Many geoscientists get into the field through a love of the outdoors and a chance to escape the city.
Many geoscientists get into the field through a love of the outdoors and a chance to escape the city. But for Danielle Zaleski, cities are where some of the most interesting — and important — questions in geosciences originate. That includes her research on the buildup of microplastics in the sediment of Lake Austin and Lady Bird Lake, both just a couple of miles from The University of Texas at Austin campus.
“When I saw an advertisement about researching microplastics in Austin’s waterways, that was immediately eye-catching,” said Zaleski, who graduated in May with a Bachelor of Science in geology from the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. “It had the urban aspect that I liked, along with the geology and the environmental work.”
Working with Cornel Olariu, a research associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Marcy Davis, an engineering scientist for the Institute for Geophysics, Zaleski has spent the past two-and-a-half years as a student scientist analyzing how microplastics — ranging in size from 45 micrometers to 1 millimeter — have been accumulating in the lakes as the city grows.
Microplastics are everywhere. Scientists have found them on Earth’s highest peaks and in its deepest ocean trenches. So, when Zaleski started filtering microplastics in core samples from the bottom of Lake Austin and Lady Bird Lake, their abundance came as no surprise.
Read More: University of Texas at Austin
Image: Danielle Zaleski prepares a field sample in the UT Institute for Geophysics Sediment Laboratory. (Credit: University of Texas at Austin)
