ScotBlogs

KÄINA, ESTONIA–This is a shout-out to our Wooster Geology colleagues currently working on the barren volcanic island of Iceland. We thought they might want a break from the bleak expanses of black basalt for a little color of wildlife from … Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–Rachel, Nick and I worked today in our lonely quarry on Hiiumaa measuring and describing this section of Lower Silurian (Llandovery, Rhuddanian) rocks and fossils. This is the fieldwork for Rachel’s Senior Independent Study.

In these days when government seems to be ineffectual and paralyzed, it’s important to be reminded of what governments, and only governments, CAN do.  In the National Park system, the US government set aside huge amounts of land “for the … Continue reading →

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – [Guest bloggers Travis and Lindsey] So we made it to Reykjavik at around 0930 GST. Myself and Lindsey had about maybe 30 minutes of sleep on the plane and were subsequently exhausted. After checking into our guesthouse … Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–Today we moved our geological investigations from Saaremaa to the island to the north: Hiiumaa. Our friend Olev Vinn of Tartu University then led us to an abandoned quarry in the Hilliste Formation (Lower Silurian). This made Rachel Matt … Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–We have gotten to know the western coastline of Saaremaa very well and would like to simply share some of the gorgeous flowers found there. All of these grow in alvars, which are environments on limestone bedrock with thin … Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Hard-rock geologists sometimes complain that I flood this blog with too many sedimentary rocks and fossils (and just wait until I get to the Estonian wildflowers!). There are actually quite a few igneous and metamorphic rocks on Estonia — … Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Our fieldwork today at the Soeginina Cliff locality ended with an examination of a sequence of stromatolites near the top of the exposed Ludlow section. Stromatolites are layers of sediment accumulated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. They are the earliest fossils … Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–A very common perennial plant at the foot of the cliffs we are studying in Estonia is Sea Kale (Crambe maritima Linnaeus). It is beautiful with large, thick leaves and central stalks with bursts of white flowers, each with … Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Nick Fedorchuk began his fieldwork today at the Soeginina Cliff site we visited two days ago. The first thing we did was scout out the best place to measure the most complete section possible, and then we started the … Continue reading →