First Field Trip

On Thursday we took our first field trip to USGS to see both the building and the function of the people who work there. We saw a presentation on various rocks and minerals like coal, copper, and the dwindling supply of helium. It was interesting to me to see how much we need helium and just how little we had left. This is a problem and will become more of a problem in the future and the USGS are trying to look for new supplies of helium to satisfy the growing need for it. We ate lunch at a very nice food court. We then went to see a presentation by another group the Eastern Research Center at the USGS who do research around the east coast. They were a lot more technology oriented then the rest of USGS so it was interesting to learn about the different methods that they use in their work environment and the process by which they go about a project.