AKRON, Ohio -- Hazel Barton, an associate professor of microbiology and geology at the University of Akron, offers one of the most amazing field work experiences for students in the country, according to Popular Science.

Barton studies cave microbes, and students will often do their fieldwork in Brazilian caverns, accessible only by donning snakeproof boots and hacking through the Amazon with a machete, says the magazine, which named Bartons lab as one of the 10 most awesome college labs of 2013.

By analyzing rock samples and the microbes that live on them (many eat iron within the rock), they are learning how to better predict the formation of sinkholes and caves, says the article on popsci.com. Barton and her students also study the competition between various microbial species, looking for insights that could lead to new forms of antibiotics.

Bartons lab was awarded the same honor by the magazine in 2011 when she taught at Northern Kentucky University, UA officials said. She is internationally known for her discovery of antibiotic-resistant superbugs and co-starred in the 2001 IMAX film Journey Into Amazing Caves.

While Bartons campus-based lab at UA features microscopes and Petri dishes, students have followed her from Brazil to New Mexicos remote, virtually untouched Lechuguilla Cave, the university said. Barton and her team collect and study bacteria strains that live on sedimentary rock and minerals that have been around for at least four million years.

Popular Science searched for the coolest, strangest and most dangerous college labs. It looked for groundbreaking research, undergraduate access and sheer awesomeness.

Other college labs featured include an explosives program at Missouri University of Science and Technology, the Jet Propulsion laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, the National Wind Institute at Texas Tech University, where a high-impact gun fires two-by-fours at brick walls, and the IceCube Neutrino Facility at the South Pole operated by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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University of Akron geology and microbiology students conduct research in remote caves