It is sandy down there. Lots of silty sand. Some clean sand, but lots and lots and lots of silty sand. There is advance outwash, till, meltout till, and recessional outwash from at least two glaciations. There are fluvial and lacustrine deposits from at least two interglacial periods. Sand, sand, a bit of silt and gravel, a tiny bit of clay, all mixed in with sand, sand, sand.
Living here, one's day-to-day visual input is from this mostly-paved, mid-latitude, low-altitude highly urbanized environment, and a brain isn't forced to think about periglacial processes much. Now, however, having logged a couple thousand feet of Quaternary core here in the Puget Lowland this summer, I have a new appreciation for the huge amount of mostly-sand that is dumped out of the front of glaciers and then pushed around by the huge amount of water that the glacier becomes. Huge. Darn big. Sandy.
Next week, I will put geology-for-money behind me for a couple weeks and head to the desert Pacific coast of southern Peru to hunt for the elusive, wild, Mio-Pliocene barnacle scuta and especially, terga. I am the bouncer and mule of the expedition. My tasks: glower at men trying to hit on the (female) PI. Bash rocks when rocks resist being collected. Carry rocks after they've been bashed. Act as ballast in the tiny rental car when the wind picks up.
The expedition's PI is testing hypotheses about climate-induced macroevoloution by measuring changes in species richness and abundance among balanoid barnacles in the uplifted littoral Pisco Fm.
A little light on details for you? Me, too. I don't really know much about the project yet. I have my script: glower, bash rocks, carry rocks, be weighty.
I will learn more there, and will blog when I can.
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