Week 4.5 - Cliffs and more cliffs

Well, you know you’re well into your field season when the days start to pass in a blur, and you ask people things like “is it still February?”

Nick and I have had a great time exploring the plains of Patagonia. We share an office back at SFU, and have spent quite a bit of time together both in the field and doing lab work, so I tend to think of him as my partner in crime. Or at least, my partner in paleomagnetism. I worry, though, that his hypochondriacal delusions may cause this partnership to be cut short. Since arriving here, he’s mentioned to me that he thinks he has celiac disease, a tape worm, a dislocated knee cap, chronic fatigue syndrome, Parkinsons disease, meningitis, the common cold, and more. And, he's not always kidding. As far as I can tell, he’s the picture of health, but you never know…maybe he has it all. As long as it doesn’t affect my work!

The proto-Dr. Roberts, peeing on one of my sections.

The past week or so has been highly productive, and full of a great variety of geology. Nick and I spent a few days wandering the gravel roads along the coast south of Rio Gallegos, searching for access to some cliffs that looked easy to get to on Google Earth. From the comfort of my laptop, nice wide gravel roads provide a perfect transect through outwash gravels, into the moraines of the oldest glacial deposits (those of the Great Patagonian Glaciation) and straight down South into the next oldest deposits known as the Cabo Virgenes drift. In actuality, the roads do exist, and in fantastic condition. However, they are riddled with signs that read “danger” and “restricted access,” which can only be ignored for so long until you reach a big metal gate with a fat ol’ lock on it. This is oil and ranching country, and they do not operate under a “come one, come all” mentality. Some days, we would drive for hours, passing through unlocked gates and reaching beautiful road cuts and sea cliff exposures of glacial sediments. Other days, we would drive and drive, only to get turned around by a locked gate and a double fence. I thought that it was ridiculous that the big estancias are so strict about access to their land…I mean, who cares if someone wanders around and sees how many sheep you have? But, apparently the presence of trucks startles sheep, and can cause young to be separated from their mothers while scrambling to escape big scary vehicles stirring up giant dust clouds as they drive across the desert. Another problem is sheep poaching…in such a remote area, without gates, people can easily shoot themselves as much meat as they desire. One estancia that we visited gave us careful driving instructions to reach the outcrop we wanted to view, warning us which roads had been booby trapped with boards with nails in order to bring down poachers. Now, I am more respectful of gates and private property signs.

Access denied! 

This weekend, Nick and I visited the area around Punta Delgada, Chile, along the coast of the Strait of Magellan. We were joined by Hugo and Hebe Corbella, two Argentinians from Buenos Aires who have worked extensively in southern Patagonia. Both are in their 70s, and incredibly sharp in both body and mind. Hugo is a volcanologist who has done a lot of work in the Pali Aike volcanic field, and was an incredible help for me. I told him that I wanted to see exposures of different glacial deposits, and he knew exactly which roads had the freshest cuts and exposures. More and more, I realize how lucky I am to have the help of local geologists. There seems to be a code of sorts, where geologists help one another out whenever they can, as everyone has experienced the difficulty of working in a country where they don’t know the language or the customs as well as they should. This attitude also builds professional relationships, a sharing of knowledge and an eventual sharing of names on published research. Some days we joined Hugo and Hebe in the field, and other days we took off on our own to the coast of the Strait, visiting cliff exposures along the Strait. We had fantastic weather, with clear-ish skies and light winds. The geology was breathtaking…nearly endless cliff exposures of sediment. Each day I left feeling like I only saw the tip of the iceberg.

I think I'll see if I can rent this place when it comes time to write my dissertation...

One of the most important lessons I have learned from my Argentinian friends is the importance of hot beverages while doing field work. As much as I have made fun of it, I have started to consider my afternoon Nescafe to be indispensable. We bring a thermos of hot water with us, tap a few teaspoons of dark brown crystals into our mugs, and instantly have something that resembles a proper cup of hot coffee right there on the beach. High class! It’s even better when Nick shares his little packets of Starbucks Via…that stuff is always decent, but after a few days of Nescafe, it tastes like the finest coffee in the world.

Not a bad spot to have some Nescafe!

Nick, me, and our hard-fought luminescence sample. 

Week Three

This week started out with a car crash and ended with a whole lotta cheese. Let’s start with the exciting stuff. Nick Roberts, fellow PhD student of John Clague’s and good friend/officemate/travel buddy of mine, was scheduled to fly into Rio Gallegos at about 2:40am this past Tuesday morning. As is my nature, I was confused about what time he arrived, and thought his plane touched down at 3:30am. I sweet-talked Justine into getting up in the middle of the night and driving out to the airport with me to get Nick…although unbeknownst to me, he had arrived 30 minutes earlier and taken a taxi to the hotel, assuming that I had decided to sleep rather than chauffer him around town. Justine and I drove out to the airport 30 minutes later, and after an unfortunate sequence of events, ended up getting side-swiped by an airline employee with a lead foot in the parking lot. I got out to talk to the dude, a very friendly yet fast-talking (and fast-driving) local who eventually realized that my Spanish skills don’t go much beyond “Good morning!” and “It’s windy today, yes?” We headed into the airport, where a stewardess who spoke about as much English as I do Spanish told me that we would have to meet the next day to go to the police station to make our declarations. The next day was filled with paperwork, made so much easier by Hugo Corbella, an Argentinian volcanologist who has been incredibly helpful to me in more ways than one. Dante, my rental car agent, seemed unsurprised and nonplussed by the event, stressing that I should just continue with my work and not worry about the accident. Our big diesel truck survived the collision with minor damage…no more than a loose bumper, while the other guy had much more destruction to worry about. The next day, John and Nick assessed the damage, applied a little duct tape magic, and we carried on with our daily routine of field work followed by dinner and vino tinto.

Nothing a little duct tape can't fix!

 

The next day, John, Olav, Rachel and Justine piled into a car and headed back to Punta Arenas, Chile to catch a plane back to Santiago and onward back to Canada. Wave One has left the continent, and Wave Two is in full swing. Nick and I have spent the past few days wandering the Atlantic coast south of Rio Gallegos, and checking out road-cuts to the West of the city with Hugo. We’ve also nearly killed a bottle of Glenlevit scotch that Nick bought at the duty free shop, but that is another story. Last night, we went out for dinner with Michelle Valvano, the daughter of Bettina Ercolano, a fantastic local geologist who I’ve spent quite a bit of time with in the field. Michelle studied abroad in Ireland, and we had a great time talking and hanging out with her. We had a Pizza Fugazza, a type of pizza that is common in these here parts, with an olive oil base and cheese and white onion as the topping. Argentinians are not shy about their cheese, which is AOK with me. Now, Nick and I are preparing for another week of field work together. We’ll most likely spend the next few days exploring the Atlantic coast south of Rio Gallegos, and then take a few days to look at glacial sediments along the coast of the Strait of Magellan near the “town” of Posession, Chile. While I had a great time with Wave One, it is great to transition into field work with just one other person…particularly with Nick, who I have spent a lot of time with both in the field, in the office, and in the laboratory over the past year or so. It sure helps that he brought his iPod adaptor for me…there’s nothing like blasting some Nine Inch Nails while zipping across the Patagonian plains. 

Me, 3/4 of Nick, and a bunch of penguins!

Of ham and volcanoes...

An Oreo is an Oreo wherever you are, right?

Yesterday, while doing what my dad calls “mowing down” on some tasty little sugary crackers (advertised as Grandma’s recipe…so you know it’s good!) that we had started to refer to as “crack cookies,” I absentmindedly started reading the ingredient list, and stopped mid-chew on the second ingredient. “Grasa de bovino.” Beef fat! Oh, what a sad day, when a vegetarian learns that something they love is chock full of cow parts. As I wandered the cookie aisle at the grocery store this afternoon, I stopped to read the ingredient list on each package of cookie in the aisle, and discovered that literally every single type of cookie (except for one type of almond cookie, which is my new best friend) was made with either beef or chicken fat. Even the Oreos!

Part of the adventure that is travelling in a different country is experiencing new cuisine. Argentina is best known for their asados, or grills, where my omnivorous friends can enjoy virtually endless supplies of chorizo (sausage), lomo (steak), and cordero (lamb). Here in southern Patagonia, the calafate berry grows on a shrub, and while a little bitter on its own, makes a lovely jam that is unique to this region. These are some examples of well-known Argentinian foods. However, in my experience, people here love ham, cheese, and anything carbohydrate. Oh, the omnipresent jamón! What’s for breakfast?  Bread and ham! For lunch? How about a ham sandwich? What’s that in your lasagna? Why, a slice of deli ham, of course! Being a vegetarian in an incredibly meat-loving society, I have adjusted to having self-imposed limited options when eating out. Luckily, Argentinians also love their cheese and bread, so I have been able to stuff myself with as much pizza, pasta, and rolls as my heart desires. I have also found myself eating quite a bit more “accidental meat” than I’m used to. For a scientist, I’m pretty unobservant, and apparently even more so when it comes to my food. I recently happily dug into my tortilla, a frittata-type dish of egg with veggies and/or meat mixed in, and got a nice mouthful of…you guessed it…ham! I suppose I have to get my protein somewhere, but if I keep this up, I’m going to have to give in and let Dave cook up that steak he’s been wanting to make for me after all!

Ham bread!

As for the field work, everything has been going extremely well. Part of the week was spent along the Atlantic coast north of Cabo Virgenes, on land owned by a giant sheep ranch, Estancia Condor. The other part of the week was spent farther inland, near Estancia Bella Vista, which is not only famed for the giant sea-run trout that swim in the Rio Gallegos, but also for the volcanos that erupted lava in the form of flows and scoria cones all across the landscape. While trekking across the terrain, I can’t help but compare the views to those around Las Vegas, Nevada, where I spent the four years prior to moving to Vancouver. Both regions have experienced volcanism in their geologic past, and exhibit expansive valleys dotted with dry lakes in an arid climate. I find it to be an interesting exercise in geomorphology, to consider that two landscapes can look so similar, but have such drastically different processes that shaped them. It is difficult to believe, while standing on these dry desert plains, that glaciers once marched by, with giant meltwater channels extending from their mouths to the sea. Isn’t it a beautiful thought…that our landscapes are ever changing? 

Rosario Mar, at the southern border between Argentina and Chile. There is a flock of flamingoes in the center of the lake.

Sampling basalt from the rim of the Rosario mar. Left to right: Justine Cullen, Hugo Corbella, John Clague (after illegally crossing into Chile). In the distance is Olav Lian, the law-abiding member of our crew, still in Argentina.

Week One!

Ah, a day off! The last five days have been a flurry of travel, field work, late dinners, and what I have come to fondly refer to as “sink laundry.” After spending one night in Punta Arenas, we collected our field equipment and drove east, hopping on a ferry and crossing the Strait of Magellan to the island of Tierra del Fuego. Based from the hub of Cerro Sombrero, Chile, we spent two days along some truly spectacular cliffs lining the Atlantic coast just south of the strait. These are cliffs that the Patagonia Field Crew 2011 visited this past May. We returned so that Justine could collect samples for luminescence dating from sand wedges that cut into some lovely, ancient, weathered gravel that lie at the northern part of the section. We parked at the coast at the edges of Estancia Shangri-La, just at the shores of a windswept pond where two hardy flamingoes fed amongst a sea of thirsty, shaggy sheep. Justine, Rachel and Olav spent much of their time at the lower bluffs to the north photographing and sampling the sand wedges, while John and I headed south to get a second look at the high cliffs that provide a dramatic cross section of glacial sediments estimated to be about one million years old.

These sediments are the remnants of a large sheet of ice that extended out of the Andes, traveling hundreds of kilometres across the plains to the east, past the modern coast, terminating in what is now covered by the southern Atlantic. The imagination runs wild, standing beneath these thick deposits and trying to comprehend the mass of ice that was grinding and flowing above, in what is really (geologically speaking) not that long ago. It is at the spot last May that eight earth scientists trekked along the beach, our backs to the ocean and our eyes and minds focused on the stratigraphy in the cliffs. After spending a few hours making careful notes and geofantasizing about the events that led to the layers of till and gravel, someone turned around and pointed out that the water level was rising quickly, and would be at our feet in not too much time. This is the nature of the geologist…always looking down at the ground or up at the outcrops, sometimes forgetting to turn around and appreciate the vistas (or rising tides!). There was clearly not enough time to walk back to our car. Part of the group suggested we take refuge on a high shelf of bedrock in the cliff, and part of the group wanted to walk a few hundred metres south to the lighthouse that marks the boundary between Chile and Argentina to see if there was a way up to the top of the cliffs. After standing around discussing our options, the tide forced our decision, and we spent the next six hours on the bedrock shelf, warily watching the rising waters around us. Believe me, we made some REALLY good notes that afternoon.

Geologizing while waiting out the tide in May 2011

Now, nine months later, John and I walked past our perch toward the lighthouse, this time making sure to shift our gaze from the rocks in front of us to the ocean behind. Once again, the tide began to come in, and we decided to walk a bit farther before turning around. We came close to the lighthouse, where we saw an exciting exposure of rusty colored gravels that suggest an important relationship between these deposits and those of the low bluffs where the luminescence crew were spending their afternoon. Walking a bit farther to get a view of these gravels, we reached a gully dissecting partway down the cliff. The gully was too far up from the beach to climb up to, but wouldn’t you know it…someone had fixed a rope leading from the upper surface to the sand. It was ratty but sturdy, and we hoisted ourselves up. It sounds as though we could have climbed to safety last year after all!

After two days of work in this area, we re-crossed the strait and spent an afternoon at Cabo Virgenes, the southernmost location on the continent of South America, where the Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern corner of the strait meet. There is something romantic about standing on this windy point, not only imagining the ice extending from here to Tierra del Fuego across the waters, but thinking about the history that shaped humankind’s knowledge of our planet’s geography. According to the omniscient Wikipedia, on October 21, 1520, after sailing along the Atlantic coast of South America for nearly 10 months, Ferdinand Magellan made a right hand turn at Cabo Virgenes into a passage that took him between the continent of South America and the Isle of Tierra del Fuego to the Pacific Ocean, where he continued sailing for over a year before reaching Asia. That passage was later named for him, and when we looked out at the rough waters, we expressed a great appreciation for those men making such a large voyage on their tiny wooden vessel. Very cool. At the end of the day, we took a short drive to the pinguineria at the gravelly mouth of the strait. Here, we were treated to visiting with hundreds of Magellanic penguins. We took a path through their nesting grounds, where the chicks were bedded down with one parent while the other was out collecting food from the sea. In March, both baby and parent will leave the rookery and swim north for winter, so the chicks had already lost most of their fluffy down. They were pretty loud and active, many of them waddling in long lines from the nesting grounds on their well-worn paths to the beach. After such a long day of work and another long drive to Rio Gallegos ahead of us, these goofy little critters left lingering smiles on our faces.

Getting a stare-down from a Magellanes penguin.

We are now in Rio Gallegos, Argentina, and will be based out of this town until Wave One leaves on the 15^th. We’ve hooked up with some local geologists, Jorge Rabassa and Bettina Ercolano, who have been taking us to key sites, sharing their incredible wealth of knowledge of the local geology. Yesterday we got our first taste of the field season of the Pali Aike volcanic field, where lava flows that date from roughly three million to ten thousand years old lay above and within beds of glacial sediments. These basalts will hopefully allow me to provide ages that constrain the timing of these old and large glaciations, so the next few weeks will involve many drives out into the volcanic field. I feel a sense of crossing a hurdle, where I have transitioned from travel and re-orientation into true field work mode. Every day prompts ten more questions for each one that it answers. 

Laguna Potrok Aike west of Rio Gallegos, Argentina, in the Pali Aike volcanic field. This lake rests within the depression left by a volcanic maar, and has been drilled for sediment cores. It's blue color is striking against the dry brown landscape.

Wave One at the rookery at Cabo Virgenes, Argentina, with cliffs of the Cabo Virgenes Drift behind us. Penguins are coming in from collecting food from the ocean at the sea shore. Left to right: Olav Lian, Justine Cullen, me, Bettina Ercolano, Jorge Rabassa, Rachel Chapman.