Geobulletin alpha

Wooster Geologists in England: Team Dorset 

Cassidy Jester (’17) and I have now finished our fieldwork in southern England this month. Cassidy traveled through Britain afterwards, and I went on to London and the Natural History Museum. It was all a success thanks to my friends and colleagues Tim Palmer and Paul Taylor, with critical help from our new friends Bob

Wooster Geologists in Bristol, England 

Bristol, England — Cassidy Jester (’17) and I are spending the weekend in Bristol after finishing our fieldwork in Dorset this week. Our travel and lodging arrangements required a couple of days here before we go to London on Monday and then our separate ways. We’ll continue to sort out our specimens, work on a

Last day of fieldwork in Israel: More Jurassic enjoyment 

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL — For my last day of fieldwork during this short Spring Break trip to Israel, I returned to Makhtesh Gadol to collect a bit more data from subunits 65 and 66 of the Matmor Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian). The above image shows part of my field site in the Meredith section north

A day in the Zohar and Matmor Formations of the Negev 

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL — It was another very windy day in southern Israel, but still just fine for fieldwork. Yael Edelman-Furstenburg, Yael Leshno and I returned to Makhtesh Gadol to work on Yael Leshno’s data collection procedures for her PhD project in the Middle Jurassic sequence here. Our first task was figuring out the detailed

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: A Jurassic seafloor assemblage 

Images from fieldwork this week. These are all fossils exposed on a single bedding plane in the Matmor Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) exposed in Makhtesh Gadol. I found them many years ago while working through the stratigraphy near the top of the formation. They present a vignette of life in a shallow carbonate Jurassic sea.

Top 3 posts 2015 

Today I was reviewing my blog posts of 2015 in search for ideas for what topics to write more about. Going through the statistics I found three blog posts that received the most of attention since restarting my blog in 2015. So, I here are the Top 3 posts 2015! Most viewed was the rather short Online clay science resources post with 2050 views. Seems like there is a need for such information

fieldwork and your period 

A recent post at Dynamic ecology referenced a long twitter discussion of menstruating in the field. What amused/horrified me was all the suggestions that we (the ladies) should just get an IUD or take a whole bunch of hormones or something to banish our periods altogether. What a strange overreaction. I've been getting my period since I was 13, and it's really not a big deal. On days where

What is in your field rucksack? A trip to Chilean Patagonia 

Inspired by a post on Lifehacker on what your average geologist carries in their rucksack/backpack, we’ve put together a few blog posts showcasing what a range of our EGU members carry in their bags whilst in the field! Of course, fieldwork in Northern Europe vs. research in Australia is very different, think only of the weather! The same is true if you’ve been embarked on research in the Arctic vs. the Amazon, for instance. The second bag we take a peek into belongs to Alejandro [...]

First days of Thailand fieldwork (+Video) 

Evelien Boes, Kruawun Jankaew and I are currently in Thailand looking for sedimentary evidence of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.  Our main focus is on coastal lakes and we've spent the last two days exploring various potential sites around Thap Lamu, Khao Lak, Bang Sak and Kho Khao.Here's a quick glimpse of our travels and travails so far, condensed into 36 seconds...Featuring... Coastal lakes, palm trees, coral boulders, a ferry, sand, a centipede, more sand and bamboo

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Zig-zag oysters from the Middle Jurassic of southern Israel 

These pretty little oysters are from the Matmor Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) of Makhtesh Gadol in southern Israel. Because I regrettably missed going to Israel for fieldwork this summer, I thought I’d choose these exquisite fossils to be celebrated this week. The genus is Actinostreon Bayle, 1878. There may be more than one species here,

What is in your field rucksack? Take a peek in Zoe Mildon’s bag 

Inspired by a post on Lifehacker on what your average geologist carries in their rucksack/backpack, we’ve put together a few blog posts showcasing what a range of our EGU members carry in their bags whilst in the field! Of course, fieldwork in Northern Europe vs. research in Australia is very different, think only of the weather! The same is true if you’ve been embarked on research in the Arctic vs. the Amazon, for instance. The first bag we take a peek into belongs to Zoe Mildon, a PhD [...]

Old fieldwork pictures from Peru 

Things have been quiet here recently due to job hunting and working on my doctoral thesis and related publications. Going through my back-up files I came upon a number of fieldwork images from my ore exploration student internship in Peru. It ignited some nostalgia about those great times in the Andes! Here are some pictures... Trujillo cathedral. Trujillo city hall. Desert and

weight and fieldwork 

I discussed this a while back, but I tend to lose weight if I'm doing a significant chunk of fieldwork (say, more than 2 months) and gain weight when I'm back in the office. When I'm in the field, I'm constantly in motion - pacing while on the phone, scurrying back to the truck/trailer/storage unit to grab something, hauling stuff around. When I'm not doing fieldwork, I'm mostly sedentary at

Teen Scientists Team Up with Lamont to Restore an Invaded Marsh 

"My experience at Lamont has been great and it's something like no other. Here I was basically being trained to be like a scientist with exposure to lab work, fieldwork and presentation

Excitement in the Magnetic Field 

Meet the expedition's palaeomagnetists, Millie and Daniel. They're looking pretty positive, but they have had a VERY slow expedition so far. That all ends today. read

Mining machinery in action 

During many visits to bentonite mines in Bavaria my doctoral supervisor, me, and our students usually had to arrange ourselves with active mining activity. This meant taking good care of communications with the mine manager, surveyor, and most importantly the machine operators. You do not want to get your head hit by the bucket of an excavator or run over by one of the trucks! Having a

Para hacer la tesis en el Triásico 

Dear colleagues,We seek a talented student for a PhD position in the DFG founded project on “Evolution of tropical marine biodiversity, comparative analysis of Triassic Cassian-Formation with modern fauna”. The position is temporary for 36 months (TVL-E13, 60%).Tasks: The successful candidate will be involved in quantitative sampling and taxonomic - paleo-ecological analysis of the fauna of Cassian Formation in the Dolomites. This is a mollusc dominated, diverse invertebrate fauna from the [...]

Natural History Museum of Utah: Barosaurus 

Brian Engh (bottom left, enthusing about the Ceratosaurus just off-screen) and I are recently returned to civilization after a stint of fieldwork in Utah. On the way home, we made a detour to Salt Lake to visit the new Natural History Museum of Utah. The NHMU is one of the nicest museums I’ve ever had

Last day of fieldwork in England: A working quarry and another great unconformity 

BRISTOL, ENGLAND (June 26, 2015) — Tim Palmer has a professional interest in building stones, and a passion for sorting out their characteristics and historical uses. He thus has many contacts in the stone industry, from architects to quarry managers. This morning we visited the Doulting Stone Quarry on the outskirts of Doulting near Shepton

Our Xiphactinus dig featured on River Monsters: backstory 

I really hope everyone got a chance to see the River Monsters season finale. Here's a teaser of Jeremy Wade Sharing a bit of what he had learned with us in the field digging up a Xiphactinus audax skeleton.One of the things he alludes to has a funny backstory. When we first arrived at the site, the film crew's rental minivans couldn't get near where all the equipment needed to be. Not a huge problem, we transferred it to the bed of the bosses truck and away went the gear and most of the [...]