The 2015 field season for the Chile Slope Systems project is now over and a great success. Despite some not-so-great weather towards the end of the 7-week season the team was very productive. Ph.D. candidate Neal Auchter and M.S. student Sarah Jancuska amassed an impressive amount of data this season.

Here are some photos (captions are below each photo):

Neal and Sarah measuring section along Rio Zamora. The first half of the field season was unusually dry and the river level quite a bit lower. We were able to see some new section that is typically under water!

Neal with Rio Zamora in the background. The outcrops Neal is working up are a result of rapid incision by this river over the past several thousand years, which has produced some magnificent exposures along the river canyon walls.

We did a bit of mudstone sampling this year.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a trip to the Argentine side of the border where these same Upper Cretaceous foreland basin strata are exposed. This outcrop, not far from Perito Moreno glacier, highlights some fascinating transitional flow deposits of the Punta Barrosa Formation. These rocks are currently being studied by the Stanford Project of Deep-water Depositional Systems group.

Stunning view of Upsala glacier in Argentina while examining the older part of the basin history.

Typical Patagonia traffic jam.

What I ate for lunch most of the field season: canned tuna, avacado, and hot sauce on a cracker.

Some spirited debate during our sponsor’s trip regarding the nature of inclined surfaces in submarine channel strata.

A view of Cordillera Manuel Senoret from one of the areas worked up this year by a Univ of Calgary student as part of the collaborative Chile Slope Systems effort.