So I’ve been up to all sorts of fun since the last post. There have been a lot of school trips and just busy times so this is going to be a monster of a post updating on the last month.
My petrology class went to Ringing Rocks which was a BLAST!! Ringing rocks is a field of big diabase bolders about an hour away from Philly that ring when struck. Yeah, a geologists dream. It’s unknown why they do this. Some say transport from glaciation caused it, others say aliens. Pick your favorite.
Some of us at the field.
Ringing some rocks and excited about it.
Amanda and I dipping our feet. I was pretty serious about getting those boots off!
Emily and I at the top of the waterfall...before I waterfell! hahah oh my.
the waterfall
So that was a one day joy. But this past weekend was even better!! We went to the Catskills, NY. We left on Thursday and got back Sunday and it was a blast. Now 3 geology classes go: Structure (the capstone), Paleontology and Stratigraphy, and Soils. I was with Structure. Now structure is pretty intense, but the trip was insanely fun! My professor was so chill. He was climbing outcrops with his coffee cup. And there was a lot of people so a lot of people to mingle with.
Nick (my professor) and I playing basketball. Can you believe he used to terrify me?!
& then he let me teach!! I know it looks like a crazy smiley face, but it's really a sycline. I was drawing a parasitic fold that was inside a parasitic fold inside a syncline! Mindblowing!
The ride there. It was 5 hours of nonstop fun. This is Sarah, Emily, and I.
Our structure group at the campfire! This is Neil, Emily and I and we never stop fighting.
So there’s a really popular fossil called the trilobite and we never find one anywhere we go. The 3 classes go different places and there were text message rumors that a trilobite had been found. Emily captioned this picture and I think it’s just fabulous: “Amanda says “Emily, I found a trilobite!” I look over and this is what I see.”
This is what they really look like:
I think they look alike.
My favorite is the eurypterid though. It’s supposed to be the state fossil of NY but I never see them. Kind of like how the trilobite is PA’s state fossil but they’re only in Swatara Park. Look how cute eurypterids are though!!!
darling!!
So one night we went to the campfire and we saw an island in the middle of the river and Mike (my TA), Kevin (a fellow student that I lived with in 1300 freshman year), and Emily (…Emily), and I forded the river to the island in the dark. I decided I wanted to walk on this log but we had to go through all this brush so Kevin went with me because he had a head lamp (of course!) and off we went. Well, his light fell on the most beautiful breccia I ever saw! We tried to move it at least to the campfire but it was too heavy so we waited until daylight. Meanwhile, we’re all hype about this rock and Mike is telling Nick about how cool this is because there’s a matrix inside the matrix and we’re telling EVERYONE (and their mother) about this. When we got back that day we run down to the island to get this rock and as we’re tieing it up to pull it out of the river, I noticed a metal rod coming out of it. Emily captioned this one well too: “Eff Urbanite!”
After realizing it was urbanite... 
Colin modeling the safety gear.
Sigmasoidal gashes show a rotation!
It took me 2 seconds to make this and everyone joked that I'm really a dragon.
& here's that picture of Nick climbing with his coffee. Is he for real?
Before the day starts we gather and find out what everyone’s doing. One day it was announced that Paleo and Soils got to go for a hike and and structure was going to work. Bummerrrrr. But when it came time to go to our second stop that day, Nick couldn’t find it. It was hysterical. We were going up and down the same road, seeing the same things, driving up peoples driveways, hitting dead ends, it was just fabulous. So then we go to the stop that was schedule for the next day and we’re all like, “really Nick, can’t we just go for a hike?,” but no, we stayed at that outcrop. So then the next day we were all over the place some more and then we drive down to a river and start walking the cutbank with no rocks in sight. I figured they were further down so we did this crazy obstacle course through mud and rock, over trees, through bushes, etc. And we get to the end, like nowhere to go & still no rocks. He took us for a walk! And we got to sit on the Kalkberg formation and eat lunch! It was WONDERFUL. But the Kalkberg has a chert signature and I sat on some and broke my camera. At least it was at the end of the trip : )
Emily and I on the Kalkberg!
The End : )
I like that Mike and Kevin get explanations in parentheses and I get “…Emily”