Colten Rodriguez ’26, Geosciences

Colten Rodriguez ’26

Major

Geosciences

Project Title

Metal Isotopes in Ancient Carbonates

Presentation Link

View Colten's Presentation

The ocean is the largest carbon reservoir on the planet. Marine carbonate sediments serve a vital role in regulating and recording global climate by burying carbon for long-lasting time scales. Quantifying the degree of postdepositional alteration of carbonates could provide a useful metric for interpreting and evaluating the current paleoclimate record. The goal of this project was to devise a method of accurately characterizing marine carbonates by leveraging computer vision and machine learning techniques to detect facies—units of rock with distinctive characteristics from their surroundings—on high-resolution images of rock samples. I imaged carbonate samples with high-resolution multispectral cameras and collected ground-truth data through manual classifications of select samples. I compared ground-truth classifications with those made by a machine learning model and tool that I constructed to detect facies of imaged carbonate samples. Through this project, I gained insight into the process of composing paleoclimate records, from methods of sample collection to analysis, as well as critical evaluations of these records. I found it particularly rewarding to distill these long hours of work and discussion into readable figures.