Much of the research the VT Sedimentary Systems Research group is currently conducting requires going to where the rocks/sediments are. What this mean is: travel, travel, and more travel.

Ph.D. student Neal Auchter and I spent several weeks in southern Chile doing field work on the Cretaceous Tres Pasos Formation. The photo below is from Neal’s primary field locale and highlights the stunning exposures of these submarine slope deposits. We spend so much time down there because (1) it’s very far away, so we only go once a year and (2) we need to build in days for the inevitable poor weather and the occasional logistical hurdle (e.g., vehicle trouble).

Neal had a very productive field season and is coming home with tons of data, samples, and lots of ideas about these strata.

The other field-based project going on currently is related to a component of Cody Mason’s Ph.D. research. This work is out in desert of southeastern California and is focused on mid-Pleistocene alluvial and lacustrine deposits now cropping out on at the base of the west flank of the Panamint Range. The primary goal of this trip was to collect samples for cosmogenic radionuclide analysis, which involved power tools and a lot of sieving of sand in the field.

I flew from South America to California to join Cody and his field assistant for the final couple days in the field. All went well and Cody will be moving on to the next phase of this project this spring and summer.