In the Field
Western Cape, South Africa
Visiting coastal dune fields and rockshelters along the western coast of South Africa with Robyn Pickering and Vincent Hare. Projects in the Western Cape explore the timing and paleoenvironments of human occupation of coastal and inland rockshelters during the Middle Stone Age (~300-30 ka).
Middle Awash, Ethiopia
I participate in the field program in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, collecting volcanic ashes and carbonates to constrain the chronology and stratigraphy of sediments hosting fossils and archaeology over the past ~6 Ma.
Below: ignimbrite deposit resistant to erosion; professor sitting on the outcrop for scale.
Below: Dr. Giday WoldeGabriel demonstrating the slight dip of the bedding in this area with his rock hammer (dipping slightly NW, away from the rift axis to the east).
Fucino Basin, Italy
The Fucino paleo-lake may record >1 million years of continuous lacustrine deposition in the central Appenines of Italy, and intercalated volcanic ashes provide materials for Ar/Ar dating and age modeling of the depositional history of the lake. This work is done with an interdisciplinary and international team of geoscientists lead by Biagio Giaccio (CNR-Rome).
Above, left: Fucino basin and coring site; middle: core with tephra interbedded with lacustrine sediments, and dated by Ar/Ar geochronology; right: "field office".
Sicily Excursion on Cyclostratigraphy
In September 2015, I spent one week in Sicily with a group of international researchers to study cyclostratigraphy from GSSP's ranging from Miocene to Quaternary periods. We examined sections expressing orbital tuning parameters such as precession, obliquity, and eccentricity. Here are a few photos of these pristine sections:
Right: Gypsum deposits from the Messinian Salinity Crisis, stratigraphically just below the GSSP for the Messinian-Zanclean boundary (c. 5.3 Ma) at Eraclea Minoa. These beds indicate the Mediterranean may have been almost fully evaporated in the past.
Left: Punta di Maiata, Zanclean Age (c. 5.3 - 3.6 Ma). Thin alternating beds of white/tan represent precession cycles.
Above: The participants of the Sicily Excursion. Special thanks to Frits Hilgen, Diederick Liebrand, and Sietske Batenburg for such an incredible trip!
Left: Monte San Nicola, the GSSP for the base of the Quaternary System (c. 2.6 Ma), the Pleistocene Series, and the Piacenzian-Gelasian Stage boundary. Thin alternating beds of white/tan represent precession cycles.