Catherine Ross

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This transcript is based on a video-recorded interview deposited at MarE3, JAMSTEC (Yokosuka, Japan).

The transcripts of the research project Oral Histories of Scientific Ocean Drilling are polished representations of oral conversations, and are intended solely for the purpose of preserving and documenting personal accounts and memories. They are not a literary product, and are not intended to exhibit literary qualities.

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Please cite the interview as:

Interview of Pei Pei by Beatriz Martinez-Rius on 2024 September 11, D/V Chikyu (Japan). [link]

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is 11 of September of 2024, I’m Beatriz Martinez-Rius, postdoctoral researcher in JAMSTEC, and I’m onboard Chikyu with Cat Ross. Can you tell me your name affiliation and current position?

Catherine Ross (CR): I am Catherine Ross. Most people call me Cat. And I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado, in Boulder.

BMR: Where are you from? Tell me something about your background so we can picture you.

CR: I’m originally from Texas, and then I did my undergrad and masters at McGill University in Canada. Then I moved back to the United States, did my PhD at the University of Texas in Austin, and then I had a one year postdoctoral position in Wisconsin. And now I’m at University of Colorado.

BMR: Why did you choose Earth Sciences?

CR: It’s kind of a funny story. So my dad is a geologist and growing up, during vacation, he would want to look at the rocks, and I would want to go to the beach because I was a teenage girl. And I wouldn’t, like, listen to him, but… You know, you are old enough to get a summer job; I knew someone, and she was this really awesome PhD student at the time at Rice University. So my first experience was at the end of high school, and I was just doing stuff in the lab, cleaning slides, making sediment slides… But she was really inspiring. And what she was doing was very inspiring. We were looking at Antarctic heating and cooling through little microorganisms, so I got inspired through her, but my dad sort of puppeteer that. I was originally going to – I thought I was going to be a professional dancer. So that was kind of a huge pivot for me. But what I found is that Earth Sciences is pretty creative and very different, from all of the other sciences, because we have what we have right now, and that’s all we have to work with it, whereas some of the other sciences you can make stuff in the lab, and you have more control; while we are looking and observing, and have to be very creative in how we think about Earth’s history, because there’s such a large record of it, that we have to sort of investigate and create a movie in our minds, almost, of what’s happening over time.

BMR: That’s wonderful. Why did you decide going to the offshore?

CR: I guess there was a couple of reasons. One was the woman I worked with Becky Totten (formerly Minzoni). I don’t know if it was IODP specifically, but it definitely was some sort of research vessel. Maybe the Antarctic one. So my first samples that I’ve ever got were from some ocean drilling. I think they were just some gravity cores or something. But so, a little taste, I didn’t really know what was going on. Then, during my PhD – well, even during my undergrad and masters, my advisor sailed on J-FAST (note: IODP Expedition 343). And I’ve heard about it. I didn’t work on the samples, but I’ve heard about it. Then, during my PhD, I worked on IODP samples from expedition 364, which drilled into the Chicxulub crater in Mexico. But I didn’t get to go, because it was before I started. And so, I kept on getting closer and closer to going to the actual expedition (laughs). So now, I’m excited to actually be on the ship and… You get the grasp of how much actually goes into getting this samples that I’ve seen and work on. I already knew they were precious, but they now seem even more precious and special to me.

Conversations over samples. In both pictures, Cath discussing with co-chief scientist of IODP Exp.405 Khotaro Uijie over just-recovered samples. Credit of both images ©️Doriane Letexier / JAMSTEC / IODP

BMR: Is this your first offshore expedition, then?

CR: Yes, yes.

BMR: How is it so far?

CR: It’s really wonderful. And I guess the other thing that made it more time sensitive, because in my trajectory I only had a certain amount of time working on separate projects at the university of Colorado, but since the US’s involvement in ocean drilling is maybe a little more unsure, I started looking at all the expeditions and seeing at which one was the most interesting for me. Where I could help out the most. This is my first expedition… It’s been great, so far (laughs), but I haven’t been in night shift yet (laughs) And… Seeing the mechanisms – I was just talking to Marianne (Connin) about how… When you see the science objectives, you say, “Okay, we’re going to install a temperature observatory”. But then, seeing all the engineering and the people involved, it’s really interesting. Or in putting a string down the hole, kind of a simple question – what’s on the top, holding the string? (laughs) That’s a silly question, but it comes up when you are onboard. Watching the (underwater) cameras, and saying, “Wait, but what’s happening?”. And still, I don’t have a full appreciation… I have appreciation for it, but I’m just, still… I don’t know, flabbergasted by the feats of engineering that is happening to make the science happen.

BMR: So you are kind of discovering a new dimension of science.

CR: Yes, exactly, exactly! (laughs) and I’m really excited to start to see what is below the seafloor and how things have changed since J-FAST.

BMR: What’s the relationship between this expedition and the work you’re doing for your postdoc?

CR: None (laughs). I sort of described myself as a high energy events person in the rock record. So I look for these high energy events in the rock record. My PhD was on impact craters. So that’s quite high energy. And then undergrad and masters, I was sort of ancient fossilized earthquakes, pseudotachylytes. And once I saw the science prospectus for this, I thought it would really bridge the gap for what I’m interested in, in going from ancient to modern, and thinking about what we can learn from the modern record and… Really think more about the natural hazards side of things. So really actually helping people.

BMR: So this actually shows that you don’t really need to be an expert on what is happening in the expedition, in this region, to be onboard. And to learn, and…

CR: Yeah. I’m very specifically focused on microstructures. So, I guess, that’s maybe the one thing I would relate is – a lot of my work during my PhD and this current postdoc was less structural geology, more geochronology; but inside geochronology, looking at the minerals that are shock deformed. So, thinking how that affects on how we interpret the age, and instead now thinking about how the microstructure then affects how we interpret the fault zone, for example. But then, the tiny, tiny, tiny observations is maybe how I connected all together.

BMR: What’s the think you liked or enjoyed the most, so far?

CR: So far… Oh, my gosh. That’s hard.

BMR: You’re having fun.

CR: (Laughs) I’m having a lot of fun, yes.

BMR: …And we have not yet started the science.

CR: (Laughs) Yes. I’m generally very excited, easily. Going up to the derrick, was really cool. And I think part of that is just seeing the scale of… The drill pipes at that scale, from the top, seeing a human from the top of the derrick, seeing that operation, all that happens… And the workshops have all been really amazing. I’m excited, I think that it’ll be tomorrow, when some of the J-FAST people, to really see… How everything is going to work together, and the work that’s been done prior to us, coming onboard. And yeah, what gaps we can fill in. I guess I’m most excited about what rocks we are gonna recover (laughs). Crust, plate boundary…

BMR: Yeah, there are many things happening, many teaching, also…

CR: I think that’s so smart use! You know, while we are doing the temperature observatory, and just getting everyone chatting to each other like – even after today’s workshop, I had a question about water, so I went to one of the geochemists, and I was like, “Is this how it works? Can we do this here?”, and he was like, “yeah, kind of…”, so yes, it’s been really awesome.

BMR: That’s so great. So, where do you see yourself in ten years?

KR: Uhm… I’d love to still be involved in fault zones and research, and high energy events in the rock record. I think it’s really incredible that our rock record can fingerprint something that happened millions of years ago. Or even in 2011, the Tohoku earthquake, you can put your finger on where that occurred in the rock record. And start to think on how and why… I have a faculty job lined up, so that’s where going to be, at the University of Colorado, for a year. And I think this cruise is also amazing for this part of my career, to make connections with all of this wonderful, incredibly smart scientists. Even if, you know, past J-TRACK, past all of our expedition work, I can see collaborations on where I’m interested in similar things, with some of the other people. So that would be really cool, if I can still work with some of this people.

BMR: That’s really nice.

CR: Like the co-chiefs (laughs).

BMR: Is there something that you’d like to add, some story, some other thought…

CR Not yet. Maybe… Later in the expedition, yeah. I’m just really grateful that we have a great group of people, and really cross-disciplinary. There’s always something good to learn, constantly, onboard. And all the acronyms…. (laughs), yeah, maybe I’ll come back with something else (laughs).

BMR: Thank you very much.

CR: Thanks!