I [Heart] the Gammonous!

Day six/seven, Monday/Tuesday

These two days were awesome! It reminded me of my geology trips that I miss so much. Basically, what we did all day Monday and Tuesday was try to find exposures of the Gammon Ferruginous Member of the Pierre Formation.

Let me back up and explain of what the heck I'm talking about for you non-geology folks. So as you all know, we find fossils in rocks. We know when that creature lived based on what rock layer it came from. So, geologists named each layer of rock--known as "members". To make it more confusing, members can be grouped into a larger section and create a "formation". The bottommost member is the oldest, then the members above are sequentially younger members.

The Pierre Formation is located in southern Manitoba. Within the Pierre Formation, there are these members (from bottom/oldest to top/youngest): Gammon Ferruginous, Pembina, Millwood, Odanah and Coulter. Other formations and rocks are located in Manitoba, but I mention just the Pierre Formation, because that is where most of the fossils are found. More specifically, the majority of the fossils either come from the Pembina Member or the Millwood Member.

The reason Joey was so excited to find the Gammon Ferruginous is because the "Xiphactinus Kill Zone" is in the Gammon. Like I said, not only are the exposures of it somewhat rare, but to find such an awesome fossil discovery in the layer of rock is even more awesome! The Gammon Ferruginous had us all excited and determined to hunt it down!

What our two days entailed of was visiting an outcrop, looking for either the Pembina Member--the rock layer right above the Gammon--and/or looking for the Boyne Membe--the rock layer right below the Gammon--and then seeing if a suspicious rock layer was in between. If so, we would take rock samples to have them chemically tested for any anomalies.

I will, however, tell you the most exciting adventure we had during these two days. One of the stops we went to was at a place called Happy Valley. It was an outcrop on the side of the road, a beautiful 50 to 60 foot slope, showing mostly Boyne Member rocks. But all the way at the very top was a strange looking orange-brown layer--characteristic of the Gammon Ferruginous--right below the Pembina. Of coarse we had retrieve a sample, but climbing to the top with nothing but my hands and a rock hammer was an adventure in itself. It was about as steep as when you are riding to the top of a steep dive on a roller coaster. Then to add to that, the shale is very flaky and naturally cracks and slides. So as we climbed to the top, the ground below us would slide out of place every once in a while.

Once Joey and I got to the top, we had to pick axe out a ledge to stand on. It was only about one foot long and about 5 inches into the rock, so there was not much room to stand to say the least. Andrea had climbed about 5 feet above us, but she had needed to go around another way. From Joey and I to where Andrea was, was a completely vertical section of rock.

Andrea was up at the top trying to sample a layer that was too high for Joey and I to reach, but in the process of trying to climb over there, she triggered a bit of a rock fall onto us. It started as a few little chunks of shale and dirt, then it turned into a long 10 seconds of shale falling. We both ducked our heads down while trying to find any kind of stability we could so that the falling debris didn't cause us to loose balance and fall down the slope.

Silence.

Joey looked up, surprised I was still standing. I think I had laughed a little bit out of uneasiness, the kind of laughter you have at first when you break your arm or hurt yourself really bad. After it ended, we both agreed it was time for us to make our way back down, slowly. We sat on our butts and down we went! I was pounding my rock hammer into the slope every now and then to stop me from flying down too fast. By the time I reached the bottom, I had dirt everywhere. My head had shale all over in it. So many flakes of shale it felt like my scalp was peeling, kinda like this one time I had bleached and dyed my hair so many times that it got burnt.

Luckily, we had managed to bring samples of the possible Gammon Ferruginous layer that we had so desperately climbed up there to attain. And, luckily, my clumsy self managed not to drop the sample bags on the way down! I know, I know, what a surprise!

The sad thing is, no one was able to see this happen. Jim said he saw a big dust cloud, but that is it. That's OK--we had a blast doing it. This is the kind of story that can make your field journal have some character.

With the Gammon Ferruginous search coming to an end, Joey thought it would be a good idea to make some T-shirts. He decided to have shirts made that read, "I <3 the Gammon Ferruginous." I can't wait to get mine! I have put my life at risk for knowledge of the Gammon, which, BTW, Jim Bamburak started calling the Gammonous. We were all going so crazy looking for the Gammon, that every little orange-brown color we saw in outcrops MUST BE THE GAMMON! And so Jim started informally calling this crazed rock the Gammonous.

I have to say, I learned a lot about southern Manitoba geology from just those two days and Jim's brilliant mind. He knowns more about the local geology than any other person around. What a good two days!!!

First Day Off, Sadly

Day five, Sunday

Today was not as exciting as the rest of my week had been. I have weekends off, which is nice, but there's not much to do here. I definitely don't have enough money to go to Trave's every night to eat and chat with the sweet waitress there. So, I just took advantage of my supersaurus sleeping powers and slept until one 1 p.m.

After taking my time, I decided to head to the museum--yes, on my day off--and read. But, not before I stopped at McDonald's to grab an iced coffee. Hey, I mentioned there are NO coffee places in this town! I had no choice, but they seem to make up for it, because the iced coffee's here are strangely better than the iced coffees at the Bellingham McDonald's. I don't know, maybe I'm just desperate and any form of coffee that touches my taste buds shocks me with the taste of pure happiness.

I headed to the museum to do some reading. After I left, I headed to the park in town with my copy of the Dinosaur Heresies. It's a beautiful park with winding trails that are draped by inviting trees with golden sunshine peaking through every chance it can. I plopped myself at the base of one of those trees and began reading. After I did, a huge insect landed on me! I had never seen anything like it before. The next day I asked around, but no one knew what I saw. It was a flying insect with a fat, large, blue-purple metallic body. And it had quite large wings, like a butterfly almost, but with a peacock-ish pattern on them. Towards its head was a huge antennae, about 2.5 inches long. It almost even looked like it was smiling as it sat on my leg. I think I might go there again but with my camera this time. Maybe I can find one again and take a picture.

I proceeded to head to the local Dairy Queen, and I only mention this because I was a little shocked when I arrived. Let me tell you, this was the busiest Dairy Queen I had ever seen! In all my four months working at the Bellingham DQ , I have never seen one so packed with people. This is definitely one of the local hang-outs on a weekend night.

I arrived home, eager to start the next day. Jim Bamburak, from the Manitoba Geological Survery, is coming in from Winnipeg tomorrow for two days. I believe we are going on a hunt for the infamous Gammon Ferruginous. There aren't too many exposures of it in southern Manitoba, be we shall see what the day brings!

So Much So Fast!

Day three, Friday: Prep, prep, press!

Today was especially exciting! Last night Tyler sent out a press release regarding the story on the "Xiphactinus Kill Zone." We were all waiting to see what news channels or papers would "take the bite" on the story, if one did at all that is. Just to be safe though, Joey, a volunteer and myself headed to Spencer's Ditch to prep the fossils and make them camera-pretty. Like I mentioned, rain caused much of the fossils to be covered in sediment again. So, we polished up the fossils--first with a tooth brush and then I sprayed them with some peroxide to make them wet and stand out. Lastly, we applied some concealer on them to form a shiny coating while also using it as somewhat of a glue to hold any fragile bits together.

Before we knew it, CBC was on their way to the field site! A camera man and news anchor arrived, eager to start asking and filming. Then, right after they showed up, CTV came! Then came Winnipeg Free Press! It was crazy. You could see the competition between all the media. Honestly, I have to say it was actually getting kind of annoying having them there. Andrea, a summer student/staff, had to map the same square about five times just for show. I do have to admit though, being interviewed was pretty awesome. It was only my second day and already I was going to be on international Canadian news! Yes, that's right, at 6 p.m. Friday I was on TV!

Lets just say, it was a long day. And let me tell you, there's nothing more appealing after a hard day out in the field then an ice cold beer. Andrea and I headed to Boston's Pizza after we returned to camp and headed into town to do just that. It was so satisfying!

After ending our day perfectly, I was exhausted and proceeded to pass out. What a day!

Day four, Saturday: Diggin' some geology

This was my first day off since I arrived here in Morden as a research intern. What was I going to do? Geology! Joey had been asked to guide a geology hike at the Pembina Valley Provincial Park, a place not more than 20 minutes away via fossil van. So, like the geology interested gal I am, of course I wanted to go. I hadn't been there before, but it was a beautiful sight. Meandering trails through rivers and draping trees with random glacial erratics placed about, left there as the last ice age, during the Pleistocene 12,000 ya, melted.

It was a great time! About five rambunctious little kids full of questions were running around. Everyone bombarded Joey with questions about the Xiphactinus Kill Zone, thanks to the big press it received the previous night. After going around the circle of kids and asking what their favorite dinosaur is, I remember one boy answering with, "I got stung by a bee once!" He sounded so excited about that, but his response didn't really answer the question. Oh kids... it was cute.

One of the older ladies picked up a piece of rock and held it in her hand. She asked Joey about what it was and what gave this somewhat-coarse rock its pinkish hue. He of course informed her that it was sandstone. I then took a look at it and saw that it is not any sandstone, it was arkose sandstone! Hey, I remembered something from geology 211! I proceeded to explain that this arkose sandstone has a pink color from the feldspar minerals in it, and that it usually tends to be coarser grained than regular quartz sandstone--the beige-colored sand you see at the beach usually--because it hasn't been transported from the source as far. Joey said he was impressed and happy I had mentioned that to the lady, so hey, I was happy!

The geology hike was nice. While Joey and I were there we received the Pembina Valley Provincial Park Passports! Basically, all the parks around there will stamp this special passport for visiting--kind of like the passport Montana does for dinosaur museums, which I have started too BTW.

We left the park and tried to find the building that gives you the stamp. For some reason, this place is in another town about 15 minutes out of the way. We finally found this shack of an office, and also found it was closed--at 3 p.m. on a weekday?!

Disappointed, we headed back to town with an unstamped passport but with a good day. I went home, changed out of my hiking boots and headed to Trave's again for some dinner. The same gal was working and delivered my Molson Canadian. This time I decided to try the cheeseburger, just to be adventurous! Nommy. It was amazing! Everything they have at this little dinky restaurant/bar/inn is delicious. So, if any of ya'll come to Morden, you need to come to Traveler's Inn!

I do have to say though, the one thing I miss about Bellingham is... the coffee! I have yet found the luxury-yes, luxury-of grabbing a cup of joe in the morning at a coffee shop in town. My choices for getting any kind and form of coffee are McDonalds or Tim Horton's. What would you pick? Ugh... it makes me feel like some spoiled city girl when I can't even just get a damn cup of drip coffee from somewhere that isn't fast food.

With my ranting on my coffee dilemma done, I must now tell whomever may be reading this about the most thrilling thunder and lightening storm of my life. Well, I guess I just told you, but let me say, it was so intense and beautiful! I would see a flash brighter than any nighttime paparazzi and then hear roaring thunder, which sounded to be only a step behind me. And the rain, the rain was pouring more than a winter night in Seattle. Yes, hard to believe for you Washingtonians, but wow! I wish I could have videotaped it, but I remembered only afterwards that I brought my Flip video camera. So, if it happens again, which it's supposed to, I shall video tape this show for you.

I have to say, my nights get better and better! Farewell, so long and I will keep ya'll posted.

For a picture of a mosasaur, go here: http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~museum/hughes/images/Clidastes.jpg

For a picture of the fish, Xiphactinus, go here: http://www.dangerouswildlife.com/images/xiphactinus-final-4k-ga_w0o5.jpg

These are two two main fossils found at the "Xiphactinus Kill Zone" site.

For a link to me in the news, go here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000471588893&ref=search#!/video/video.php?v=141837279175324&ref=mf

First Few Fossil Days

Day one, Wednesday: My sleepy day to Morden, MB

I thought my trip to Morden, Manitoba was off to a bad start when I realized that I left my newly-bought slippers and coffee mug at the Vancouver airport. Note to self, "STOP loosing things!" I arrive at the Winnipeg airport, and, when I do, Joey is waiting to pick me up. Joey (Joseph) Hatcher is the paleontologist I am bumming around with for the next few months. He has on his cool sunglasses and picks me up in the most fierce van in all of Canada, the Canadian Fossil Discovery Center van.

We drove for a few hours to Morden, the town I'm staying in for two months. It is not a big town but a small town with the nicest people you could ever meet--and the best fish and chips, but that's a different story. I finally arrived at my new home. It is filled with '60's-ish yellow and brown tiled floors with burgundy and yellow floral print. The room my bed is in has a slanted roof, so I can't fully stand up in it. Despite how it may sound a bit horrendous, I think it's perfect! It even comes equipped with air conditioning and Wi-Fi!

I settled into my room--surprised that I didn't forgotten anything, to my knowledge. I took a shower and then try to set my clock to the appropriate time. My newly-bought iPod Touch accompanied me on my trip, and it has this handy clock app. It allows the user to search cities and add them to a list. I search "Morden," and the time pops up. With that done, I set the alarm for 7 a.m., allowing myself plenty of time to meet Joey at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Center at 9 a.m.

I lay to sleep, eager to start my first day at the musum. BTW: I'm referring to museum from now on as CFDC, since I'm a bit lazy, and that means that I abbreviate words. Deal with it!

Day two, Thursday: First day in the field!

I woke up the next morning, got ready and then scurried out the door. I strolled the whole four blocks to CFDC. At 8:45 a.m., I was a bit early, so I sat outside in the already-blistering sun. Nine a.m. rolls around, however, no CFDC staff were to be seen. To make a long, boring story of myself waiting outside, alone, a short story, it wasn't until 9:45 that I saw a CFDC employee show up. It's Tyler--the PR guy. I tell him how I was waiting outside for over an hour and was supposed to be meeting Joey at 9 a.m. He responds with, "But it's only a-boot a quarter to 9!" What should you take from this? Well you should learn NOT rely on your "high-tech" iPod Touch for the correct time! I had my clocks set an hour early... at least I was early.

Joey arrived at the museum, showed me around and even sets me up with my own personal work station. Ya'll should see his own personal library of books! He has my dream collection of dinosaur and geology books, including The Dinosauria and books with personal messages and signatures of famous paleontologists, such as Jack Horner and Robert Bakker! They are the guys who are always on dinosaur Discovery Channel shows, and both of them were involved with the filming of Jurassic Park. Joey worked with both of them in Montana on various excavations and research projects.

After a walk around of them museum, we headed out to the field. The field site we visited is known as Spencer's Ditch, but the one particular site that we adventured to is a new one, having only been carefully worked on this field season. For those of ya'll who don't know about what a field season is, it is the thrilling time each year when paleontologists can go out and hunt for fossils. This is usually about late spring until early fall--any other time would generally yield rain or snow, which causes fossil excavation to be harmful to the fossils and generally hard to do. How are you going to spot a fossil eroding out of rock with snow covering the ground? You can't!

The site's unofficial name is the "Xiphactinus Kill Zone." What makes this such an awesome and rare find is that two beautifully-preserved fossils rest in the rocks.

One is a genus of mosasaur, known as Clidastes, the smallest of the mosasaurs. This genus is not as common as the other mosasaurs found in Manitoba. The mosasaur remains found so far are its skull and some rib fragments, possibly a part of its shoulder. The other main fossil found is a Xiphactinus, a fierce fish that appears to be about 18 feet in this particular case. What is so crazy about this fossil find is it that the Xiphactinus is larger than the mosasaur! Not only that, but the jaws of the Xiphactinus appear to be biting the mosasaur's flipper, which is missing three of it's "finger bones!" Could it really be that this fish, which is not normally the sea's main predator, is actually attacking the mosasaur--which is also referred to as the T-Rex of the sea? What a find!

Unfortunately, when we arrived we found the fossils experienced a bit a trauma since the last time they were visited. It had severely rained, so the fossils became partially covered up from the rain, causing the shale to turn into mud. Shale is a sedimentary rock comprised of clay-sized particles. So, when it rains the rock absorbs water easily and turns into mud. Too bad the tarp covering the exposed fossils wasn't leak-proof. You would think it would with some sturdy shovels holding it down.

After heaving off the shovels and revealing the spectacular fossils in the ground, we started to carefully pick through shale--of what might be the Gammon Ferruginous Member of the Pierre Shale Formation.

Joey gave me pointers on how to document your day in a field book. Important pieces of information to add: the time you arrive and leave the field site; the weather; make note of anyone who comes to visit the field site; what you find; and anything else of relevance. Basically, he said they're your field notes, so just write them how it makes sense to you! Oh, and Joey said that it is also a good idea to write any funny events that happen every once in a while. It makes for an entertaining story if anyone happens to write a book on you and your field adventures.

Here's one for ya! The other day Joey headed to Pembina Valley Provincial Park to do a walk-through of where he was going to be guiding a geology hike. As he did so, a man on his tractor drove by. Of course he waves to Joey from atop his grand tractor, and, of coarse, while Joey is the only person in sight, the tractor man gets his stallion of a machine stuck in the mud. Joey is trying to help him, meticulously placing glacial erratics around the tractor to prevent him from becoming more stuck with mud spraying all over him. That's not really what a paleontologist has in mind when they say they like to get dirty.

After doing field work outside for about six hours, we head back to town. I said farewell to the staff and walked my few blocks home. I decided to head out into town and wander around for a while. I was a bit anxious to see what places Morden had to offer.

One thing I really like about this town is that you can walk pretty much anywhere! This is especially nice for a traveler like myself who has no bike or car.

After about only 10 minutes, I arrive on the other side of town. I see a sign on a dirty white building that reads, "Travelers Inn." I remembered Joey said one of the students who work at the museum was raving about this place, so I decided to give it a try. I sit down, order my Molson Canadian and then peak at the menu. Too many choices, but, to wrap it up, I finally ordered fish and chips. I'm not a huge seafood fan, but this sounded particularly good that night, so I gave it a whirl. Needless to say, IT WAS THE BEST FISH AND CHIPS EVER! I don't know what they do to it, but IT WAS DELICIOUS! It had the most light and and crispy outer crust. Golden-brown to perfection. I was quite sad when I didn't have the room to finish both of my fish sticks. But hey, that means leftovers!

I walked back home, and I actually saw a neighborhood dog chase a cat up a tree. I laughed to myself because I never believed that really happened in real life. With that said, the highlight of my night was experiencing something that makes you feel at home even when you may be more than 1000 miles away.