ScotBlogs

These fossils of the week, three well-worn cemented oysters, are highlighted to celebrate the final acceptance this past week of a manuscript that describes their geological setting and significance: Wilson et al., 2012 (see reference below). They are attached to … Continue reading →

SLIPPERY ROCK, PA – I’ve just returned from the March meeting of the Pittsburgh Geological Society. If you’re in the region and you’re not a member, you really should think about joining. On the third Wednesday of each month, a … Continue reading →

History professor Jeff Roche ponders early morning questions through the warmth of his coffee cup.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL–Always a happy scene. After a long dark drive through the desert early this morning, and then the adventure of Tel Aviv traffic, Melissa and I are safely in Ben Gurion airport. We had a lot of questions … Continue reading →

MITZPE RAMON–Today we finished our exploration of the Upper Cretaceous near Mitzpe Ramon, and then met some old friends for a different project near Ar’arat an-Naqab in the northernmost part of the Negev. This gave me the chance to take … Continue reading →

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–We had an earlier post about water management techniques by Iron Age peoples in the northern Negev. Today during our last period of fieldwork on this trip we ran into a complex Nabataean system in a valley a … Continue reading →

Since Melissa Torma and I recently returned from our expedition to southern Israel (see immediately previous posts), I thought our weekly fossil highlight should be one of our specimens collected from the Middle Jurassic Matmor Formation of Makhtesh Gadol. This … Continue reading →

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–In the image above, Yoav Avni is standing at the edge of an erosional gully that is less than a year old. In fact, it may have formed in less than three months. This little canyon is cutting … Continue reading →

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–In the image above, Yoav Avni is standing at the edge of an erosional gully that is less than a year old. In fact, it may have formed in less than three months. This little canyon is cutting … Continue reading →

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–Since the water level in the Dead Sea is dropping an astounding one meter per year, the drainage base level is dropping along with it. This means that gullies and canyons feeding into the Dead Sea are eroding … Continue reading →