Passing the Microscope Forward

Grass Padrique | The Fabulous Scientist

For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of helping fresh geology graduates prepare for their licensure examinations. It’s an invitation I never take lightly. It’s an honor, yes—but it’s also one born from a bittersweet reason.

Four years ago, I lost my very first mentor in mineralogy, the branch of geology that captured my heart back in college. She was the one who handled the mineralogy review sessions for graduating students, patiently guiding countless future geologists through one of the most intimidating subjects in the curriculum.

When she passed away, I was asked to continue what she had started.

To this day, I still feel that her shoes are far too big for me to fill.

Every year before the review begins, I get the same butterflies in my stomach. Standing in front of a room filled with bright, hopeful graduates is intimidating. I always wonder, Will I be able to explain this well enough? Will they leave knowing more than when they came in? It comes with a healthy dose of pressure.

Then the lecture starts.

Somewhere between the photomicrography under the microscope and the inevitable “Aha!” moments, the nervousness fades. It feels less like delivering a lecture and more like teaching someone to ride a bicycle. You remember every wobble from when you first learned, so you know exactly where they’re likely to lose balance—and how to help them keep going.

What makes these sessions especially meaningful is that mineralogy isn’t just a subject I happened to enjoy. I spent eight years as a petrologist in a geothermal company, where petrography was part of my everyday work. I spent countless hours studying thin sections, interpreting textures, and learning to read the stories written in rocks. Those years trained my eyes and my patience.

Today, I work in subsurface data management, surrounded more by digital workflows, databases, and geoscience information systems than by microscope slides. Yet if you ask me what still feels most like geology, I would answer without hesitation: a microscope. It remains my weapon of choice—an old-school technique in an increasingly digital profession, and one that still feels like home. There is something grounding about sitting in front of a polarizing microscope and letting the minerals speak for themselves.

That’s why I try to teach more than just what might appear in the licensure exam. I want the students to see why these techniques matter. Optical mineralogy isn’t merely about identifying minerals under crossed polars; it’s a powerful tool for solving real-world problems. From mineral exploration and mining to geothermal energy, carbon storage, engineering geology, and hydrocarbon reservoir characterization, the stories hidden inside rocks help us make better decisions about the Earth’s resources.

This year, I added even more slides to my review deck—not to make the exam harder, thankfully—but to show how optical mineralogy continues to shape different industries. My hope is that a few students will discover, as I once did, that a microscope can be far more than a laboratory instrument. It can become a lifelong companion.

Would I be happy to teach future geologists again?

Absolutely.

Perhaps not as a full-time professor—I genuinely believe my place is in the industry, where I can continue learning from the rocks themselves. But if I can carve out a little time each year to mentor aspiring geologists, share what experience has taught me, and maybe convince a few of them that mineralogy is actually fun (yes, I know that’s a bold claim), then I’d gladly do it all over again.

After all, the best way I know to honor a great mentor is not by trying to replace her, but by passing on the generosity she showed me to the next generation.