the things that geologists and other scientists outside my field are doing.

Kris