This weekend was the first excursion for my "Life Through Time" fossils class. We left Friday at 1pm and after stopping once for dinner finally got there at 8pm. My friends Jaclyn, Casha and I got an 8 person dorm-style room with 5 Australian girls who were really keen to teach us Aussie slang and hear about all the differences between here and the US. We all went to sleep pretty early since we had an early start planned for the next morning. The teachers had prepared eggs, toast, bacon and sausage for us to eat which made for an overall great start to the day, despite the pouring rain. After brekkie and helping a girl from Michigan State school a few Aussies in euchre, we geared up for the rain and went to "Cathedral Cave" with our teachers and a tour guide, to learn about the history and the geology of the area. Here I should mention that there are people in this class who are REALLY into geology/paleontology and spent the morning asking really good questions, taking tons of pictures and looking all over for fossils...needless to say I was not one of these people since all the rocks looked the same to me. Some things that were sort of interesting were the layers on the walls of the caves that had been folded and warped, they said due to a fault line running through the caves, and finding some marine coral fossils on the walls from when the cave was still part of the ocean during the Pliocene Era (2-3 million years ago).
If you are bored by the geology already, please keep in mind that this was my entire weekend...
After the cave tour we had a few lectures and handled some skulls, teeth and other bones of animals of the area. Then we went up to the kiosk for lunch where I got a steak sandwich with "The Works." Around here this means that your sandwich/burger will come topped with the following: cheese, salad (literally lettuce and some carrot bits) tomato, beet root, bacon, pineapple and a fried egg. Those who know me well would assume that I would have picked off all these odd toppings, but recently I've noticed that my tastes have become totally open-minded and most everything I eat is delicious.
 |
| Me, Jaclyn, Casha and Jess before heading into the phosphate mines |
In the afternoon our class split into two groups and my group went into the phosphate mines to do some more exciting history and geology learning! The mine was closed after running out of money shortly after World War II but reopened by palaeontologists/geologists in the 90s. We saw "Bone Cave" which was just a large, excavated area with clay and limestone walls, but all the clay had white bits of bones in them. The geologists who worked there had previously pulled out clay and dirt from the area, so when we went back to the classroom area, we spent some time sorting out fossils. I found lots of rodent teeth and jaws, kangaroo teeth, bat toes and fingers and a very tiny tooth of a carnivorous marsupial. In lab last week we learned how to use teeth and vertebrae to distinguish between placental and marsupial mammals and herbivores and omnivores, so it was pretty neat to get to use those skills in the field. Since it rained all day, I guess we had the perfect activities planned since we were either underground or inside.
That night we had BBQ complete with sausages, steaks, pasta, potato, fruit and normal veggie salads, chips, crackers and cheese and even devilled eggs. We all sat around and ate (way too much), drank and talked...mostly about American history and Australian accents and all the differences we could think of between the two places.
 |
| The Bush! |
Sunday morning we woke up early again to a big breakfast and got on the bus and drove even further into the bush. When we had driven in on Friday night it was already dark, but today I noticed how much the landscape looks like some places in Appalachia, just with lots more sheep. Finally we stopped along the road and walked up to some guy's house, a friend of the curator of Wellington Caves who also has lots of farmland. On his land are tons and tons of Devonian limestone with marine invertebrate fossils. We could literally pick up a random rock and expect to find some kind of fossil. Like I mentioned before, there were a lot of kids who were way more excited about this than me, so I found a few cool rocks, took a few notes and then just sat with some friends, taking in the surroundings and the sunny day and watching the owner's pet pig, Hamlet, follow people around looking for food. After a few hours we finally headed for home, this time missing the traffic and making it home in only 6 hours.
Last week was my busy one for assignments and tests, so now only 4 days of class and a plane ride separate me from New Zealand!
No comments:
Post a Comment