Welcome to Conversations from St.
Norbert College,
a program that encourages good
discussion in our community
on today's local and global issues. Now, 
your host for Conversations from St.
Norbert
College, author, professor and nationally
known sports economist,
Dr. Kevin Quinn. Welcome to
Conversations from St. Norbert College.
I'm Kevin Quinn. Our special guest is
Kathy Licht
and we'll discuss the future of science
and higher education, Licht's research and
career path as well as her time spent at
St. Norbert College.
Licht is a 1992 graduate of St. Norbert,
an associate professor of earth
sciences at Indiana University
Purdue University Indianapolis, she's
been researching the Antarctic Ice Sheet
and joined St. Norbert professor of
geology, Tim Flood
on a research expedition there last January.
Kathy, welcome to the show. "Thank you."
Well, of course, I'm gonna have to ask you
about
your time at St. Norbert, but let's start first
with your work in
Antarctica. What's interesting about
Antarctica?
"Well, I would say, 'what's not interesting?'"
It's a beautiful, beautiful continent
and the geology there
is largely hidden by the ice sheet and
so
we have to use some interesting tools to
try to figure out how to access
all on the rocks that are hidden below
the ice sheet and the ice itself
is a fantastic recorder a climate
changes over time
and we know it's responding to climate
changes and so
it's an ice sheet similar to one that
covered this area
about twenty thousand years ago and
so it's a modern analog for something
that doesn't exist in places
or that used to exist in places like
Wisconsin."
Well, I guess the next question is why
should we care?
I mean, other than just it's an
interesting intellectual endeavor,
but you know the average person who's
watching this, why should they care about
what's going on
at the South Pole? "The main reason
is that
all the ice that's tied up in the ice sheet
has the potential to contribute to sea
level rise
and we know, with things like superstorm
sandy that really impacted the coast,
that costs the country a lot of money.
So, from an economic standpoint, there's a
lot of reasons to be concerned
when we have some you know millions of
people living at sea level
and sea level is on the rise and we'd
like to know how much will Antarctica
really contribute."
Well, you're a geologist, meaning you are
interested rocks.
I think most of us think that the
pole's is just covered
with ice. Is that the case? Do you have to
drill through the ice to get to the rocks
or are there just
rocks laying around? "Yeah. Antarctica's an
extremely large continent.
Most people think 'Oh it's that space on the bottom the map that's either
not there or it looks massive.'
It's about the size of the continental
US and Mexico combined
and so if you imagine that area and you
fill that all up with ice until only the
peaks the Rockies are sticking out
that's one way to visualize what
Antarctica looks like.
So most of it is flat and white and in
places there are rocks that are exposed
that we can study."
So what particular work do you do there?
I mean,
what's interesting to you about
the rocks that are there?
"Well, we like to use them as a tracer for
the ice
and so if we'd like to know how the
ice sheet behaved in the past,
how big did it get during the last Ice
Age, how quickly does it retreat,
how does it respond to climate change we
need a way to
trace that when the ice is no longer
in those positions.
So what we do is use rock types that are
distinct from different parts of the
continent and then we can trace those
sort of like tracing a trail of breadcrumbs
and say, 'Oh. Well, the ice from over here must have extended in this area
because it
took granite with it and dropped along the
way.' So we can use
the rock types to learn about the ice sheet
history." So you can actually tell how old
these
rocks are and when they were placed in
certain spots, is that right?
"Yeah, those are sort of two different questions and I'm gonna try to get
you to think like a geologist and say,
'Well, the rock might have formed five hundred
million years ago,
but it was transported only twenty
thousand years ago.'
So there are lots of different kinds of
questions we can use. What are the rocks
that
were carried by the ice sheet that we can't
even see exposed today?
So those deposits left behind give us
some clue as to what's buried under all
that ice
and then if we can understand when those
deposits formed we can learn about the
ice sheet on top of it."
So how do you tell how old a
particular rock is?
I mean, there's no markings on it or
anything like that. "Right, there are plenty geology jokes
which I'll spare you.
One of the tools you can use are a
variety
of radioactive elements, such as Uranium,
that occur naturally in lots of
different kinds of rocks
so in one case there's a mineral called
Zircon
which forms on things like granite
and it forms naturally with some
radioactive Uranium in it and, over time,
that Uranium decays to Lead and we can
measure those
to the ratio of those two different
isotopes or those two different elements
and from that calculate the age."
Is that work that you do there or do you
mostly gather the rocks and bring them back
to your lab at home
or wherever and and test them there?
"What we do is collect the rocks in
Antarctica and box them up and they get
shipped back sometimes it takes four
months until we see them again
and then we prepare the materials in
Indianapolis,
but we don't actually have a lab to
measure the Uranium and Lead
um materials and so we go to the
University of Arizona.
They have a facility there where we can
measure the samples."
Sounds warmer than the South Pole. "Um...yeah.
Ironically, though, the lab is kept so
cold we have to have a heater on.
It's 100 degrees outside in Arizona 
and there's a heater on in the lab."
Well, let's talk about the station, the
research station that exists.
It's McMurdo, right, is the 
big place
and I think that, you know, most of us
have some idea that exists, but
really don't know a whole lot about it.
So tell us a little bit about the
station itself and what
is life like there. "McMurdo Station
is very much like a small town in
Wisconsin in a lot of ways.
There are..." A lot of churches and bars? "Well, there are three bars, one church,
there's a library, there
used to be a bowling alley (unfortunately
that building is no longer
safe to be inhabited), there are places
for people to live, there are shops, there are
computers,
there's an ATM..." An ATM? "Yeah,
to buy, you know, get your money someplace
to buy things at the bar and
other places.
So it's a small town. It gets up to
probably 12...11 or 12 hundred
people in the maximum population in the
Antarctic summer time
and so there's a group of people
who are hired to make
the city...(city? town?) run
and so they hire people from all around the
country to do all the jobs that need to
be done
and once that infrastructure is set up and
the people are there and
learn their jobs, then the scientific groups
come down
and rotate all throughout the Antarctic
summer season and there are chemists,
biologists, physicists, atmospheric
scientists,
as well as geologists who come in to do
the research projects there."
And it's an international effort. Is
that correct?
"The McMurdo Station is a US base
and so it primarily houses US researchers.
Occasionally there are groups from other
countries that come in,
scientists who use the facility, and
when there are search and rescue efforts
it certainly
becomes an international endeavor." So
there's a contractor that runs
the thing all year round and then it
sort of has a high season like Cape Cod
in a sense, right? "Exactly."
So how many people are there all
year round?
"About, well in wintertime I think
they're about 150 people or so that
stay
winter over. So they maintain the basic
functions so...
you know, so you can actually start it
up again in
in the springtime and then at in
about
September early October they bring
the vast majority of those contractor
folks back to get everything spun up so
the scientists can really start in
October.
"So how do you get there? I mean,
you can't take a boat because it's
over land, right, and do they have an
airstrip I'm guessing?
"Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
You fly down to New Zealand
and from New Zealand down to Antarctica.
There's a
passenger terminal: your bags have to go
through screening just like they would
in the normal airport
and you fly down, and the first time I
went I thought,
"Landing a large plane on ice doesn't seem
like a very good idea."
It turns out it's a snow-covered runway
that's groomed and some of the planes that
go down are ski-equipped
and some have wheels and you can land
that way and the main
US base is actually sitting on the edge of
an active volcano
and so there is land exposed, so the
buildings sit on land,
but their strips are made on the nice
flat ice surface."
Really? So are you restricted in how much
luggage you can bring or is that part of
the grant I guess that you write to get
down there? "Yeah. So, there is a weight
restriction on how much baggage you can
bring, but for scientific gear you can
get exceptions and people send
large amounts down for big projects." Can you
bring nail files on
the plane or...? "I think you can do a 
nail file.
For a while they were iffy about knives."
Really? "Yeah!" I would imagine that there's
a lot of equipment that you're gonna want to take
with you there that
probably wouldn't make it onto a US
airplane.
"That goes checked bag instead of carry on." Right, so you
live in dorms when you're down there,
right? Just, I mean, are they like college dorms, are they
more like apartments...? "They're mostly like college dorms, so
most of the buildings, and there's a line
of buildings that are four stories, and
you know in most cases there are
two bunk beds in the room and so you may
know the person you're bunking with, you
may not.
For those of us who are sometimes there
just for a week or two at a time,
we're the transients, and so you come and,
you know, make your little home there
use the, you know, group bathroom
facilities and all of that just like a dorm."
Just like a dorm. Except you guys
are there to really work hard. I think
maybe that's not always true of
college students. "Oh, now."
So, what was your biggest surprise when you got down there, just as far as
creature comforts and
that sort of thing?
"That's a good question..." What did you miss most?
"What I miss most is milk."
Milk? "Mmmhmm. Yeah, that's the one thing; they have reconstituted milk.
So that's the one thing, you know,
coming from the dairy states..." I was going to say,
you're true to your Wisconsin roots.
"Yes." Now, you actually did some work
outside of the base, right? You actually went
camping,
in a sense, right? "Yes." What's camping like
in that environment? Is it
like ice fishing? "It's
less fancy than most ice shacks in
Wisconsin, I think.
Yeah, you just use the standard tents.
I mean, you get,
you know, strong tents that, mountains tents
that you would buy here in,
you know, whatever shop and you just have
to make sure they're staked down well and
you put snow around the edges so they
don't blow away.
The other kind of tent we use is
called a Scott Tent,
which is basically a...you see a big sort
of bright yellow
tent that is...it's a classic
sort of icon of Antarctic
exploration and it was used in
the early 1900s and we still
use the same design because it works so
well when the weather gets really horrible."
Have you ever been caught out in some 
bad... Well, what is bad weather
there and have you ever been caught in it?
"I have not been caught in anything
really horrible. We had some really cold,
windy days where the wind chill might be
seventy or eighty below and you're
trying to collect samples.
That's not so much fun and we tried not
to be out
under those conditions. People have
had some really
harrowing experiences with
hurricane-force winds picking up
snowmobiles and tossing them across the
ice sheet.
So I'm glad I didn't experience that..." Oh wow. 
"...but it has happened."
How cold does it get in the wintertime...
their wintertime? "The coldest
temperature ever recorded
is in the middle of the East Antarctic
Ice Sheet it was at a Russian station
and it was minus 128 degrees Fahrenheit...
no wind." No wind, well thank God for that. 
"Yeah."
Well let's talk a little bit about the
work that you do and how it relates to
global climate change.
And, you know, it's become a political
debate in this country,
unfortunately...to me, rather than a
scientific debate.
What's your perspective on
that? I mean, where does what you do fit in
to the modern to be about man-made
warming?
"Well, I would say there's no debate in
the scientific community about man-made
warming
for starters. And so, I agree with
you that it's unfortunate it has become
political; it should be something we all
care about because we
we live on the planet. And so, it's
unfortunate that
the concern has gotten away
from what's happening and what can we do
about it
to denying that change is even
happening. So
the way my research fits in is,
because we're trying...there's a big
concern about sea level in particular,
that we'd like to know how much is
Antarctica going to contribute,
for instance, and so as a geologist I can
say, based on the rocks I find and the
kinds of deposits,
this is how big the ice sheet was and this
is how quickly it retreated
and then the people who make computer
models of ice sheets
then can put that into their models and
say here's an actual data point you can
use to test the model
to see if your predictions work to see
if your model actually works.
So we really provide a foundation for
testing the models that
predict
what Antarctica will do in a warming
world.
There's a lot of work going on down
there just about this,
you know, I know that they drill these
cores that
are...it's really cool and they measure the
gas bubbles that are
trapped in the core and they can tell
quite a bit about what the world was
like,
you know, 10-thousand, 20-thousand,
a mill... "850-thousand." 850-thousand years ago
and it must be really neat to be part of
that forefront, I mean, this is new
knowledge. "It is really exciting and I think
the ice cores produce some of the most
interesting records we have in science
and
in a lot of ways because it really is a
fantastic recorder of climate changes
over time
and it's relatively constant and so you
know the snow falls down year after year
and compresses and ice and so you build
up this extremely long record
and the snow traps air bubbles into it
and so you can extract those gases
and measure co2 so if you wonder if, you know, 
people say that co2 is
high and is going up, how do you know that and 
what's your perspective?
Turns out we have an eight hundred and fifty thousand year record showing
the natural climate cycles over time its
shifts between
180, 180 parts per million
during glacial cycles,
and then usually up to 280 parts per
million during warm periods, or
interglacials,
so it's sort of this natural rhythm or
heartbeat of the planet.
So, 180/280, 180/280 and now we're up to 400
and you can smack that out with
population and industrialization
and it's really happened in the last 150
years or so."
So, something like what, sixty percent
of the freshwater on earth is
trapped there, is that right? And how much of
that
is likely to melt and what will that do
to sea levels
and why would we care? "Yeah, if you melted
all of Antarctica, which is unlikely, you
would raise sea level over 200 feet
and I always joke with my students in
Indiana that that would make southern
Indiana almost oceanfront property,
so buy now.
What we think are the most vulnerable places
are: the Antarctic Peninsula,
which is the little tip that points up
toward South America, and the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet.
And if those areas would melt sea level
would potentially come up
on the order of, you know, 10 to 15 feet or
so
and that... New Orleans is already below
sea level, so for them it's extremely
relevant. For New York City
I think they were quite surprised during
Superstorm Sandy that the
storm surge really inundated areas
they didn't expect, so
if you...it's not just the rise but then
is everything else that happens in the
ocean
that really causes problems with
flooding and, you know, for us here
in Wisconsin you might say, "Well we're
far from the coast. Why does it matter?"
Well, it probably matters to your insurance rates and matters to
how we help out our neighbors on the
coastal areas, how we should be planning,
how we should be thinking about
designing
this country, but it also matters to
small island nations in the Pacific --
they have the potential to lose their
whole country and so they have
been thinking hard about what will we do? 
Will we lose our language?
How will we stay together? We want to do
that. Where will we go?
And so for those people it's an even...
it's an even harder problem to deal with."
Well, one of the issues is that the...
it's the rich countries that have...that
are contributing most because they have
the largest economies, they're burning the 
most fossil fuels,
but they're the ones either least likely
to be affected by this
or have the capacity to mitigate it in
some fashion. I mean, if Charleston looks like
it's starting to go underwater
we have the capability of building a seawall... 
"Yes." But little places in Micronesia don't
have that
way of doing that. I mean, I agree with
you, I think that this is something that
is likely
to define the next 100 years. I think
of
human existence as how we how we deal with that.
I'm not sure that a lot of folks
really understand how quickly the
climate
can change. You grew up in Wisconsin and I'm
guessing that you studied a little bit about
that. Tell us
just a little bit about the the glacial
history here in
the state of Wisconsin. "During
the last Ice Age, so roughly about 
20-thousand years ago, we
sort of use a broad-brush term, but it's
a good a good time frame,
we know that there were ice sheets that
covered
most of Canada and they extended down
into Wisconsin not...
didn't cover the entire area, many people
have heard of the driftless area
in the southwestern part of the state,
but it really shaped the landscape
so the shape of the land's surface is the
way it is largely because the ice
sheets covered the area
and one of the great benefits is the
wonderful fertile soil that provided for
all the farming activities here.
So, the ice sheet retreated
relatively slowly at times but we know ice
sheets,
including those in this area, can retreat
quite rapidly and
so the ice sheet retreat and climate
are closely linked but you can have
climate shifts but sometimes it takes
the ice
some time to respond because they are
such a massive,
massive feature." So 20-thousand years
sounds like a long time, but it's really
almost within the stretch of human
history. Not quite, but
but almost. "Yeah, I mean, geologically it's
a drop in the bucket so is joe quell
you know that so modern you know a lot
of geologists
don't you know 20,000 your time scales
and even relevant
for some other things we do but you know
because it shapes the way he
we interact I'm it shapes the landscape
and it affects how we interact with it
am A it really does matter and we know
that the ice retreated in
a few thousand years and we know that
climb massive climate changes have
happened over the scale decades
so those have happen actually they're
really hard to predict and so
one of the challenges with climate
change are the unpredictable parts
they're sorta the long-term changes that
we understand
and then we can look in the geologic
record say but their periods where
unpredictable things happen on a quick
time scale now what happens if we
superimpose that
on a climate system we don't really
understand as we go forward
with higher co2 than we have seen in the
in the last several hundred thousand
years for example that the Gulf Stream
is
sort an artifact of the CE atmosphere
situation by that could change I mean it
could shift
well that dream is not constant it's not
cops in a good change
very quickly and that would have a
profound impact on the weather in the
United States
and but by the time that happens by the
time even realize that it would probably
be
a lil bit too late this some other
systems are so big it's hard to conceive
that we could actually change them
but all the data we have shows us that
is indeed what's happening
and once you changed really big systems
it's hard to get them back to the state
that you use to
well like to talk a little bit about I
about your thoughts about science
education
that it to some degree it's under fire
in this country that you know when I
grew up in the in the sixties and
seventies you know we worship science I
mean we put
people on the moon and we did all these
really cool things
you know in even up until the eighties
and nineties when we're doing
you know genetic modification I mean we
could change the world with science
what in your opinion is happened in the
last ten or fifteen years we think is
going on
and and how do you think that's going to
affect us in the future
that's a really interesting question you
could spend a long time talking about
that but I think
one of the issues is excess ability
information and so if anybody can look
up
anything than almost anybody can be an
expert on any topic
and I think and I'm sure that it's not
just science but in a lot of areas
that you from we sort of loose items the
depth
over understanding people have in
certain areas and how
that shapes their ideas and opinions and
interpretation
information so I can show somebody a
graph and sale will
look at this and you know try to
convince you but there's lotsa lotsa
supporting information behind that so I
think
it's important to understand that this
availability of information
is every blessing but it's also a real
challenge to try to help students
um and you know the informed citizen
really understand how we get
to scientific information her how we get
scientific information
and how we can use it appropriately ary
losing site generally not scientist but
are
is the public losing side to the
scientific method in as as a philosophy
in in
what that means to understand something
that way I think there probably is some
some aspect to that um in this day and
age we like instant gratification and
you know you can look stuff up and get
information but there's a whole
philosophy of science as you say that
you can't prove anything is true
you can disprove lots of things but to
actually prove something is true
is is something that many philosophers
have said
you just can't do that you can't go
backs you know
twenty thousand years and be here when
the ice sheet was here
and so all we can do is use evidence and
make arguments based on the evidence
that we have
and its it so it's a more subtle way of
thinking then the
you know ten-second news clip with the
with the answer
Wikipedia is great and its formal and as
an economist I can appreciate that I
told my own students
that the you're not arriving at the
truth with a capital T
necessarily but we call it discipline
because you go through a discipline
syriza procedures to try to understand
something in the
and are yurman brains have a have a
comprehension event
that's enhanced and very nuanced very
analog and digital
about something because we've gone
through the active
trying to understand it what struck by
your own education after you love seeing
over
you went to Boulder hmm and I i've had
been lucky to
enough to be at the at the Center for
Atmospheric Research there
for a little bit its 10 most beautiful
places on earth are gonna put research
place I put it there
I so what attracted you to Boulder
I was interested in studying glaciers
and so I looked
at programs around the country that had
glacial geologists who might be able to
work with
and that rose to the top is one of one
of the great choices
and I was accepted to work there so the
it was it was really a lot of luck and
and my advisor at the time taking a
chance in hell
he I didn't obviously come from a large
research institution but because I had
done research here it's a former I think
he said oh well here's
hear somebody may be worth taking a
chance on it
it certainly is a different place the
you know northeastern Wisconsin and
and Boulder Colorado are are very
different places
so now you're ritually from Wisconsin
right there in a sense in from if I'm
not mistaken
I'm why 20 shooting or
a nice I thought about that quite a lot
and I I think I can I came on a campus
visit and was really impressed it was in
a beautiful campus everybody was
extremely friendly and supportive
and it seemed like a place that I would
be comfortable
for you know for starters and I think
that's really important for
you know for students you can't learn
and really be part of the community you
don't feel comfortable there
that's true and we like to think that
we're doing more than just you know
what's in the classroom or what's really
important but you're around other people
are roughly
you know same age in the people work
here are
cognizant that so what do you remember
most about your time here
that you can talk about on the air I
guess good good good caveat there
now I I think one of the things that I
really appreciated was all the
opportunities
to outside the classroom whether it was
doing geology field trips
we went to some fat fantastic field
trips to Central America
or I also went with one of the group
down to Chicago over spring break and
volunteered at schools
and so I think it was all those in
addition of course to the wonderful
classes but it was all the extra
opportunities that made it a really rich
experience
so what advice would you give for
somebody who is thinking about
being a scientist mean not necessarily
geologist on
is that advice different if they're
mailer female ur
are we passed that now I would like to
think we're past that
you know in geology we have usually at
least half the students are women
whether it's a Norbert order at IUPUI
their lot of women involved in the field
and so
you know I think it comes down more two
personalities rather than gender
at this stage and I think you know if
you're curious about the world in you're
willing to
to work hard and ask questions and and
really
yet make make a lot of queries into the
how the world works then science is
really fun
mean geology is like being a detective
or you don't have any clues
and so different scientists sciences
suit personalities differently
I think you have to be up a certain
personality be jealous you have to you
as Sears they are you you have to love
working in the field
and not necessarily in the most
comfortable environments
you know there's a lot of lifting yeah
it's a crack rocks are heavy
yes as it turns out and moving around is
top I
you know if we think about just the vast
array of different kinds a
mineral stones Sarah I mean we walk by
an everyday
and if you actually pick them up and
look at them
it's incredibly complex I mean things
that are meet at the same chemicals can
have
vastly different appearances because
I've the way that they were formed
how do you go about thinking and can
walking all that kinda stuff I mean it's
almost
impossible it seems yeah I mean
it as it can be extremely overwhelming
and so you know you start with the big
picture what are the
in order to cancer drug people in and
and to get yourself started so what can
I wrap my head around what stage in my
at an
for starters it's usually visual
appearance you're attracted to rocks and
stones and gems that look visually
appealing to us
and so you can gain an appreciation just
to the visual level
but if you decide you want to pursue it
further than you can get down to the
chemical level to the bonding level
physics
all that is is part of it and one other
things I think
that most jealous really appreciate is
that we really get to draw on all the
sciences
so on it daily basis I deal with
chemistry
I'm probably on a some my projects
certainly do with biology and physics as
well so geology is really an integrated
science that really allows us to think
about the whole world which is a lot of
fun
well a lot of folks choose geology as
the
you know your English major something
like that is there one
science course why do you think that is
and what do you hope
they leave your class with knowing that
there probably never gonna take another
science course well I did that I wasn't
I came as a business and psychology
double major I took on geology class and
wow this is fantastic I have to be a
geology major
and honestly that's the way most geology
students come to the field
and so you know what I hope is that we
will draw and those people who had a
leading interest and didn't really know
much about geology
and show them that it's a fantastic
career option
but for those who maybe don't wanna
follow that path to appreciate
and the natural world around them and
say what what is um
what are the natural processes that
happen on the earth and how can we make
smarter choices about
how we live on this planet because we
know this information
what's next for you i mean are you going
back to to the
mcmurdo word there that is the human
remains to be determined I'm got several
research proposals that'll be something
in about two weeks
and so that those will go through the
review process and if
those many of them are funded they'll
but they all include
about trips to enter to enter to go to
collect more samples
and so on you know come back to me in
nine months sir
copland that would that ought to do it
and I shouldn't have an answer to that
well everyone I ever met that went down
there couldn't wait to go back
solved there must be something that's
really appealing about the about the
experience
and unfortunately out of time but i
wanna say thank you very much for
sharing that
with us and for coming back to campus I
know that you're gonna be speaking to a
group of our
undergraduate Scholars and I'm sure
they're gonna get quite a bit outta that
are the talk I hope you've all enjoyed
our show
until next time I'm Kevin Quinn best
wishes for good conversations
from seeing your workout
