Sherborne, England — Cassidy Jester (’17), Tim Palmer and I today finished our fieldwork. Cassidy is now set for her Senior Independent Study project with plenty of specimens, observations, photographs and ideas to last the next 10 months. This morning we visited the Burton Bradstock beach exposure of the snuffboxes, meeting our great colleague Caroline Buttler (Department of Natural Sciences, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff) and her husband Simon for lunch on the outcrop. It was great fun, and Caroline had additional discoveries for us, including the exfoliated snuffbox layer shown above with serpulid worm tubes.
We had time to look for more fossils associated with the snuffboxes. Above you see a gastropod on the left and an ammonite on the right, with snuffbox bits scattered about.
We also found many examples of burrow systems with cryptic pendent iron-rich layers, including those shown above. (I rotated the image 180° because the block we studied on the beach is upside-down.)
On the way back to our lodgings near Sherborne we stopped by the Iron Age hill fort Maiden Castle, a portion of the massive earthen ramparts of which are shown above.
Our collecting, measuring and describing is done. Most of the work for this project, of course, will be in the Wooster geology labs. We will have delightful memories of our sunny days in Dorset, and the invaluable assistance of our colleagues Bob Chandler and John Whicher. I am personally most grateful for the geological and navigational skills of Tim Palmer, our wonderful companion and astute advisor. Without him none of this could be done.
The Dorset crew in the Whicher Museum. From the left, Bob Chandler, Mark Wilson, Tim Palmer, John Whicher, and Cassidy Jester (’17).
