Day 2 - Niko

    Today was our last full day here in Houston until we embark on our trip to Seymour, Texas. We spent our morning listening to a presentation by our guest speaker Mr. Ladesma a paleontologist working to get his Phd in paleontology and herpetology. His presentation taught us more about paleontology as he spoke about his job in exploring caves to find fossils from tens of thousands of years ago. His work was very interesting to hear about as he talked about the plants, animals, and fossils that he has found in caves. He explained the process he takes to find these fossils and remove them from the site in order to take them to labs to be researched and examined. Mr.Ladesma gave us more insight into paleontology and was very informative and interesting to hear from. 

    In the afternoon we spent our time presenting our presentations from yesterday. These presentations from each group where about a variety of different topics leading into our Seymour trip. Some of these things were on geological formations, our dig site we will be working on at Seymour, prehistoric animals and plants, and much more about the regions of Texas we will be traveling through and spending Time in. Our last day here in Houston was informative for the trip we have ahead of us and we are all looking forward to this rocky adventure! 



 Mr.Ladesma presenting his work to our class



Connor, Andy, and Jackson give their group presentation  


Mateo works on a lab made by Talulah and Alice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 8 - Ariana

Image
Because we couldn't get morning coffee the day before the girls were determined to start today with a cup of caffeine. In the small town of Seymour, there is only one cafe that serves lattes, B' Nutritious & Sweet, first step into the cafe and the entire atmosphere was totally transformed. Somehow the suede furniture and hanging lamps didn't emit retro vibes. Once the task of retrieving coffee was completed we assembled at the whiteside museum and made our way to the dig site.  As this was our sixth day digging we were all well acquainted with the daily routine, or rather the routine of the sun moving across the sky. The combination of crusty dusty dry air and the scorching hair frying afternoon sun in the rural city of Seymour could inflict a catastrophe for city folks. And thus our first line of action was to set up a tarp for the groups that’ll get burned in the afternoon. Though this shouldn't have taken up a good chunk of the morning, it took 7 people and 7 tim
Read more

Day 5- India

Image
 Our day started with a delicious breakfast provided by the lovely ranch workers. Shortly after, we headed to the Whiteside museum to begin our day. To start we went to our dig site and began excavating. Shortly after arrival I, India, found the ulnar of India the dimetrodon, and a few fin spines to match her massive physique.  Aside from that, the boys continued to work on their plaster project. In the afternoon Claire found an impressive dimetrodon skeleton. Alice also discovered a tiny ouranosaurus, so far only a few minuscule parts have been found, but nonetheless, even just the discovery of the minute creature is impressive.  To end our day we were accompanied by Chris, Holly, and a few other workers on the site, to a local steak house. The dinner was fantastic and a great way to end an amazing day. 
Read more

Day 4 : Raising bones.

Image
 On our fourth day of this magnificent A term, we had an early rise at 7 in the morning to enjoy a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and potatoes. After this, we departed to the Whiteside museum of national history, where we met our paleontology experts Chris, and Holly. They explained to us that some 300 million years ago most of Texas was covered in water, especially the Seymore area. At this time there were a lot of amphibians and other creatures, but mainly among them was the Dimetrodon. This creature was a carnivore that mostly lives on land but sometimes would live in the water. It is classified as a  non-mammalian synapsid. He also told us that Seymore is pretty much the best place in the world to find and study them and that that was what we were going to mostly find on our dig today.  After a 20 minute drive to  Craddock ranch,  which is where the dig site is, we started our Palio work by just walking around, looking at the ground to see how many fossils we could find. It tu
Read more