University of Arizona geologist digs her way to the top
UArizona geology professor receives career award By Shaley Sanders | March 3, 2021 at 6:39 PM MST - Updated March 3 at 6:39 PM
TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - Dr. Isabel Barton said her passion for geology might as well be genetic.
âBoth of my grandfathers were geologists,â Barton said.
Just like some of the minerals she hunts for, finding women in this field is rare.
âI think as a percentage of the total mining workforce, women are between 10 to 20% nationally. It is still mostly a male dominated industry,â Barton said.
Now Barton is breaking through barriers on the ground and in the workforce where she is the only female faculty member in the department of mining and geological engineering at the University of Arizona.
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IMAGE: At an old explosives storehouse on Monogram Mesa just east of the Utah border, home to numerous different uranium and vanadium mines. view more
Credit: Isabel Barton
Anyone who s seen an old cartoon or film about mining knows the image of a sooty man making his way through a dark tunnel. When his lantern lights upon a brilliant diamond or a hunk of gold, he hacks away at the rock until the precious mineral is free.
In today s world, of course, it s a lot more complicated than that. Minerals hosting important metals like cobalt, copper, uranium and vanadium are thoroughly embedded in less valuable rock, and extracting the metals requires knowing the properties of the minerals and surrounding rock, as well as a long list of tools and processes. As the world moves toward sustainable technologies ranging from solar panels and windmills to electric vehicles, mining the material to build these technologies is more important than ever.