The Coastal Paleontologist is back; Field Camp, Part 1

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm finally back from my teaching assistantship for MSU's 2009 Geology Field Camp. It was definitely a blast, possibly even more fun than I originally thought it would be. Three flat tires, an engine running on 5 of 8 cylinders, several scrapes and bruises, a sprained ankle, and a case of Giardia and E. coli in tandem (yes, one person, simultaneously), we finally made it through the month of geological and paleontological experiences. Keep posted; I'm going to have a bunch of posts published on the site electronically while I'm on a road trip to California this week.

The first week was spent recording a 200 M measured section at Bozeman Pass, through the Cretaceous Kootenai (=Cloverly Formation), Thermopolis, and Muddy Sandstone Formations.
MSU geology students trenching through the basal sandstones of the Kootenai Formation (roughly equivalent to the infamous KK1 map unit).

MSU geology students still trenching; they've unearthed an ash bed in their trench, which is the yellow sediment.

Intraformational thrust sheets and faults (sometimes called 'horses') within the Kk2 unit of the Kootenai Formation.

Cary Woodruff ambling down a hillside of the late Eocene Renova Formation (Tr) on his crutches. He had sprained his ankle the previous week, and was assigned an alternate project: this is a famous locality of the Renova Formation, first prospected around 1900 by Earl Douglass.

Partial mammal skeleton within the Renova Formation (Tr).

A mammal bone within the Renova Formation (Tr). It is difficult to see in this photo (and it doesn't help that I forgot to add an arrow), but there are rodent gnaw marks on this bone, nearly directly above the '10' on the scalebar, right where the shadow ends on the left hand side of the bone.More intraformational thrusts within the Permian Phosphoria (Pp) Formation.

MSU students taking strike and dip on the Gastropod Limestone, otherwise known as Kk4 or the top of the Kootenai Formation. This is a laterally extensive freshwater limestone loaded with gastropods.More intraformational thrusts within Kk4.

A dinosaur bone (tibia?) within the basal conglomerate of Kk1. This bone is directly on the erosional unconformity between Kk1 and 'Jm'. 'Jm' is the Morrison Formation, famous for gigantic sauropod dinosaurs, Stegosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Allosaurus. This bone is not likely reworked from the Morrison Fm., as the Morrison doesn't really have any fossils locally. Our professor, Dave Lageson, just calls this unit "Jim", and insists that it was named for Jim Morrison, the 'lizard king'.

The coastal paleontologist is taking a 'break'...

My plan for the start of summer was originally to leave MT a week from today, and take a five day drive through the Pacific Northwest, and check out several fossil localities I'm currently investigating, and eventually meet my folks up in Tahoe before finally making it back to the SF area for summer (and master's thesis fieldwork).

To make a long story short, I got a phone call from my dept. head, and now I'm TA'ing our Geology Field Camp summer course. It's way awesome on several levels - 1), I finally have a job; 2) its an honor, knowing how much more qualified many of the other candidates are; 3) the same professors who taught the course when I took it are doing it again, which is great; and 4) It was a freaking blast when I took field camp, and had to turn in assignments. Instead, this time around I don't have any assignments to turn in, and have to help students toward the answer (which... I end up doing for free during the school year anyway). And I get to camp and drink beer around a fire and hike all day in the foothills of the Northern Rockies for a month (and in Yellowstone N.P.). Sounds like the perfect job for me!

In any event, now that I have a job 'till the end of June that entails being away from civilization for a week at a time (Awesome!), I won't have internet access. In any event... all of you should be out doing fieldwork by now (that is, if you truly deserve to be reading this!). Bottom line is, there probably won't be many posts in the next month, although if there are, they will probably be from field camp. I still have to post the rest of the pictures of the acid prep 'experiment'.

So get out there and measure some sections, and dig up something up!