Daily Archives: March 18, 2011

An outpost of Wooster in the Mojave celebrates today’s basketball victory!

(Guest post from Lindsey Bowman.) After an afternoon of rewarding trilobite collecting, nothing was more welcome than the news this afternoon from Salem, Virginia. Our basketball team advanced to the NCAA Division III finals after defeating Williams College by two … Continue reading

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The last stop of the field trip: Date shakes!

ZZYZX, CALIFORNIA–Apparently visiting China Ranch and having the famous date shakes is a tradition on at least a few other geology field trips. We were introduced to it by Matt James at Sonoma State, and today we met students and … Continue reading

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Trilobites! Now it’s a field trip.

Just kidding about the trilobite requirement for a true field trip, but we must acknowledge a certain charm that comes only from these spiny little beasts. Thanks to my buddy Matthew James, we were directed to an especially fossiliferous set … Continue reading

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A favorite stop: the Resting Spring tuff exposure

ZZYZX, CALIFORNIA–We’ve visited this roadside outcrop on California Highway 178 in the Resting Spring Range on each of our field trips to the Mojave Desert. Meagen Pollock may explain more about this fascinating outcrop later in the blog, but for … Continue reading

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A little vignette of desert ecology

ZZYZX, CALIFORNIA–While exploring the Amboy Crater lava fields on Wednesday, we noticed these small and very active “yellow” beetles. With a little research we discovered they are Desert Spider Beetles (Cysteodemus armatus) that feed on the nectar from a variety … Continue reading

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