Abstract
The Chicxulub impact, known more widely as the impact that made the dinosaurs go extinct(as well as several other animal groups), has always been a subject I have been incredibly
interested in. This was largely due to an interest in dinosaurs as a group of animals, which
was also a minor factor in my eventual choice for geology as a career for higher education.
This fact alone made the research topic stand out to me above the others. Once I heard I
would be working on a relatively new core that had been drilled from the ocean floor off
Yucatan, I felt positively honoured to be involved in this project. I also learned that working
on the core involved a lot of techniques I was already familiar with from previous
assignments, and this properly sealed the deal for me.
The most engaging part of this project was by far the lab and practical work. Preparing the
samples for geochemical analysis, I found very engaging and, in a way, relaxing. Despite the
somewhat repetitious nature of the pulverising, I felt that once you got into the rhythm of the
work, it even became fun, to an extent. It helped that I had done this sort of work previously
during my bachelor’s project, but I found that proper academic work required a lot more
precautions to avoid sample contamination.
The petrographic work on the thin sections was also very enthralling. The petrographic work
was what really helped solidify how much I’d learned over my years as a geology student
and, in spite of the headaches that come with looking at thin sections as strange as these, it
was always something I was fully invested in.
As engaging as I found the practical work, probably the most important takeaway from this
all was the large amount of planning and preparation that went into an academic project of
this magnitude, which was unfortunately a hard lesson to learn over the course of this
dissertation, and I hope to take it to heart for my future endeavours, to always ensure I am
fully on board with any project I am involved in.
| Date of Award | 30 Sep 2019 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
|
| Supervisor | Sietze Jan De Graaff (Advisor), Pim Kaskes (Advisor), Steven Goderis (Promotor) & Philippe Claeys (Promotor) |