Data Collection and Beach Trip
Post date: Jul 6, 2013 5:51:10 PM
The History of Life internship really is interesting. Now we are doing data collection, which is finding different body sizes of echinoderms. We have already finished Part S and Part T, including the quality checks. We have proceeded onto measuring ostracods, and I have already finished one of the volumes. Noel also told us that we will be able to start our individual projects soon, which I am super excited to get started on!
On Wednesdays, we listen to different people who have careers in earth sciences. It’s interesting to hear about the myriads of careers in this field. I am always eager to hear what they have to say about these cool careers.
Also, on Tuesday, we went on a field trip to two beaches. In the first beach we studied fossils and the ages of the rock and the characteristics of the rocks. In the other beach, we looked at tide pools and got to notice the different living creatures in them. There were mollusks, sea snails, hermit crabs, sea urchins, sea anemones, and different types of seaweed.
These pictures show some of the rocks we saw that had different animal fossils in it.
The below picture shows a sea anemone in the small pool of water. It was so fun to see the different life forms in the tide pools, as well as study the different fossils and how they were in the rocks (like in the shell beds). We also saw small insects that resembled the trilobites.
Turns out that these insects were the closest living relative of the trilobites. The field trip was extremely fun, and I cannot wait until the next one! My experience in the History of Life internship is truly fun and exciting!