Oncolites and Kill Sites

Guest Bloggers:  Sarah McGrath (’17) and Chloe Wallace (’17), both members of Team Utah 2014

 

EPHRAIM, UTAH —  Rookie bloggers, Sarah and Chloe, coming at you from beautiful Ephraim, Utah! We’ll admit early on that are blogging skills are not the most proficient, but we’re giving it a shot (mostly because we are being “strongly encouraged”). We figure plenty of enticing pictures will make up for what we are lacking.

We began a new project in the field on Thursday. We gathered data and collected oncolites in the North Horn Formation. We measured over 50 oncolites within the rock face and collected about a dozen float samples. The following day we did more oncolite work, collecting at least 150 float samples, in the Flagstaff at “Snake Ridge,” which was cleverly named by Dr. Judge after countless rattlesnake sightings. Luckily for us, we have yet to see a single snake the entire trip. Knock on wood; still one day left in the field.

Although we haven’t seen any rattlesnakes, we’ve encountered enough kill sites to last us a lifetime. At our first sighting we ran away in disgust, but by our most recent kill site we were taking creative photos with them. We suspect our friend Freddy the mountain lion may be at fault.

picture 1 - 585

The view from the North Horn Formation.

picture 2 - 585

One bag out of many of the collected oncolites at the infamous “Snake Ledge.”  Note the medical tape holding one of the oncolites together!!

picture 3 - killsite

Most recent kill site shot. Maggots don’t scare us.

picture 4 - 585

More wildlife encountered in the field. This jackrabbit kept us quite entertained for at least thirty minutes.

picture 5 - 585

Possible homestead of the one and only Freddy the mountain lion.

 

 

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.