Keenan's Blogiddy Blog

Continued from Part 4 July 7th, 2012 Final trek to the area. With the stratigraphy of the fossil locality done, we could concentrate on some of the finds we had made earlier in the season. Most of the important trackways that could be transported was already hauled out. Others that couldn't be removed were well documented via a plethora of photos. We had made an attempt to create a plaster cast, but the 90 degree angle just made it impossible with what we had to work with. Cleaning the surface The block that had the trackways was still intact, but semi-covered with loose rubble. We had placed a piece of plastic on top of it, so it didn't get damaged since our last visit. We removed the cover and started to clear the rubble. Once that was done, we proceeded in making the block smaller so that we could have an easier time handling it while chiseling it. Shedding a few hundred pounds of weight would be ideal, for, you know, not being crushed and becoming fossils our...

Continued from Part 3 June 9th, 2012 We came back with the idea that this would be the last stretch we'd have to do when it came to our stratigraphy work. We had done most of the 1.7 kilometer stretch and we were nearing the end by a few hundred of meters. Before resuming our work, we went down to the set of tracks that we had covered the previous visit to protect it, and it was still intact. We would decide what to do once the stratigraphy of the area is completed. The weather was kinda odd. It was pretty much all over the spectrum. One moment it was wet, pouring rain like there was no tomorrow, the next we'd have nice sunny breaks. Clouds were moving at a very fast pace and in some instance the sky went pitch dark for a while. Worm burrows Last stretch Mud cracks Trees (trunk depressions) Looking for tracks. Some were found here last year The above picture is very interesting. On the surface you can see multiple tracks made by invertebrates. You can see...

Continued from Part 2 May 26th, 2012 We picked off from where we left from earlier that month. I was a little bit concerned about the weather conditions but by the time we got there, they improved enough so that it wouldn't make me miserable and wet. We had previously hauled some trackways from the site, and there was a good chance that we would stumble on more as we had only closely combed half the beach. We got to the location where we had stopped on the last field trip. From there we inspected a set of trackways that turned up to look like diplichnites . A single set of tracks that run vertically with two parallel rows of dotted depressions. So far these are the only set of tracks of that type I've seen on site this year. In between breaks of doing stratigraphic work, we kept stumbling on various sorts of trackways and interesting topographic features as the day went by. Even without a shining bright Sun, we still managed to spot trackways bordering the micro s...

Continued from Part 1 May 5th, 2012 On this second field trip, we got down to the nitty gritty. We had set a target distance to measure that day. But that wouldn't be the case, as we'd meet delay after delay that would eventually eat away at our schedule. BUT that was quite alright, as you'll soon find out. Alternating layers (strata) of sandstone, mudstone, silt The area that we'd come to measure that day had more water channels and alternating strata than the previous section we had already worked on. The evidence of a more active paleoenvironment is present in this section. The faults found in the topography of the area is more numerous that the official maps led to believe. We were able to tally and identify some features to be faults, and others still to be studied and verified. Sediment deformation The above pic shows layers of mudstone with sandstone nodules/concretions layered within the thicker mudstone strata. I've seen beading before in sa...