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!!!