KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Nick Fedorchuk began his fieldwork today at the Soeginina Cliff site we visited two days ago. The first thing we did was scout out the best place to measure the most complete section possible, and then we started the slow process of sampling and describing the rocks and fossils. On average we did about a meter an hour.
The above image shows one of the curious oncoids in the Soeginina limestones. Oncoids are usually almost spherical because they rolled around as bacteria formed layers around a nucleus. The oncoids in the lowermost Ludlow (Paadla Stage) here show an initial formation as spheroids and then they sat still on the seafloor and grew upwards to make little layered caps. The oncoid was knocked over occasionally and a new cap grew on top of the sideways oncoid. This finally made oncoids with multiple growth directions visible in cross-section.
Above is a bedding plane view of an oncoid-rich layer with shelly fossils. Some of the oncoids have formed around gastropod shells.
The trace fossils (evidence of organism behavior) are especially interesting because we can see them in bedding plane view (as above) and also in cross-sections. We will look at their distribution using various ichnofabric indices.
At the start of our day on the outcrop this happy Estonian dog joined the party. It stayed with us the whole time. It liked to splash around in the ocean and then joyfully jump on us — not conducive for taking notes or whacking rock samples, but fun nevertheless. Wolf (maybe the name we gave him was too easy) loves to gnaw on the carcasses of large, long-dead seabirds, bringing them to us as we worked. Wolf was sometimes a bit too exuberant, but he was a good friend for the day. We hope to see him tomorrow at the same place!
