It's beginning to look alot like... April?

We have been watching the snow melt away quickly from the lower elevations here, and being from Texas, felt a slight twang of loss as the pretty snow left the nearby mesas and canyons behind. Imagine my surprise to wake up on Thurs the 22nd to several inches of snow on the ground. Fortunately the roads were in great condition, and we were able to look around a little before getting to work.

Earlier in the week, we had spent a warm afternoon surveying nearby Yucca House Pueblo for several weeds, such as Whitetop (aka Hoary Cress), Knapweed, and the ever present Musk Thistle. We found a huge claret cup cactus that was getting ready to bloom. The ruins themselves are difficult to appreciate: only one wall still stands, and the great kiva looks more like a crater. Large mounds are all that's left of one of the largest pueblos in the area. What was exciting was the vast number of sherds we saw, some with enough painting and markings to be identifiable. This ruin is still unexcavated, so it will be certain to thrill the archeologists who choose to research it.

The following day was spent on Weatherhill Mesa, which is still closed. This summer will be exciting there as a new trail is being opened up to view Mug House Ruin. Something up there has been feasting on the Yucca, so that's a mystery we need to solve. Wild horses still roam the park, mostly at the behest of the neighboring Ute Tribe. However, horses are not native to north america (well, there have been other species of horses in ages long long ago, but not the modern Equus). They are beautiful animals, and those in the park are certainly wild, but if there is no way to keep a balance, both the habitat and the horse will suffer. As you might guess, we suspect horses may be the culprit.

This weekend was mostly spent playing house again (we scored a TV, loveseat, and stuffed elephant - among other treasures)! Sunday, we managed to tour the Canyon of the Ancients. We stopped at Lowry Pueblo and had the place all to ourselves. There is a very interesting Great Kiva there with strange structures inside. The mural inside the indoor kiva was deteriorating, but can now be seen at the Anazasi Cultural center. After that, we toured Painted Hand Pueblo, which so far has been my favorite "wild" archeological site. Very mystical feeling to the area. Further down the road is Hovenweep, which is a large collection of sites. They have a new visitor center and campground, with many ruins nearby. A canyon wren has set up home inside the Castle, and a Raven was laughing at us from Square Tower for having to hike around the canyon. Our brief foray into Utah brought us closer to the Abajo and La Sal mountains, still wreathed in snow. They are a little lower in elevation, so perhaps will be the first mountains we venture into... assuming they haven't been overrun with ORV trails.

Wish me luck for next week: red card refresher complete with pack test is on the schedule!

ps - just a reminder to readers: you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Anasazis in April

It's still early spring, and it looks like it's arriving slowly here in Montezuma county. Until the snow melts at higher elevations, don't expect too many alpine photos. Some ski areas were still operating on weekends, but we didn't want to risk bad weather on Lizard Head pass -- no snow tires, no chains, no 4wd, no dice.

Instead, this week was wisely spent exploring the lower canyonlands of the Four Corners region, which contain thousands of archeological sites. One of my job responsibilities is to measure and map the flow rates of various springs and seeps at Mesa Verde National Park. We took advantage of nice weather to visit Balcony House ruins, which contains amazingly preserved architecture and two springs which were used by the Cliff Dwellers as a municipal drinking well. These springs are important biologically because they create moist microclimates where ferns, mosses, and even orchids can thrive, some of which are endemic to Mesa Verde.

It was really exciting to be exploring 800 year old ruins as part of my job! Sometimes, it's hard to believe I'm getting paid for this, until we return to the office to keep cramming for our upcoming pesticide licensing. The Red Card refresher course, complete with the dreaded pack test, is also looming on the horizon. Maybe they should call it the "regrunger" course?
If you're jealous that I get paid for this, don't fret too much, because for the next two weeks you can get into Mesa Verde for free. This is because the Spruce Tree House is closed for reconstructing the trails, and isn't scheduled to be complete for a few weeks.

On Saturday, we made the short drive north to Dolores to see the Galloping Goose. The Engineer came out from the station and graciously opened the museum for us. He was very informative, explaining both the interesting history of the Goose, but also information of the upcoming railroad events in Colorado. His enthusiasm was contagious, and his excitement stemmed from their great work in restoring Goose No. 5 to operating condition. It's small enough to be transferred by truck to the D&S and Cumbres & Toltec narrow gauge rails, so we are looking into riding the rails once again.

From Dolores, it's a short drive to the excellent Anasazi Cultural Center, which contain many exhibits and have a short trail up the hill to the ruins of Escalante Pueblo. The receptionist at the museum was also very friendly and helpful, providing us with much information about the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument that extend all across the area. So we spent Sunday afternoon exploring the ruins nearby. The first site is Sand Canyon Pueblo, which is seldom visited. We were all alone, except with the snowy head of Sleeping Ute watching us from over the ridge. Sand Canyon is archeologically very important because it was one of the largest pueblos in this region (bigger than Cliff Palace) and one of the last pueblos to be occupied, being abandoned around 1280 AD. Most of the walls have crumbled, and archeologists chose to rebury rather than reconstruct the ruins in order to preserve them. After that, we spent a short hike along the Hawkins Preserve trail, which contains several archeological sites. I was very excited to find a pottery shard along the trail! We took some macro photos of the nondescript shard and placed it back where we found it, near some spoil heaps just south of the main pueblo. We found out later that shards are not uncommon along the trail, and that we are indeed to never remove an artifact. In general this is very excellent advice: never remove historical artifacts from where you find them (unless they are in immediate danger).

We spent the evening sipping wine and reviewing the day, watching Canadian Geese, Coots, and Buffleheads swim in the pond below and recalling the Golden Eagle that was just down the road. The Buffleheads will soon be gone, and thus mark the end of spring.

Ski Mesa Verde

Yowza! We made it to our new cabin and have mostly settled in, and after much phone finagling we were able to get online once again. I began work yesterday, which was mostly an orientation and paperwork shuffle. We're a six person crew this year, so we have high hopes that we will more than double the productivity of last season's 3-person crew.

Leaving work yesterday, it was 70 degrees and REALLY windy, with gusts easily topping 30mph. It kicked up a huge dust storm that momentarily obscured the nearby mountain ranges and gave the sky an eerie metallic cast. As they say in many places, if you don't like the weather in Colorado, just wait a few minutes... yeah, heard that before. Woke up this morning to 28 degrees and snowfall! The drive up the mesa was ok, but looked like it could get sketchy.

Then, by lunch time it had warmed up and the snow melted away. We went for a short walk along Soda Butte to a burn area from 2008 to check on musk thistle. Found 20 rosettes, which we manually eradicated from the area! Hooray! Our first kill of the season! Things will pick up once we get our herbicide licenses. Along the hike, we found this interesting basin with a small hole that may be an archeological site. We took a picture to show the experts for tomorrow.

Leaving Texas behind during it's best month was hard to do; wildflowers everywhere and beautiful weather. But now that we're here, it's great to enjoy the great outdoors.

March Madness

March always seems to be a crazy month; the weather changes with wild mood swings, plants begin showing signs of spring, birds begin migrating... and this year is no different.

Two weeks ago, I was offered a biological science technician position at Mesa Verde National Park. Considering we are to start mid April, that left a few scant weeks to prepare for the next trip. This past weekend, I just flew in from scouting out the greater Mancos/Cortez area to find suitable habitation. Originally, I was hoping to live in one of the cabins in Mesa Verde itself, but it was not to be. So in just two more weeks, I'll be living in Cortez.

Mesa Verde was the first national park created to "preserve the works of man", these works being the beautiful and archeologically enigmatic ruins of the ancient Pueblo culture. American Indians first arrived in the area around 550A.D., their culture began to flourish and they built many towns in the 4-corners region, such as Hovenweep, Aztec Ruins, Chaco Canyon, and many other impressive sites. This culture eventually faded soon after about 1200 A.D., and the reasons for their disappearance is still debated, although one factor that certainly added stress and may have been the most important was the changing climate made their agricultural practices impossible to sustain such high density communities. Mesa Verde contains so many complete ruins spanning such a long time that it has been declared a World Heritage site.

The park also protects other important and rare "resources", the biological diversity. The Nature Conservancy classifies the entire Mesa Verde National Park as part of the Network of Conservation Areas (NCA) due to exceptional occurrences of rare plant and animal species.

Meanwhile, the Arlington Archosaur Site is off to another great year. Many croc and turtle bones have been recovered, and even a few nice therapod fragments. Unfortunately, I will not be able to assist again until October. I may still have a few chances to contribute to paleontology of the Cretaceous era, since most of the rock formations near Cortez were deposited in the great Western Interior Seaway.

I'll definitely be writing more about all this stuff, but it's time to get moving!

Stones of Summer (and some garbage)

This summer has turned into a season of paleontology. I've been volunteering at the Arlington Archosaur Site most weekends, where lots of activity has been taking place. Around mid-July, it was decided to try some Texas-style research; Tractor Prospecting! They had just begun at the base of the hill not far from the main quarry when bones were exposed. A team of volunteers worked long hours uncovering the preserved remains of several animals, most notable being a large crocodile. It was a major find, and a major effort to extract it, in some majorly hot weather. All the local TV networks came out for the story, and the major newspapers. It was nice to realize how interesting this work is to the public, especially since this media blitz occurred right after the sad closing of the Laramie Geological Museum. (how can a university close a historic & scientifically important museum, but still spend 20 times more on recreational sports?!)

At least science museums in Dallas seem to be doing well. I was lucky enough to be invited along on a tour with some paleontologists who volunteered and worked with the Dallas Museum of Natural History. We also stopped by SMU's collection, where I saw some amazing turtle fossils and get to touch a protohadros! Another volunteer invited me to work on preparing fossils from a mosasaur found not too far from my house, and now being housed at the Heard Museum. In the photo above, the plaster jacket is being removed. Plaster jackets are used to protect and move fossils found in the field by covering the matrix containing the fossils with paper, burlap, plaster, and battens. Once the jacket is removed, air-scribes and other tools are used to delicately remove stone around the fossils. Sometimes, the fossils are treated with resins to help hold them together. It's very loud and dusty work! (check out the huge tooth sockets in the jawbone at the bottom of this photo by Roger Fry).

After all this hard work, I was ready for a vacation. My brother, a friend, and I went hiking around the Rockies. Our first stop was the the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. We found an excellent campsite in a copse of trees, with the meadow having a stunning view of the Three Apostles, Mt. Huron, and Granite Peak. We did a short dayhike up to Lake Ann, which passed a small waterfall and the lost townsite of Hamilton. It's always a thrill for a Texan to put his hand in snow in late July, it seemed unreal after digging fossils in 104 degree heat. We also attempted to summit Huron, but a thunderstorm made us turn around after getting very close to the summit. On the hike out, we explored some of the ruins of Banker Mine and the ghost towns of Vicksburg and Winfield.

We then took a raft ride down the Arkansas river, through a fun section called The Numbers. To dry out, we headed west to the Big Cimarron area. This is my brother's favorite spot, and now I understand why. There are giant mountains, rivers, and most of the ridges are made from a pyroclastic tuff that erodes into all kinds of fantastic hoodoos. We climbed up Courthouse Mountain and bushwhacked up a ridge near our campsite to some neat formations we called The Pie Crust. After camping, we showered up at Ouray's hot springs and visited my bro's in-laws at Montrose, where I saw two lifelist birds: pinyon jays and a chukar. On the return drive, we stopped by the Black Canyon for a short visit to ponder the vastness of time for rocks, but lament the brief time of our short trip.

My worms, however, did not take a vacation. We've been dumping garbage on their heads since March, and they're finally getting the upper hand. My hometown offered a free class on how to create a worm bin, and even gave me a few tiny red wigglers to get started. At first, things progressed slowly, and I'd rarely see the worms around. I had to watch to be sure I wasn't smothering them with garbage. But either they've been growing, or maybe the warmer weather, or maybe my delicious coffee grounds has spurred them into a feeding frenzy. My bin is now half full and they are eating about half of our kitchen plant waste, soon it should be running at full capacity and I'll have to start sharing my worms. I dunno what the microbes in my compost pile will think when they're cut off from everything but leaves and the occassional weeds. After learning about the Medea Hypothesis, I'm very concerned about spurring a slime revolt!

The Archosaurs of Arlington

When dinosaur digs come to mind, the Dallas-Fort Wort metroplex isn't an area most folks would consider. But geologically speaking, there are some interesting things taking place, and I'm not just talking about the 2 earthquakes we've had in less than 12 months...

Yet the past several weeks, I've been volunteering with the Dallas Paleontological Society and the University of Texas at Arlington to search for fossils from the mid-Cretaceous era. The most interesting find at this dig has been many large fossil ornithopod bones that are from a duck-billed dinosaur, likely a new species discovered just 10 years ago in nearby Flower Mound, just across the international airport. This species is called Protohadros, since it is considered an early ancestor to hadrosaurs. Since the type-specimen is so far the only described find for Protohadros, it does not have a strong body of evidence. Therefore, finding a second specimen will really enhance what is known about this species.

Ironically, at the first site in Flower Mound (a road-construction zone), only the skull was well preserved. At the Arlington site, most bones have been recovered except for the skull. This makes matching the two incomplete specimens more difficult, so finding the skull at our site is the most pressing priority. As with anything inside city limits, it's only a matter of time before this dig site is buried under concrete in the name of Progress (the current landowner has been very gracious in allowing the university access to the site). Therefore, 2009 is the last chance research can be done at this site. A new museum, the Scotese Museum, will open up at the university (the photo above and below are from the collection), and Roger from the Dallas Paleo club taught a fossil prep session last saturday.

I've only found a few fossils: fragments from a turtle carapace, a small oyster, and a tiny gastropod. These finds are still very important, because they help characterize the environment that Protohadros lived, and helps paint the picture of the ancient coastal plain that was once north Texas. Near my house near Garland, several Mosasaurus skeletons have been found. One recent find is currently being prepared by volunteers at the Heard Nature Museum.

If you're bemoaning your lack of fortune for not living in Dallas around such wonderful geology, don't feel too bad. Chances are there are very interesting fossils near your house. South of Tyler, sharks teeth can be found along roadsides. West of Austin, there are all kinds of late Cretaceous sea shells. One of the more impressive sites is Dinosaur Valley state park near Glen Rose. Petrified wood can be found in some creeks near Giddings.

On another topic: I'd really like to thank all the volunteers and workers at wildlife clinics and rehab centers! I hope Gimpy the Grackle is doing fine.

Contemplation

I once had a conversation with someone whom lamented how dull the world seemed now that everything had been discovered. I understood the sentiment from a perspective in the spirit of Aldo Leopold's rhetorical question: "of what avail are the forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?". (Leopold was more referring to the sense of Wilderness, as opposed to geography). Even from this perspective, and the fact that this sentiment was echoed by many famous scientists in the 19th century, I still find this attitude very surprising.

If The Map is limited to Earth, I'd agree that most of the low-hanging fruit has been mapped, yet that still leaves most of the ocean floor as nearly a complete mystery. Satellites & depth sounders have made some rough topographical sketches, but as to the nature of what lies beneath is still mostly undiscovered. Amazingly, the most active research vessel, Alvin, predates the Apollo mission, and has yet to effectively be replaced. With the exception of petroleum surveys and military vessels, most of the abyss remains literally in the dark. We have better maps of Luna and Mars than the Atlantic!

And that's just on our own planet. The surface of Venus is another extrapolation by radar (most detailed resolution is 150km), with the sole exception of a few photos from the surface. Similarly, Titan is currently being mapped (next flyby May 21st!), but with mostly a rougher resolution and short swaths during flybys (despite 5 years in orbit, only 38% is mapped). We have nice photos from Europa, but only of the surface ice layer; what lies beneath the ice is still conjecture, although evidence is consistent with a global ocean! We only have educated guesses as to what Pluto and Ceres look like (stay tuned for New Horizons and Dawn). And this is just our backyard! We have just begun detecting planets (biased towards top-heavy), and it will be a long time before we can infer the actual surface of extra-solar terrestrial planets... and to actually explore one, even as fuzzy as a fast Pluto flyby, is only a crazy dream.

But that's only geographical unknowns. More fundamental is our lack of understanding, well, practically everything. Pick any discipline; biology, physics, psychology and ask some naively simple questions;
"how did life begin?"
"what is the universe mostly made from?"
"what is consciousness?"

Despite having 6.5 billion people roaming the surface like so many ants, and whizzing satellites, we still have only discovered about 10% of the living species (likely even less than that) -- and that's only counting those species that someone made a few sketches and published a quick paper. The number of species we have more than superficial descriptions are about 1%. It's likely a scoop of dirt from your backyard contains species of protists & fungi that are completely new to science. Now imagine how little we know of extinct species only preserved helter-skelter in the fossil record...

As Bryson noted in 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', "we live in a universe whose age we can't quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don't altogether know, filled with matter we can't identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don't truly understand."

A few questions I'd like answers to are:

1. Was there a Cambrian Explosion, or simply a fossilized manifestation of an existing progression? If the Explosion resulted in many new phyla, by what mechanism is DNA currently restricted to its form (or to rephrase this question, how rigid is DNA to evolving from any existing gene pool of a species?)

2. What are the causes of mass extinctions? For instance, what the K-T event caused solely by meteor impact, or was it a combination of impact that led to other calamities such as increased volcanism -> climate change -> sea level rise -> hypercanes -> ozone depletion & unstable climate regimes?

Why did some orders, such as turtles and crocodiles survive mostly intact, and other orders (mammals, birds) go through intact, but then radiated into many new species?

3. What is the climatic history of Mars and Venus? Why does only Earth exhibit Plate Tectonics?

4. How did life arise? Do other planets have complex organics (Mars, Europa, Titan, Triton, Ceres, Ganymede, Venus) that hint at events critical to prebiotic chemisty?