PODCAST EPISODE #4: Reefs and Reels: Evolution and Communication with Charlotte Spruzen

Summary

In this episode of Beneath Your Feet, A Geoscience Podcast, host Veronica Klassen interviews Charlotte Spruzen about her research on ancient reef systems in the Yukon and their role in the evolution of complex life. Charlotte explains how these ancient ecosystems provide clues about early animal life and Earth’s changing environments. Beyond her fieldwork, she shares insights on geoscience communication, including her experiences making educational TikTok videos and the challenges of debunking misinformation online. The conversation highlights the importance of making science accessible, engaging, and accurate in a digital age where myths can spread quickly.

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Introduction

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Beneath Your Feet, A Geoscience Podcast. I’m Veronica Klassen, science communicator, geology enthusiast and your host. Here at the APGO Education Foundation, our mission is to spark curiosity and passion for the geology of Ontario. Whether you’re a geology nerd, science enthusiast, or nature lover, this podcast is for you. Join us as we geek out over fascinating geology, uncover the hidden stories and secrets of our extraordinary planet and explore the captivating world beneath your feet.

Veronica Klassen

Welcome. Thanks so much for being with me here today. Today I’m going to be talking to Charlotte Spruzen, who is a PhD candidate at McGill University, studying the evolution of complex life. So, thanks for being with me here today.

Charlotte Spruzen

Thank you for inviting me, I’m so excited to be here.

Veronica

So, yeah, why don’t we just start with, tell us a little bit about yourself, who are you and what do you do?

Charlotte

Yeah. So I’m Charlotte. My pronouns are she/ her. I came to Canada three years ago, so I’ve been in Montreal since then, working at McGill University. I’m a PhD candidate in sedimentology and stratigraphy. So that’s basically looking at sedimentary rocks and seeing how they change as a function of distance from the shoreline and how sea level changes as well. And before that, I was in the UK, as you can probably tell from the accent. I love it, I love Canada, I love being here. I am really into my research and yep, that’s a little bit about me.

Veronica

Amazing. Thanks so much. Yeah. And I found you via your TikTok channel, which is really fun. And so you also do a little bit of science communication there, which is also a really cool part of what you do.

Charlotte

Yeah. I keep forgetting to plug that. Yeah. So I do a bit of science communication under the username @charbonate. And I do that on Instagram and TikTok it’s the same content on both and I make videos about mostly sedimentary rocks but I’m moving a little bit more into climate change just because I feel that’s important in the current political landscape.

Veronica

Yeah, that is definitely very important. All right. So with your studies, what what is it day in life look like for you both when you’re out doing research in the field or when you’re at home at the university?

Charlotte

So my time, as you kind of alluded to, is split between fieldwork, which is maybe like 1 or 2 months per year and office work. So when I’m in the field, it sort of depends on where we are. But most of my fieldwork has been in Yukon, so that’s helicopter fieldwork out in the Ogilvie Mountains just north of Dawson City. It’s an absolutely beautiful part of the world and I’m so lucky to work there.

And a day in the life there, we’ll be staying in like individual tents. So we will have slept in the tent overnight. You wake up, you go into a group tent, you make coffee, you make breakfast, which is normally just oatmeal with just the same thing every single day. It gets pretty boring. And then we leave at, you know, between 8 and 9 a.m. and we go out into the field and we do between an eight and a ten hour day. And we’re walking off to the outcrops and we’re studying the rocks, mostly taking what are called stratigraphic logs. So that’s when you walk up a hill and you’re measuring how the rocks change through time. Well, how the rocks change up the hill, which means how they’re changing through time. And then we come back, we make our dinner, which again, is pretty much the same thing every day. It’s just a dehydrated meal and you add hot water. And so we have that. We have maybe some like, fun snacks and then we go to bed. So, yeah, it’s very much the same routine, but different rocks every day, which is pretty cool.

Veronica

Hm, that’s awesome, yeah.

Charlotte

And then when I’m in the office, again, there’s like a lot of, so I guess kind of the opposite of the fieldwork where there’s a lot of variety. I’m kind of doing something different every day. So sometimes I might be doing some lab work measuring the geochemical composition of things. Sometimes I might be writing or maybe doing some coding, figure plotting, basically preparing things for manuscripts or for my thesis.

And then other days I’d say most days right now I’m doing microscope work. So my main area of interest is looking at really thin slices of carbonate rocks and trying to figure out if they’re getting more complex through time. So I’m just spending hours staring down the microscope looking at these tiny little like micron scale features, which I love, but it does give you a headache after a little bit.

Veronica

I believe it. Okay, awesome. That’s super cool. I love that, there’s so much variety in what you do. I think that’s really fun. How did you get where you are? Like, how were you originally kind of interested in geoscience and how did you end up at this lab?

Charlotte

Yeah, so I fell into geoscience by accident, as I think many people do. I went to university wanting to study physics. And the way my course worked was you did like for four sciences in the first year. So I already had maths, physics, chemistry, and I was really stuck on the last option. And there’s this guy in my accommodation block, and I hope he listens to this because he’s really changed the trajectory of my life. But he was really cool, he wore like dungarees, and he drank IPAs before it was cool. And he was like, ‘Oh my god, you should do Earth Science, it’s really fun.’ I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll do Earth Science.’ And then I loved it and I just got absolutely hooked.

And so I stayed for a master’s and then I basically just wanted to move abroad, just kind of, to have that experience. I applied for a bunch of PhDs, mostly in America, I was planning to apply for some in Europe as well, but the deadline was later and I got the offer from McGill and Montreal sounded like a cool place, so I went. And I’m so glad I did. I really love this city and the research environment here is really great.

Veronica

Yeah, I feel like, like you said, a lot of people have kind of fallen into geoscience by taking a course in University, or have someone recommend it to them. That was also my experience. I took a course in first year and I was like, oh my gosh, I really like this. I didn’t even consider it before I took this course.

Charlotte

Totally. And it’s like, wow, people are really enthusiastic and they actually want you to take this. Rather than in physics where they’re like, we don’t want everybody to take this course, we don’t have enough space. So they make it like, maybe not deliberately, but I found it incredibly boring. It’s just, like, you’re learning things that were discovered in the 1800s, and then you go to a geoscience class, even in your first year, and there are little references that are like—well at the time it was 2016—but it’s blah blah blah et al. 2016. It’s things that are happening right now in research. And that is so exciting as an undergrad who is new to science. And you’re seeing science really like unfold as the research is progressing. I loved that. That was the coolest aspect for me.

Veronica

That’s so awesome. Geoscience is always changing and we’re always learning new things, that we didn’t know before and I think that’s so awesome.

Okay, great. So, now getting into geoscience, what do you think is the most surprising thing about being a geoscientist—either for you or that you think that the public doesn’t know about?

Charlotte

I think for me it was the sense of community and—maybe this is just my own experience and I’ve been very fortunate—but from speaking to other people I think this is a broad statement—I think geoscience as a community people are very friendly, very down to Earth—if you pardon the pun. Just very encouraging. Most departments that I’ve been to, or been in, are very friendly, a very social environment. Yeah, just much more encouraging than you would expect from a science. I think science has the—has a little bit of a stereotype of being quite competitive and cutthroat and that might be the case in other fields, but in geology, at least within departments, its very encouraging, very nice.

And things that are surprising for the public, I think maybe how much desk work we do. Maybe there’s a perception of geoscientists as being constantly in the field. And actually 10 months of the year I’m doing work at my desk. And I’m so grateful for the 2 months that I get to be in the field. But the majority of what we do is lab work or computer work, the same as most scientists.

And also, you don’t have to do field work. The field work is definitely an optional aspect. If you want to work in a lab or do coding, you can be an incredibly valuable geoscientist and not do any field work at all. So its really not a requirement to be in this field.

Veronica

Yeah, definitely. I think thats a huge perception of geoscientists. Just like, always outside, very naturey. Which maybe—yes, geoscientists do like nature and do like to be outside, but that’s not always the case for the actual job.

Charlotte

It’s like—there’s definitely a high proportion of people who climb in geoscience departments. But you don’t have to.

Veronica

Right, exactly. With your experience in research, now you’re doing your PhD, and you’ve done your Master’s already. What would you say your best piece of advice would be for students when they’re trying to figure out what to study or what do after school for a career?

Charlotte

I think my biggest piece of advice would actually be, to try and keep your options as broad as possible throughout your degree. I think one of the benefits of the North American system is that you can take classes in kind of random subjects, right? You can go and do a class in the geography department and the physics department and the political science department and you can really mix and match. And I think its really important to try out new things.

Because also what you learn in those different classes is going to blend into one another. And the most interesting science, and the most interesting careers, I would argue, are at the intersection of a bunch of different academic fields.

And if you do want to go into some form of research, my advice would be, ask people for help. I know its, like, really hard to realize that you can do that when you’re an undergrad. But if you’ve had research experience in undergrad thats a bit more structured, then it makes it much easier to go into a research based graduate program or career.

And unfortunately, the number of opportunities that are available are very variable from place to place. And so, just asking people for help is really important. If there’s a professor in your undergrad department and you really like their research, ask them if they have space for a summer student. And even if its somebody who you don’t feel immediately drawn to their research, if they’re hiring for a summer student, then go for it. Or it could be during term time. Normally you’ll be paid for your research, at least you should be. You should be reimbursed for your time. And just getting as much experience as you can. Because even if you do a research placement for a few months and you don’t really like it, at least you found that out early, you know? You haven’t done a big move and invested in a career that’s going to turn out to not be something that you love.

Veronica

Yeah, I think sometimes, again, academia can be a bit intimidating. And it can be a bit hard to work up the courage to ask people for help. In my experience, I’ve found that profs are usually generally very open and willing to help. And I know sometimes they can seem intimidating, but really they are there to help you. They’re there to make sure you succeed as a student. So yeah, hopefully that encourages people.

Charlotte

And even if they say no, they’ll normally suggest other options. It would be very unusual for someone to be rude to you, for asking to basically help them out with their research.

Veronica

Right, exactly. I’d love to get to know a little bit more about your research. I am just so curious. So what is the leading, kind of, goal or question for your research project right now?

Charlotte

Okay, so my overall question of my thesis—which I’m coming to realize I probably will not answer with my thesis—but the driving question is: Do reefs get more complex just before animals evolve?

And when people think about reefs, they think of the Great Barrier Reef or the Bahamas, where it’s built by corals and you have all these colourful fish swimming around. And it’s a very animal-dominated environment. But actually reefs have been found in the geological record for a really really long time. So, kind of, even before what’s called the Great Oxidation Event—so this is when oxygen levels really increased around 2.3 billion years ago.

And the reefs that I’m looking at are, like all of these really ancient reefs, built by microbes. So you have these microbial communities and as they respire and eat organic carbon, they change the chemistry around them so that it induces precipitation of carbonate minerals. So things like calcite. And they form around the microbial map, and that causes it to lithify and form a carbonate rock. And then that rock is the basis of the reef.

So these are called Microbialites. You can find them today in places like Shark Bay in Australia. But its only really before animals evolved that we see them as these big reef systems.

So my research is looking at these reef systems and basically seeing like, are we seeing a change in how these microbes look? And also, are we seeing a change in the geochemistry that they’re recording?

Veronica

Hm, okay that’s so interesting. And so what, with that information, what are the potential applications of the research? If you were to answer the question, kind of, what would that information give us, you know?

Charlotte

Thank you for asking that. For the time that animals have dominated the planet, reefs have been known as what’s called, cradles of evolution, because a lot of new species that we find are found in reefs. And scientists basically think that because they create sheltered environments, a really safe place for new evolution to occur. And you get a concentration of really interesting ecosystems, complex ecosystems.

And so a question that’s really important for understanding the evolution of animals is: Why do animals wait to evolve for so long? Right? We have evidence of life from all the way back in Earth’s time—so, 3.7 Billion years ago is when we see the first concrete evidence of life. But then we don’t get complex animal life until a really long time—so until the Ediacaran period, which is from 635 million years ago to 539 million years ago. So, this is a huge gap in time, like, over 3 billion years.

And so a big overall question in geoscience is why does life wait so long to become complex? And it’s really important to understand all of the environmental changes that are taking place up until that point. And a potential contributing factor could be reef complexity. So if suddenly we have a change in reefs, and we get these like really big structures that create sheltered environments, that could be a plausible explanation for the evolution of animals. Or, if we see no change at all, then we’ve ruled that out.

So that’s a very idealistic idea of what my research will show. Science being science it’s very unlikely to create that direct causational link. But that’s why reefs are important. They are crucial environments for potential evolution.

Veronica

Yeah, okay so, we’re asking the question essentially how did animals evolve? Like, where did we come from? So, through studying reefs, we’re trying to find the missing link—I guess—of how animals came to be. And you’re hoping that reefs might help answer that question. Is that correct?

Charlotte

Absolutely, yeah. So it’s investigating a line of evidence that could be potentially important. But there are a ton of different potential explanations. This is just one line of evidence that I think hasn’t been considered in as much detail.

Veronica

Okay, awesome, that’s so cool. And then, something you mentioned last time—like applications for potential astrobiology as well, like looking at life on other planets—is that something you’re also looking at? Or just interested in?

Charlotte

Yes totally. Yeah so Microbialites are also really interesting because they are some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth. So these are Stromatolites, these kind of simple layered structures. And it’s a possibility that if we look for life on other planets, such as on Mars, you know, on a planet where the geological cycle hasn’t been active for billions of years, the evidence we might see will be in rock, rather than, you know, an actively alive species. And so, by understanding Microbialites we can understand the features that make something biogenetic, and that could be a line of evidence that we need to use when we’re finding life on other planets.

Veronica

Okay that’s such a cool application, I love that.

Charlotte

Yeah

Veronica

Because you’re so right, we’re not just going to be like—oh, there’s life. You have to look for the evidence. And I feel like that’s a lot of what geoscience is, is looking for evidence, being a bit of a detective almost, finding answers to questions.

Charlotte

Totally. It’s like looking at a feature in a rock, and then, being able to understand or propose hypotheses for what might have caused that feature. And I think Microbialites are a good example of that. You see these really complex structures in the rock and it’s not obvious at first glance that these would have been caused by a microbial community. Especially in the Microbialites I study, because I don’t do these layered structures, these Stromatolites, are one type. I look more at these things called Thrombolites, which are kind of clotted structures, so a lot less layered, a lot less ordered. And it’s not immediately obvious that these would have been biogenic. And so documenting these structures and making sure we have a good record on Earth will make it a lot easier for scientists to make links to any potential structures we see on other planets.

Veronica

Yeah that’s super cool. And geoscience is cool in that we already said, how things are always changing and evolving, we’re always learning more things about geology, and it’s cool to be a part of that. To be able to add your answer to the question to the larger body of knowledge.

Charlotte

Yeah absolutely. And also, like the way we present our research in things like grant applications, or, you know, on a podcast, it’s like: what is the best case scenario—this could solve all the problems. But what is probably going to happen is that it will raise more questions than it answers—the things that I find in my PhD. But then that will be an inspiration for other scientists to go and look at something else. Or maybe it’ll become part of a big compilation study. And everything really just adds onto everything else. It’s very rare to have a study that by itself revolutionizes everything. Everything we do is a product of building on other people’s work. Science is a really, truly, collaborative effort. And I think it’s important to remember that.

Veronica

Yeah, for sure. And you’re so right, we’re always answering questions and then getting five or six more questions that need to be answered.

So one of the goals of this podcast is really just to give people an understanding of what it’s like to be a geoscientist, and what the experience could be like in all different forms. So, what have been some of your biggest challenges and breakthroughs throughout your education and research?

Charlotte

Hm. I’ll start with the challenges, so we can start with the negative and then move to the positive.

In the first couple years of my PhD, I found the self motivation incredibly hard. It feels like this mountain of work that you have to chip away at. Especially in your first year, you’re just sort of refining your project idea. But you come in with often very little background in the subject you’re going to be studying. Like, my Master’s was completely, a completely different topic to my PhD. So you’re just reading papers and coming up with ideas, but you don’t have experience in what is going to work in a research capacity and what won’t. I found that so difficult. It was really hard to keep the motivation going, to push forward with the PhD.

And that sort of changed once I did my comprehensive exam. So you do this exam where you basically present your research idea to a committee, and then they tell you, ‘Yes that’s a valid scientific idea’ or ‘No, you need to go and revise it.’ Having that vote of confidence was a real boost.

The other thing I found really challenging, this ties into the motivation thing, I struggled to learn how to do research. And it just took me quite a long time to figure out how best to investigate a scientific question. Like, I do have a Master’s degree, but I did it during Covid, and it was more of a data compilation project. And the project was already designed by my supervisor. So, then going from that into learning how to collect data that’s going to answer the question and frame your research in an interesting way, I just found that really challenging. And it’s a skill that takes time to develop. It’s not something that comes innately to us, especially because you get far in academia—you get up to a PhD point—by doing well in exams, not by being a good researcher.

So it was definitely a baptism by fire for me. I did find it really challenging, and as a result I kind of struggled with getting publications out. And felt a lot of imposter syndrome because people who were at the same stage as me in my PhD had maybe published a paper and were working on another, and I was still just gathering data and trying to figure out what it meant.

And I think now things have kind of turned a corner, and I understand what I’m doing a lot more, which is really great. I love my research so much. But it is challenging to just take a bit longer than other people and feel like you’re behind.

But, the breakthroughs, I think doing that comprehensive exam is one. Having a vote of confidence. And also there gets to a point, and it’s no eureka moment, but normally a period of three to six months where suddenly things just sort of click into place. And you find you can answer people’s questions about your research topic really easily. And you just are making links between your papers and other people’s papers and the ideas are flowing and I feel like I’ve just had that period this year. And it’s so exciting. Feeling like you’re actually contributing something to science, and something new, is the best feeling, it’s so exciting. So that would be my breakthrough.

Veronica

Yeah, I think, other people who I’ve been talking to have expressed kind of similar views about the imposter syndrome with being in research and not knowing what they’re doing and feeling a little intimidated. I think often research can feel very intimidating because of, you know, the way that it’s organized or the way that it’s presented. And so I feel like one of the things that I love and I think you probably do as well, is breaking down those barriers a bit through having conversations like this and doing things like sharing videos on social media and talking to people about what it actually looks like, kind of demystifying, I guess, the academic field and trying to make it more accessible. I feel like is such a huge thing that I feel very passionate about and I think you do as well. So yeah, could you talk a little bit about how you got interested in doing geoscience communication, kind of how that started for you and what is the driving motivation for you?

Charlotte

Yes. So the reason I got into it’s actually, it’s a little bit negative, which is a shame. But I’d been working in universities like on equity and diversity committees in these sort of internal spaces to try and make academia more accessible and open. And it’s just such slow progress, like you’ll be working for a year, but you’ll only work in like your very direct community, which is incredibly important, but it’s still very slow going, especially within the machinery of a university, which is, just, there’s always a barrier to something, always.

And so I had been thinking about doing a science communication page for a while just because it feels like a much more direct step towards educating people about geoscience and making the process more transparent. And I ummed and ahhed about it for ages because, just really caught up in what people would think. I was thinking about, like, you know, friends from high school, people from university who would see the videos and think they were really cringe. Like, ‘Look at this girl making videos about rocks.’

And eventually I was just like, Why are you letting that hold you back? Like, these people probably will see them and they probably will think that, but who cares? It’s fine. You’re going to reach people who are going to really enjoy them, and that’s what matters a lot more. So I started the page and yeah, I really love it.

And I think science communication is the thing—one of the things—that has really kind of brought back my love of science. Because I love learning new things and it’s really interesting to be going back to basics on, especially like sedimentary geology and just trying to explain those basic concepts because you get so high level and in the weeds with your, kind of, graduate studies and you forget how to communicate your science.

And it’s a real—it’s a really difficult skill. And I think it’s something I’m still learning. Like when I watch the videos that I made a year ago, I’m like, ‘Oh man, these are just like full of jargon.’ Like, it’s just not the kind of target audience that I wanted. And so, yeah, it’s a skill that I’m still learning, but I do love being able to communicate science and learning how to do that. And also learning how to make videos. It’s hard, it’s very time consuming.

Veronica

Yeah. People make it look so easy on social media, it’s just like, oh, publish like so many videos and whatever. But yeah, once you actually sit down to do, you’re like, oh, this is actually a lot of work.

Charlotte

Absolutely. And it’s so variable. Like I, I do really enjoy it and I have to remind myself that I’m enjoying it often because it’s so unpredictable. Like I think making a living as an influencer must be incredibly difficult because like, you’re so at the whims of the algorithm and I’ll make very similar videos and one will absolutely take off and one will get like no views. And especially on TikTok, it’s like completely unpredictable. Like some videos do really well and I’m like really? That one?

Veronica

It’s so unpredictable, you’re so right. And I feel like you touched on this a little bit, but why for you, why is science communication so important?

Charlotte

I think if I break it down into like, why is science communication important, and why is geoscience communication important?

Science communication, I think is really critical in a political sense right now because we’re living in this society of just like alternative truth and complete rampant misinformation and disinformation from the most powerful politicians on the planet. And that is deeply scary.

And a lot of it stems from people’s distrust of ‘The Establishment’ in quotation marks as a whole. And unfortunately, science is part of that in people’s minds. And so having science communicators, even though it’s not going to completely fix the problem, having science communicators on social media, where people feel like they have a little bit of a relationship with them, even just like seeing them on their feed every day or, you know, once a week, that’s going to make a huge difference because even though that’s not a personal interaction, it kind of feels like one. And I think the more people that are on the Internet making videos about science who have real scientific qualifications and actually understand what they’re talking about, the more people who are doing that, the better.

In times of geoscience specifically, I think this is incredibly important for a few different fields. So one is misinformation about natural disasters, so things like earthquakes and volcanoes and there’s a lot of great content creators who are basically debunking the random videos saying there’s going to be a Yellowstone super eruption in a few months time. And then there’s also climate change deniers, so climate change deniers often use geology in their arguments. They’ll say things like ‘The climate has always changed.’ ‘It’s just natural cycles.’ And these are things that you learn about in your first year of geoscience as an undergrad and you learn why those arguments don’t make sense. So I think it’s really important for us as geoscientists to teach people about how to think like a geologist and the differences between geological time and human time.

I think understanding geoscience gives people a love of the natural world and an appreciation for the processes that have occurred for us to be here and to produce the landscapes that we love. And I think a deep love of the natural world is one of the things that’s going to combat the climate crisis. Because if people love the planet, they’re going to want to fight to save it.

I’d say those are sort of the two reasons: Debunking misinformation and trying to get people to care about the planet in a different capacity. Those are my two motivations

Veronica

Amazing. And so with that, what would you change about the perception of geoscience in society? I feel like we touched on this a little bit, but maybe if you could expand a bit more.

Charlotte

I think on a really basic level, I would just love people to understand the basics of geology a little bit more. So in particular, the difference between geological time scale processes and human timescale processes. An understanding of that is going to help people debunk misinformation that they see. And in terms of what people think geoscience is, in terms of like their perception of it. People think of geoscience as being extractive industry only, right? So mining and oil and gas. And particularly within kind of research circles, that is just like a small part of what geoscience is about. And most of it is just trying to understand the way the planet works in a non extractive way. Like what we do as sedimentologists just is very different to what the oil and gas industry are doing.

It’s important to realize that you can be a geoscientist and be a very passionate environmentalist. You don’t need to go into a extractive job at the end of your degree.

Veronica

Yeah, that’s so true. I feel like that’s definitely a very common misperception.

So the question that I always end my podcast with is what is your favourite geologic feature in Canada?

Charlotte

Hm okay, I’m going to do somewhere I’ve not actually been. My favourite geological feature in Canada is Mistaken Point in Newfoundland because—I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard about it so much in all my undergrad lectures about paleontology—it’s this amazing locality where you can see this big ecosystem of Ediacaran organisms. So Ediacaran is the period just before the Cambrian explosion, so that’s when animals appear in abundance in the fossil record. But just before that we have these like really strange, enigmatic organisms. There’s no huge consensus on where they belong in the phylogenetic tree, but there’s pretty compelling evidence that some of them are animals—so the earliest animal life. And these ones at Mistaken Point are these like frond organisms who were probably just kind of waving in the ocean connected to the bottom and it seems like an absolutely amazing place. So I definitely hope I can go that before the end of my Ph.D.

Veronica

That’s so awesome. I feel like that’s so relevant, especially to your PhD.

Charlotte

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I’ll have to do some geo tourism.

Veronica

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Great. Amazing. Well, thanks so much for being with me today. I’ve loved talking to you about your research, about geoscience communication and about your TikTok account and everything that you do. Yeah. Thanks so much.

Charlotte

Thank you for having me. This has been so fun.

Outro

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Beneath Your Feet, a geoscience podcast. I’m Veronica Klassen, science communicator and geology enthusiast. As a reminder, please note that the opinions and views expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the APGO Education Foundation. If you want to learn more, visit us at GeoscienceINFO.com, where you can find our GeoHikes, podcast transcripts, and additional resources. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at GeoscienceINFO or on LinkedIn and Facebook at the APGO Education Foundation. Stay curious and keep exploring the incredible world Beneath Your Feet.

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