Oh, just another field trip :)

On Saturday of the weekend before my 252 project was due I had a 263 field trip. This trip lasted from 8am to about 7:30pm....it was quite the day. I LOVE GEOLOGY HERE! It’s field trips and field trips and labs and sweet lectures!

For the field trip we went up the east coast from Dunedin almost to Oamaru. We followed a stack of strata that continues north in the Canterbury Basin. It started at the bottom of the Taratu formation at some coal measures.

So there was a layer of coal, river sediment, sandstone, greensand, limestone, greensand, limestone....or something like that.

At one outcrop on the beach (yeah on the beach...no big deal) there was sweet tilted strata that has a layer of round algae balls. They are called rotoliths I think...it’s like stromatolites by small. They formed in a shallow marine environment where there was sediment starvation and enough energy in the system to keep them moving but not too much. It was awesome. We weren’t allowed to hammer the outcrop....BUT .... I found a piece of it, a big piece, and I took it!!

We rode in vans and stopped at a bunch of outcrops. That’s how the Otago Geology Department rolls. Anyway, at that some stop I also found a paua shell [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paua] , it’s beautiful! It is going on my rock and shell collection shelf. Some of the students found sting ray teeth in one formation. At another locality there was a coal bed that had PYRITE forming on fossilized roots and stuff! I got some awesome samples!! I love minerals.
I am really enjoying getting to know more people in my geology classes. It’s slow sometimes getting to talk to people, but it will be worth it. Field trips are really good ways to get to know people, way better than class. Maybe that is one of the reasons I like working in the field so much.