For the latter half of my undergraduate career at UCLA, I worked at the UCLA Metoerite Lab as a lab assistant. There I updated the data base of meteorite data that my boss, Professor John Wasson, has been collecting for over half a century.
Other tasks I had was to prepare meteorite samples for neutron activation. Neutron activation activation analysis is a nuclear process used for determining the concentration of the constituent elements of a material. A sample is irradiated with neutrons causing the elements to form radioactive isotopes. These radioactive elements release gamma rays, which when measured, form a spectra. Preparing the meteorites for this process involved slicing the meteorite samples at strategic locations to ensure the sample we cut won’t have ‘contaminants’ which can range from silicate deposits or oxidation.
One last responsibility I had while working at the lab was to photograph meteorites and museum labels for the meteorite gallery located on the third floor of the Geology Building at UCLA. I believe my photographs and labels are still in the gallery today!
I highly recommend visiting it as the meteorite collection at UCLA is the fifth largest in the United States and the second largest housed at any university in the world!