Week 5 of Internship: Erupting Into High Gear!

This week I had a meeting with my mentor Nancee, as well as Mark and Shawn, other Free Choice Learning guru’s. I showed them all the stuff I had collected and we talked about the next steps. I feel I have a much more clear view of what’s going on with this exhibit and I’m ready to start the next phase. That is to talk with visitors to do some informal research on what things are going to work well for the exhibit. This will help me with my planning. It’s kind of crazy to think that I only have 5 weeks.
I was present when the now locally famous Murre disturbances happened at Yaquina Head last Monday. You can read about it at this post.
This weekend when I was off, my kids and I went to central Oregon and discovered volcanoes! (Hence the “erupting” in this blog title.) I didn't even realize prior to arriving in the area that Newberry National Volcanic Monument just south of Bend, Oregon, even existed!  We got to drive to the top of a cinder cone and walk all around the rim of it, take a hike amidst a huge lava flow, and walk through a lava tube cave. We also went to the John Day fossil beds at Sheep Rock and the Painted Hills, and the High Desert Museum. Super cool! I thought going to central Oregon would be a short and slightly boring trip but I realized after arriving that there was so much to do I could have easily stayed for a week.

Lava Butte Cinder Cone and lava field (Newberry National Volcanic Monument)

Lava Butte cinder cone volcano and the red road we took to the top

The inside crater of the volcano

The slopes were rather steep

The cinder cone is made up of all these "cinders" - colorful lava rocks (basalt)

View of one side of the lava flow from the top of the cinder cone.  The winding trail we walked in the flow is also visible

View of the cascades from the top of the cinder cone - this is an entirely volcanic range

What an awesome place!  I was at the height of geeking out.  I love volcanism.  On our drive back we took a scenic route and saw a lot more lava flows, collected lava rocks now that we were outside of the national monument, and got to visit this way cool observatory (Dee Wright Observatory in Willamette National Forest) where my camera batteries died which was naturally quite upsetting!  But here's what I did get.

Dee Wright Observatory, Willamette National Forest - blends in nicely with the lava field

Steps up to observatory.  Just add a bit of mortar to this big natural pile of lava rocks and voila!

 The setup of this observatory was really awesome.  The inside had these windows that give the perfect view to each volcano/ feature.  All the windows were labeled with what was in the view.  If I'd had more battery power I would have photographed each of them.

View of sister through observatory windows

On the top of the observatory were great views as well as this really cool compass with the volcanoes and such labeled as to their location.

Cool compass on top of the observatory points to all the geologic features in the area

View of the sisters from the top of the observatory

The volcanic stuff was a huge highlight of this Oregon experience for me.  (I'm excited to also go to Crater Lake in a couple weeks.)  It also helped me remember again how much I love volcanism and would love to study it more.  That's what is so cool about geology!  It's not just rocks.  It's all this other cool stuff too- volcanoes, mountains, canyons, earthquakes, oceanography, fossils, dinosaurs!  Who wouldn't like all of that?

Thanks for reading.  Please comment!  I really appreciate feedback! :)

Dinosaur Genealogy :)

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? :)  I'm trying to get the categorization of them straight in my head.

Dinos belong to a group called Archosaurs, which include crocodilians, birds, pterosaurs and dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs are divided into two groups: Ornithischians and Saurischians.  I will attempt to summarize, but here is a very helpful diagram to start off, and if you'd like a very good reference with more diagrams and tons of good information, go to the source of this diagram.

Taken from this awesome site that will do a much better job explaining everything you want to know.

Ornithischians

• Bird-hipped dinosaurs (pubis faces toward the back of the animal, next to the ischium)
• Include:
• Thyreophora - armored dinosaurs such as stegosaurus and ankylosaurus
• Ornithopoda -  duck-billed dinosaurs
• Marginocephalia
• pachycephalosaurus, my old pal!
• ceratopsians - horned dinosaurs such as triceratops

 

Saurischians

• Reptile-hipped dinosaurs (pubis faces forward)
• Ancestors of birds

• Include:
• Sauropods - long-necked dinosaurs
• Theropods - everyone's favorite carnivores
• Maniraptoras
• Dromeosaurs
• Deinonychus, from north America
• Velociraptor, from Mongolia
• Birds

All diagrams are from this site, which has a wealth of information worth checking out.

Capitol Reef Field Trip

I just spent a totally awesome weekend at UVU's Capitol Reef Field Station with my Botany class (Flora of Utah).  We had a group of 20 students, and our two teachers - the Botany Lab Manager Ally Searle and Dr. Renee Van Buren, who is also the station manager.  She is the one who spearheaded the creation of this awesome field station, after 10 years of working and fighting for it.  Check out the website.

Dr. Renee Van Buren, Capitol Reef Field Station Manager (my Botany professor), enjoying our jam session

Ally Searle, Botany Lab Manager, in a box canyon on our orientation hike

Jane Dell, Field Station Site Manager, teaching us about Packrat Midddens

Botany
It was a long weekend of botanizing on our way to Capitol Reef National Park, and in the park, and driving from there down to Bryce Canyon (we didn't go in there though, just drove through Escalante and did a couple things in Red Canyon nearby).  So much fun.  Got a bit of a tan, had lots of time to sit in the dirt with a 3" thick Plant key, took a few quizzes, and had a ton of fun laughing and joking with my classmates.  We had a really fun group.  I still need to get my plant families down- I've been working on that with practice and flash cards all weekend.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you find a post about the plant families in the near future so I can practice them more.  We saw some neat cacti and other things that I didn't take pictures of because I collected them, outside of Capitol Reef itself, of course.  (In case you're unaware, in national parks you aren't allowed to collect anything.)  I rode in the van with Dr. Van Buren so I learned a lot.  I was happy to find that she loves Geology too so I got to learn some geology on this trip from both her and Jane.  Speaking of which...

Geology of Capitol Reef National Park
Capitol Reef was named that because it has some white domes of Navajo Sandstone which reminded people of the U.S. capitol.  And it was termed a reef because, like a coral reef to sailors, this huge body of rock was a barrier very hard to get around for early travelers on horseback and in wagons.

Capitol Reef is a giant anticline.  The crust was folded up like a dome or speed bump and then partly eroded away.  As you travel down in elevation along the reef you actually go into newer layers because of how the crust is curved from this deformation.

There are 5 main formations in Capitol Reef.  From top (newest) to bottom (oldest):
Navajo Formation (sandstone)
Kayenta Formation (mudstone I think)
Wyngate Formation (sandstone)
Chinle Formation (mudstone)
Moenkope Formation

The Chinle is pretty soft and more prone to erosion than the harder Wyngate sandstone above it, so the Chinle, which has beautiful colors of gray, purple, and green, erodes quickly, causing large chunks of Wyngate to fall off the cliffs.  That's why the base of the cliffs are completely littered with boulders.  It's pretty fun.

Wyngate Formation of Capitol Reef National Park with boulder field at the base

The first morning I went out and explored that area.  It's a wash because there are a lot of flash floods that run through the area during the summer rains (monsoon).  I had a blast exploring down there and finding neat trees, rocks and plants.  My favorite was this boulder that looks just like an anapsid skull (turtles have this kind of skull).

Click for source and more info about skull types

Prehistory
I have finally collected my first fossils!  We went to an area that was covered in bivalve fossils that have been left in a big pile after the surrounding rock has eroded away.  You could just sift through and gather what you wanted, just like beach combing. 

Bivalve fossils near CRNP

Bivalve fossil - Jurassic time period

I was so excited that this area was outside of the national park itself because that meant I could actually take some of these home- yippee!

Biology
I got bones!!!  My awesome friend (and fellow Bio Ed student) Garrett pointed out some bones on the ground and there was almost an entire deer skeleton (I think it's a deer, at least).  I'll see if I can figure out what animal it belongs to for sure.  This was a great trip for adding some cool stuff to my collection of geek out artifacts... lots of bones, tons of plants, and some fossils.  I wish I could always have a botanist, biologist, and geologist to go with me on all my vacations so I could learn the entire time and have them point out the best places to collect things and such.

As far as live animal life, we saw a lot of birds, lizards, some bats on our stargazing night, a couple of marmots and one pronghorn.  So that wasn't a huge highlight of the trip, but there was plenty of other cool stuff to keep me happy.

Astronomy
As I mentioned we did some stargazing on the first night.  They pulled out the ginormous telescope (holy cow, "ginormous" is in the dictionary now!  It didn't give me a spell check error).  We got to take a look at the craters of the moon and see Saturn!  Wahoo!  So that's my second time in a month getting to see that planet, rings and all.  (We saw it at a ranger program while on our trip in Bryce Canyon, which I still need to blog about...I'm behind.)  Totally cool.

Jane and the interns pulled out their pointers and showed us some stars, planets, and constellations.

They pointed out the curved section of the mane of the lion Leo.

As well as the Gemini twins -  Castor and Pollux.

Source

The best part for me was talking about this best-known constellation: the big dipper.  Ursa Major is the real name of it and this constellation is of a bear.  I never realized before that the big dipper that is so easily recognized is only the tail and part of the body of the bear.  So it was cool to see it in context of the rest of it.  I always used to think of constellations as being very small and clustered.  But they really can take up quite a bit of space in the sky.

I definitely want to take an Astronomy class!  Next summer will hopefully be my chance to take a few fun things that aren't required before I have to leave UVU.  On the wish list: Ornithology, Trees & Shrubs, and Astronomy.  Thanks Renee, Ally, Jane, and UVU for a wonderful field trip!

Group picture taken on our Cohab Canyon Trail hike in Capitol Reef National Park
(L toR) Top back: Renee, (the one name I don't remember, sorry), Chris
Top front: Quinn, Zack, Garrett, Leslie
Bottom back: Mike, Katie, Madi, John, Julie (me), Lewis, Heather, Megan, Emily, Jerom
Bottom front: Richard, Debbie, Emma

Coal and the Carboniferous Period ... Cool

During the Carboniferous Period (about 300-350 million years ago), there were a lot of coal deposits being made because the conditions were just right.  Here's why.

The land mass of current-day North America was near the equator during the Carboniferous Period - in the tropics.  This was a great environment for lush plant growth.  This is also the time when plants with lignin and complex cellulose were beginning to evolve (ferns).  Forests of trees up to 100 feet tall made up coastal swamps.  Below is a fossil of the tree trunk (this one from lepidodendron)- all the indentations are thought to be attachment points of leaves or branches.

http://www.uni-muenster.de/GeoPalaeontologie/Palaeo/Palbot/SEITE6.HTM

So, what's the big deal?  Well this is the cool part (to me).  Since woody plants were a pretty new thing, the bacteria had not yet evolved the appropriate enzymes to break down and decompose them.  So when those plants died they stuck around.

Then add to this the fact that there was a lot of glaciation at the time and you have the recipe for coal.  ("Huh?" you say... I know, I didn't get that at first either.)  The reason ice caps are important is that they would melt, causing transgressions (rise in sea level) which would flood the swamps and bury them in sediment, preserving them where they would continue to be compacted and eventually become coal.

The geek factor?  Pretty sweet that these things formed largely due to good evolutionary timing - woody plants: 1, bacteria: 0.  Good geological timing with the transgression as well.  Nice orchestration there, and we get fossil fuels, the industrial revolution, and much of modern technology out of it.

Dinosaur bones

Hooray for dinosaurs.  Took a little weekend trip to Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah.  Last time we went there (3 years ago I think), the Quarry was closed due to earthquake activity messing up the building.  So I was super excited to go back to the Quarry this time.  I hadn't been there since I went with my family when I was little.  I have vivid memories of seeing it, and it was much as I remember it.  All those fossils everywhere were a huge feast for the eyes and very exciting to realize it's a ton of REAL fossils - not casts or replicas, and they're actually in the mountain in the actual place where they were originally deposited.

But the best thing is that Human Anatomy (the class) helped me really enjoy this a lot more!  So because of my background with osteology from Human Anatomy, I could pick out and name a lot of the bones.  I love that bones have the same names across species.  I want to go back and re-memorize all the bony landmarks.  I was really excited to find a large vertebra from a sauropod (Apatosuarus), pictured here and labeled with the bony landmarks  (assuming they're the same as in humans).  I was trying to decide if this was thoracic or lumbar vertebra and then I found the costal fovea which made me pretty excited.  ("Costal" means rib, FYI - that's the spot where the rib attaches.)

Apatosaurus thoracic vertebra

My favorite find (and this was something that I did find on my own) was a well articulated radius, ulna, carpels, metacarpels and phalanges of the front limb of an Allosaurus!  The ranger said that is the only carnivore fossil in the wall she knows of.  It was totally awesome!  Major geek factor.

Out of focus of course.  My batteries were dying so this was a hastily taken picture.
Radius, ulna, carpals, metacarpals and phalanges

 The ranger pointed out a "butterfly shaped" bone:

This is the hip bone of the Apatosaurus. It occurred to me that the top part of our hip bones is called the "wing of the Ilium".  So pretty fitting here that it actually looks like wings of a butterfly. :)

My kids got bored with me gawking over the bones for so long.  They thought it was really cool too, they just don't have the same attention span for it as I do. :)  Luckily the ranger was super awesome and had a backpack full of casts and diagrams to help occupy them.

My 7-year-old did tell me last night before even going to the Quarry or museum that he knows what he wants to be when he grows up: a Paleontologist.  :)  Then of course today my 4-year-old jumped on that bandwagon too (he's already expressed a good amount of interest in it though - and really, what boy doesn't like dinosaurs?).  We'll see if that pans out for either of them.  I would definitely approve of and encourage it.  Even if it doesn't end up as a profession for them, it's awesome to learn about.

Quote of the Month

"It would be COOL if Paleontologists

  dug up  Dinosaur bones

AND

 Mario and Luigi."

-My 4-year-old Paleontologist-in-the-making (and brother of a video game junkie)

Fossil from Super NES

Pachycephalosaurus

A dinosaur I had never heard of before They Might Be Giants came along:

But since then I've watched a National Geographic documentary that featured Pachy and I gave my 4-year-old a toy one with a book that features it.

So to be somewhat scientific to fit with the theme of my blog, and because teaching is the best way to learn (yes, I'm counting posting on a blog as teaching, so what?), I will share what I've learned about this dinosaur- including stuff I'm just now looking up! :D

Pachycephalosaurus Wyomingensis

Word roots!  Pachys means thick; cephalic - of or pertaining to the head.  "Thick headed."  I know a couple of people that could fit that description.  Maybe I'll start referring to them as pachycephalic and no one will even know I'm making fun of them. :)

So this documentary was called Dinosaurs Decoded and the basic premise was that 1/3 of dinosaur species never existed but were really just juvenille forms of other dinosaurs.  This seemed intriguing to me and brought back to mind the time I visited the BYU Museum of Paleontology and there was what looked like a small T-Rex (Torvosaurus or Allosaurus), which I shrugged off as my ignorance (which is still a valid dismissal- to the untrained observer, which I am, a lot of things that are very different may look the same).  But it did serve to plant the question in my head- don't they find fossils of younger individuals of the same species?  I don't remember ever seeing any fossils designated as juveniles or infants.

So are Dracorex and Stygimoloch really juvenille Pachycephalosaurus?

Dracorex, top left; Stygimoloch, top right; Pachycephalosaurus bottom

Maybe, maybe not.  Apparently there are not very many fossils of any of these.  There's only one Pachycephalosaurus skull, pictured below:

Pachycephalosaurus skull

Obviously I know almost nothing about Paleontology (for now), so I'm just regurgitating what I heard on the documentary.  I have no idea if the scientific community accepts this theory or what the current status of the issue is.  So stoked for my Prehistoric Life class this semester to learn more about this stuff.  I don't have time or funds to take more classes on Paleontology or Historical Geology, so hoping this class will cover the basics to the point I feel satisfied with a general knowledge of the subjects.

So go watch the video again- you know you want to.  Who can resist a Pachycephalosaurus that plays on the swings with you?  Seriously.  My 4-year-old goes around the house singing, "I am a Paleontologist..that's what I am, that's what I am, that's what I am."  Except it sounds like, "I am a pain in the tologist."  Well, I do often agree with that first part, but what the heck is a tologist?