Hi Reddit, I’m Terri Woods! I am an Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at East Carolina University (ECU). In 1971 I entered the University of Delaware with the goal of teaching high-school Spanish. Instead I became fascinated by how things work in the geological world and changed my major. While working on an MS at Arizona, I worked for the Anaconda Copper Company in Tucson and did mineral exploration with them in Montana. My thesis involved microprobe and fluid-inclusion work on a garnet skarn. I interviewed with mining/oil companies but got turned off by comments from interviewers such as; “We are looking for a few good gals”.
Luckily, I got another offer from the USGS in Reston, Virginia to work on the epithermal sulfide deposit at Creede, Colorado. I worked there for 3 years but my husband and I got tired of the DC area and went cruising on our 43-foot wooden sailboat. We ran out of money in St. Petersburg, Florida at a time when geology employment was hard to come by so I worked minimum-wage jobs until Bob Garrels (USF-Marine Science) asked me to run his lab. For the next 5 years I helped Bob with projects such as copper corrosion in sulfate, carbonate and chloride solutions; water chemistry in equilibrium with Australian BIF; C and S cycling through geological time, and compilation of thermodynamic data. I got my Ph.D. in 1988.
That fall I started as a faculty member at ECU. I did lab work on copper corrosion, but students were into hydro-environmental studies so I began investigating the chemistry of water from local aquifers. That research continues, but I have also worked on the impact of reverse-osmosis brine discharge into Albemarle Sound, chemistry of nearby streams, and petrology of aquifer materials. I’ve devoted a lot of time to science outreach. Most recently, I have investigated a technology that helps people understand surficial processes and topographic maps - the Augmented Reality Sandbox: short demo video http://ift.tt/2nbfB4K longer educational video http://ift.tt/2zKMY4i This past spring (2017), I was happy to serve as the scientific consultant for the ACS Reactions video “Why is the Statue of Liberty Green?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZSLrXtg1-o
So, Reddit, ask me anything about aqueous geochemistry, copper corrosion, or using augmented reality to teach surface geology.
I’ll be back to start answering your questions at 12pm EST (9am PST; 5pm UTC).
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