Ireland: the visual and social aspects

The ireland fieldwork is not just travel, work and then travel again! A good fieldwork has a social aspect. And this one sure did. And it of course also had unexpected moments of beauty. I figured I may well combine these two to one happy blog post.

There are many, many millipedes in Lisdoonvarna! This one resided in my bath. I evicted it; I figured we would both be happier if he went outside.

We were with 14 members of staff. That's quite a lot! And most are spiffing people with whom it is a pleasure to hang out for a week. Some of them I don't get to see very often in daily life. And with some, things were comfortingly normal; I had brought my running kit, and just like in Plymouth I went running with Pete every second day. Not before lunch, evidently; we had to reschedule to before breakfast. Not my best running time, but better than nothing. Pete had already scouted out a good 4 mile route from the hotel before we even got there!

One day I woke up, and figured it would probably be almost time to get up to go for our run. I looked at my watch: 7:09! I was supposed to meet Pete in the lobby at 7:05... I jumped into my running kit, dashed down the stairs, handed my room key to the receptionist who said "ah, there you are! He just left a minute or so ago..." So I dashed out of the door. I ran like mad. I ran out of town, and where the views became a bit broader I discerned a yellow dot on the road ahead of me. Pete! I shouted, but he couldn't hear me. 

Breathing heavily I ploughed on. I knew there was a sharp turn coming up; maybe there he would be able to hear me. But he didn't. I ran on and on. Then I saw him run a little loop. A loop! He must have seen me, and started looping to give me the opportunity to catch up. No; he had just dropped his hat...

In the middle of our run there was a long, gradual slope down. I know I can't possibly outrun Pete on a slope up, and on flat terrain I have little chance either, but Pete's not a very fast descender. So I legged it. And yelled again. And this time he heard me!

We ran together the rest of the way. That must have been my fastest run in a while! I know I manage to dig deepest when I have a bloke to run after. I should try to pretend it's a social run next time there's a race; maybe I can keep up with him much longer then!

Early spring flower

Cartographers on an eroded limestone shore

If I go for a beer with colleagues it tend to be the same bunch every time, but now I had my chance to broaden my horizon. On the first night we arrived so late I decided not to drink, and on the second night I had emergency phone duty, so I had to stay sober to be able to deal with possible emergencies. But the third night nothing stopped me. And there was a nice local pub around the corner, with locally brewed beer! And some of the people I had never enjoyed a pint with were there. Fieldwork, good for colleague bonding!

Defiant calf on the spit

As the sea level project is one of the shorter projects, Marta and I would even have time for a pre-dinner beer in the sun on the staff-lead days. Luxury!

Beautiful erosional feature

Colourful yet deceased beach dwellers

Of course there wasn't only staff; there were also more than a hundred students. And it is all about them. I knew my student-lead groups a bit, but beside that they were all complete strangers to me. But they were a good bunch! During the walks on the first days, Ian lead the front while I brought up the back, so they were my company. And it's nice to get to know them! I might see some of them again. During Roland's sea level module, for instance. And one even wanted to become a member of the caving club!

The coach driver trying to save his wing mirror, after another coach driver has decided the road actually is wide enough for both...

Tenacious denizens of the intertidal realm

On the last day we went to the pub with a bunch of staff. We expected the students to make an appearance any time as well, but none showed up. Were they still working? Had they gone to bed? Or would they be partying in the hotel bar? Chris suspected the last. He figured there would be a last night disco. And he didn't want to miss it! So at ~10.30 he dragged us all out of the pub and back to the hotel. And indeed, the students were in the hotel bar, and there was a DJ, but the dance floor was empty. 

We just came in for a pint, but Chris started to shake his stuff, and the students seemed to also have reached the point where they dare show off their moves. So soon the dance floor was festooned with a handful of pioneering characters. And it was contagious! Quite soon the whole floor was heaving with sweaty people, staff and students alike. Either Travolta'ing away, or sentimentally belting along with the likes of Robbie Williams. It was good! And it isn't good for the voice, and going to bed after 2AM isn't good for one's general health, but I think it helps make us a school, and not two clumps of individuals.

Cows taking it easy on the beach

I don't know if I'll be going again next year, but I must say, I actually hope I will! It was very useful and a lot of fun. Two of the 14 will surely not come back next year as they will be moving away, so the school might very well be quite happy to accommodate me...

Ireland: the trip back

The ferry departs from Rosslare at 9. One is expected to board 19.30. And it's a few hours driving from the hotel which hosts all the geographers. So to be on the safe side, each year the whole Plymouth Fieldwork army leaves Lisdoonvarna at 1PM. In earlier years, the students were made to evacuate their rooms in the morning, and then just somehow amuse themselves until that time. This year, the presentations went on until ~12AM. So we only had an hour in which we could do little more than twiddle our thumbs. Still, it was the bellwether of quite a tedious trip.

I was the responsible staff member on one of the coaches, so I counted all my students, and when I had them all we could go. This time it was light; we now could see what landscape the itinerary takes us through. And it was good to have Jamie, one of the cartographers, on the coach too. One is staff, after all, and even though I don't see myself as unapproachable there's not much student-staff interaction at such times.

We reached the ferry port early enough for having time for a small walk on the beach in the evening light. And then we embarked. By now I was hungry; I enjoyed a final Irish stew, and then decided this was the time for a nap. The ferry was largely empty, so everyone who so desired could find a place to lie down properly and get some sleep before the chairs in the coaches made further horizontality hard. I laid down feeling tired. I got up feeling slightly ill, and without much of a voice. That didn't bode well.

The ferry seen from across the beach

I counted my students for the second last time and then we were off, to Bristol, where we would change drivers. The original ones weren't legally allowed to drive us all the way. It was in the middle of the night, and most tried to find some vaguely sleepworthy posture in the seat belts. And after the driver swap I counted them for a last time, and tried to make myself comfortable for the last stretch.

I woke up as we were encountering speed bumps; what was that? It turned out our driver suffered from bad timing and had pulled over at Exeter services (only an hour from Bristol!) to empty his bladder. Please! We want to go home. We want to go to bed.

I woke up for the last time in Plymouth itself. When university was in sight I grabbed the microphone for a last time, and croaked something about thanking them all for a great week and wishing them a nice Easter break. And then I stood outside. The fresh night (morning!) air in my face and the sound of an alarm in my ears.

I walked to my office; I wanted to drop my big bag off, so I could bike with only the small one. And of course, it was our office building that was ringing loudly. The resident students on campus must have been delighted; it was 6AM on a Sunday. None of us could switch it off. I stopped caring and left. Later I found out the whole alarm unit had been changed while we were away, and none of our codes worked anymore. Excellent planning.

I biked for a few minutes and then the so desired moment came: I could lie down in a proper bed. As it happened, even one equipped with a charming man. The field trip was over. Time for some well-deserved rest. I would dream of Ireland...

Ireland: student lead days

Field excursions are supposed to provide a steep learning curve. When the 2nd year students had done two one-day projects in Ireland  they were deemed ready to do a project themselves. We had presented outlines of possible projects to them back in Plymouth, and after having chosen one they had to present us a project proposal. I had offered two of Gerd's old projects, and each was chosen by a small group.

One project dealt with a spit; a tongue-shaped body of sediments protruding from the coast into the sea. The students had to assess if this specific spit merited protection as a Geological Review Site (GRS); these are supposed to 'make a special contribution to our understanding and appreciation of Earth science and the geological history of Britain'. I don't think they have these in Ireland, which is part of the British Isles but not of Britain, but my students kindly did not pick up on that. And in order to asssess that they, of course, have to understand the geological history of that very spit themselves. 

 The spit as seen on Google Maps

The other group were faced with large boulders (megaclasts) on a beach; how did these get there? Can a simple storm transport such enormous masses? Or do you need a tsunami for that? Do they move from year to year? Does that fit with the wave data that's available? The year before students had surveyed in 60 of the boulders, and this year the students could see if they had moved since, and what the geographical implications for such movement or absence of it would be. 

 The beach with the megaclasts

The project proposals showed these 2nd year students are not yet seasoned scientists; there was quite some feedback to give to get them ready for the fieldwork. I threw more of that at them than they may have liked, several times, and hoped for the best. It's student lead, after all! And both groups claimed they were ready before departure. We would see. You always hope "your" students will do well!

The students would have two days to spend in the field and/or in the labs, and on the third day they would have to present us with the results. So on day one I went into the field with my megaclast students; they relied heavily on technology, and I wanted to see that they got working alright. And they whipped out these GPS's, and started finding these boulders again! They got cracking. They had the position of the boulders, and pictures of each; once you found the location of where a boulder had been the year before you got the picture out, and looked for that very boulder. It may have moved, after all! And they did well. All found boulders were marked with wax crayons and then surveyed in precisely.

Boulder 51 is found!

While they were productively running around on the beach the cartographers appeared. They had set up the GPS base station you need to get high precision, and now they came to get me. We would have lunch together, and then they would drop me off at my spit. Splendid logistics!

 So which boulder is it?

When I found my spit people they were measuring fanatically. They were taking transects of the spit every 100m, and logged the profile of the spit, and the size of the boulders and cobbles, and they took samples of the finer material. Unfortunately, they were only at transect 7; the spit was 2km long, and it was already 2PM... at 4.45PM they would get picked up by the coach. So they quickly changed their transect spacing to one every 200m.

They were tired when they came out of the field. They had worked hard! I was looking forward to hearing how they had gotten along. After dinner they would give me an update. And the megaclast people too.

The group working on the spit, which had spent most of the day with their eyes cast down to it, basically got the advice to also look sideways. To understand such a structure you have to see the context too! And the other group had received bad news; the setting up of the base station had gone wrong, and the high precision needed for their project had not been obtained. So they had to re-measure every single boulder the next day! That was quite a disappointing message, but they took it in good spirits. They were going to measure like mad the next day!

So the next day came. The boulder people would be picked up from the field later than initially planned in order to give them time for all these extra measurements. I would help the cartographers to set up the base station; this time it had to be done right. And then I would go and see my spit people again, to see how they would get on with seeing their spit in its surroundings.

 The base station of the GPS

I found the four students on the spit, this time well wrapped in GoreTex. They had left their two mates in the lab to process the samples they took the day before. I walked along with them for a while, trying to guide their eyes sideways. But the 6 were apparently more than the sum of 4 and 2, and after consulting their lab-based colleagues, the four in the field decided to see if they could be picked up a bit earlier. They had lots of data, gathered on the first day; they figured they should rather have time to interrogate that, than create more, but run out of time making sense of it.

 The last field day was less sunny

They heard there was a coach about 5km away from them; if they could walk there they could hitch a ride. So they did, and I walked along. The coach was parked at the pub where I had had lunch the day before; this day I did the same. I found five staff members there already. I enjoyed a glamorous crab lunch before Ralph gave me a ride home. Along the way we would pick up a group of his students. They came out of the field loudly proclaiming their love for peat, which they had been coring that day. An enthusiastic bunch!

 My glamorous lunch

When the megaclast bunch arrived I hung around to see their data being transferred; both in my function as their supervisor, and as one of those reponsible for the set-up, I was quite eager to see that done. And the data came out! Not perfectly; there still had been a glitch somewhere. But that was something they could correct for later. They could now go and compare with the data of last year...

After dinner the whole hotel lobby was littered with groups of students preparing their presentations for the next morning. Including mine. But they seemed to not have anything to run past me, so after a few hours I joined a contingent of staff going to the pub for a last evening pint. The next day we would see what the students had come up with!

 Early morning in Lisdoonvarna, seen from my hotel room

And the next day came; as it would take way too long to have all groups present in succession they were distributed over 5 locations, with 2 staff members to assess their presentation; I would get to see my megaclast students but not the spit people. I had only seen the outline of their talk. But of both, of course, I will see the reports. I really look forward to these. I hope both manage to make the most of their data! For neither group the work is over. Nor for me. I'll have quite some marking to do!

Ireland: staff lead days

The Ireland fieldwork, of which I already described the first two days, is organised such that the students are initially taken by the hand, but then gradually released into the landscape to geographically fend for themselves. The first two days we take them on walks and coach tours; then the next two days we have them do small projects we have desigend for them; and then the last two days we have them do projects that we have outlined, but which they have to give shape themselves. So after my two days of Burren walking I would spend two days by taking a group of students to a lake, and have them do sea level reconstruction with its sediments. Roland had cooked up this exercise, and I now had to make it my own.

Roland takes the students to some parking lot at the seaside, makes them observe the sea, and then lets them walk to the lake in question. The coach driver offered to drop us off at the lake itself; I figured the loss of a sea view would be more than compensated by the loss of a walk along this winding and shoulderless road. The next day I would just tell the students to observe the sea from the coach. Roland had not made this choice, but this year the project was mine! And I even had a charming assistant: Marta, who had joined the field trip as a back-up for one of the staff members who had done his back in. If he would do that again and would have to stay in bed she'd take over. But his back held, and she came with me! Marta likes coring.

The students sketching the lake, with a beautiful Burren hill in the background

Another change I had made was that Roland talks the students through the theory the night before they go into the field. He finds a space in the hotel and makes the students show up after dinner. I decided against; I figured we should make the most of the good weather, and I wanted to do the pitch in the field. I sat them down on the grass and used an A4 writing block as a flip chart. It seemed to work! And after I did that the first time I asked the students if they agreed this was better; fortunately they did, so that change was implemented the second day too.

What I did was tell the students that Irish sea level over the last, say, 15.000 years had been dominated by a combination of vertical land movement due to the the burden of the British Ice sheet and its removal as the ice melted away; and the changes in ocean volume due to ice melt there and everywhere else. Near the ice sheet, in the northeast, the former was dominant, and in the southwest, which would have been furthest away from the ice, the latter was dominant. So in the northeast you would have had a relative sea level drop, while in the southwest you would have had a sea level rise. And we were in between. What would sea level have done here?

They figured, as planned, that if sea level had been considerable higher here we should find marine sediments in our lake. And they didn't have to think long about how you diagnose that: you just check for forams! They need salt water to survive, so if they're there the lake has to have been salty. So I made them make a nice field sketch of the lake and then we set out coring.

Roland just picks one student and cores with him or her; I thought it would be nice to have several pairs of students core, and then pick the best core to take home. So I took the narrow barrel and showed them where to core and how it's done, and then sent students in with the broad barrel (they worked in pairs, so they had more weight to get a broad barrel down!). The first pair immediately came back with a beautiful core. And nobody managed to do better! But the students had fun getting their hands dirty, and they saw that coring is a matter of trial and error.

The wader-clad students get the corer to the right spot

Coring

And the less spectacular task: prying the core out of the barrel

We had them document the cores, pick the best, label and pack it, and then basically we were done as far as the field was concerned. We had lunch in the sun, and then we headed back tot the lab to see if indeed our core would yield forams. Exciting!

The technicians had set up a field lab in a hall in what was calles the 'Spa centre' down the road. A lot of work goes into it! It contained a kit storage, from which every day the kit was distributed, and a computer lab, with laptops, a printer, and even a stereoscope, and an actual lab, with who knows what sort of instrumentation. It had one table ready for me, where we would sub-sample our core, sieve the samples, put them in sample slides and then take them to the microscope tables for analysis.

The field lab! Microscope tables in the foreground, and in the background my students unpacking the core.

 

 The table that had been prepared for me, with sieves and beakers and pictures of forams and whatnot. And students taking subsamples.

The students had never done something like that before, so many struggled to even focus their microscope on their sample. And most put way too much sample in their slide. And you can tell them and tell them and tell them, but some will just persist. That way you don't see a thing, and they had themselves with it; I had offered a pint for those who find a foram first. That, of course, was another idea from Roland.

Quite often I was called to a microscope because they had seen something they they thought might be a foram. It generally was a snail egg or an insect head or a seed. I offered them to go through their samples for a few minutes to see if they perhaps were just overlooking them. And that way I found the first foram. And the second. And the third. But strangely enough, even after having seen them as they appear in their view, and knowing their samples did contain them, they found none. None! I kept the pint. But I was puzzled. Roland never gets such results! I cored in the same place. There clearly were forams in the sediment. Why could he get the students to find them while I could not? Is he more inspiring? Is he more intimidating? I don't know. But after hours of not finding anything I had the students pack up. No further pedagogical use in having them ogle mud any longer!

Outside in the sun I had them evaluate at what level we had found the forams, and what that meant for our hypothesis. And what else it meant; there, of course, was a twist in the story. They seemed not to be too disappointed at the outcome of the project! And at least they were now done so early they had time for a pre-dinner pint. There should be time to relax too!

The next day I did the same thing, but this time with 22 students instead of 12. That's a lot! In the field I split them up; half could do the sketch while the other half was coring. And then I made them switch. And besides the fact that with 22 students you are actually obliged to have at least two members of staff there, I was even more glad I had Marta; with so many students you really need someone else who knows their stuff. Again the first pair of students got the best core.

In the lab it was harder than before to keep them busy; the first day already we had more students than microscopes. And with 10 students more this became worse. I made them pair up; one could ogle the mud while the other had their field sketch evaluated by Marta. And then the other way around.

 The Spa centre. The building on the left is the one that houses the labs.

Again it was me who found the first foram. Quite a beauty! But later the students called me; they had found something too... and to my very pleasant surprise they indeed had found a foram! A small, inconspicuous, somewhat ugly one! These are the hardest to find, of course, but they had done it. Kudos!

The rest of the exercise went similar to the day before; after some hours I called it a day. Quite well-timed, by coicidence; at that very moment another group came in, which wanted to use these same microscopes for looking at charcoal.

The evaluation of the results in the sun got quite interesting; I had a student in this group who has a sharp brain that fires lots of good ideas, but who lacks the dull tenacity to sit down and do the groundwork of scientifically testing these. Upon seeing the lake he had immediately figured the twist in the story out. But he had done nothing to verify his thoughts. He easily could have! I hope he will one day consider that worth the effort. And perhaps I have put these studetns off micropalaeontology forever. But then again; they won't have an unrealistically glamorous idea of it. They have now felt it takes stamina and stubbornness to get the job done! Maybe some will have just that, and do some more of this kind of work during their time at university!

Ireland: the first days

Who would you have teach your students on a geography fieldwork? A lab-rat geologist, of course. With limited teaching experience. What could possibly go wrong. Nothing!

The first two days of the Ireland fieldwork I would spend promenading along part of the Burren Walk with a colleague experienced in agriculture. We had agreed in advance that he, who had done that walk many times before, would just talk about whatever geographically interesting we would come across, and I would pitch in if I saw something I could lecture on. I had read about the area; I figured there were some interesting geological features to be seen.

We set off. Ian, my staff companion, immediately started to ooze knowledge. Some of it quite on his terrain,but some of it quite geological. So I was either learning something new, or seeing him deliver small lectures on things I figured I would target tomorrow. And the weather was gorgeous!

 Ian lecturing in the open

My first chance came when Ian took the students to a cut some farmer had made in the side of a slope. It looked like a now empty silage storage. And the bedrock was nicely exposed! Ian talked about farming and water pollution and the likes, but then I kicked in and asked the students how old they thought some level in the modern peat was. A few thousands years? Yes, something like that. And a level about 20 cm lower? About a thousand years older? That was the answer I expected, as I figured they would not have noticed the erosional contact with the shales below, which were Carboniferous of age. So in order to give them an idea of how much time was missing in between I ranted a bit about oceans coming and going and dinosaurs not even having been invented when these shales were deposited. And that as an Earth scientist you always have to be aware of such things!

 Ian talking about agriculture in the silage pit; I'm still standing next to my erosional contact

We walked on. Ian talked about agricultural history, EU regulations, swallet holes, pollution, tourism, planning, the potato famine, and what not. And then we reached a ring fort. That would be our lunch venue for the day. Could it be better? He made all the students make a sketch of the fort and its surroundings. The best sketch would win a Twix! Bribery immoral? Heck no. So the students set to work.

 Ian and the students in the ring fort

The ring fort (left, on the horizon) and the valley next to it

When we looked at all sketches we saw that what Ian had seen coming was true: we had lots of sketches of the fort itself, but hardly anyone had placed it in its surroundings. I think that was one of the things this fieldwork was good for: getting the students to look at things in context. The ring fort was situated on a hill top overlooking the sea, with a nicely sheltered valley next to it where you could graze your cows. Hardly any of them had documented that. Maybe next time they will!

After lunch we finally reached the part of the walk where we could see what is so characteristic of the Burren: exposed limestone. Now I got really excited! There was a bit of typical limestone pavement clint-and-gryke landscape just next to the path, with limestone slabs set in the grykes. I wondered if the vertical bits were remnants of cheveaux de frise (there's a lovely picture of just that here), but closer inspection made me conclude they were just the work of people like us. Just like children building dams in streams people also build cheveaux de frise lookalikes where there are grykes and clints. But the clints and grykes gave me a spiffing opportunity to let the students think of why they formed. And when that was sorted, I hoped they saw it was almost magical you could, just looking at some of these slabs, read so many chapters of Earth history. The stone itself, fossils and all, spoke of the middle Carboniferous, the fracture pattern spoke of later deformation, probably related to the closing of a nearby (pre-Atlantic) ocean, the exposure spoke of glacial erosion and human deforestation, and the grykes spoke of Holocene karst. How beautiful is that?

I got my piece de resistance a bit later; we got a beautiful view on the terraced landscape so characteristic of the Burren. (There's a lovely aerial picture here!) I asked the students why they thought they were terraced. They thought the terraces were beach cliffs. I tried to have them conclude themselves they couldn't be. And I think I could make them see that just sitting on a hill looking at another hill you can, in this case at least, make far-reaching observations on the workings of Carboniferous climate.

It was downhill from there, literally; we walked down to the river (a river in a karst landscpae?), and from there back to the road. We bothered them a bit with why that river was there and what else had happened in the valley and then it was 5PM and we were ready to be picked up by the coach. For me it had been a great day! It's a privilege to be taken through such an amazing landscape with such a knowledgable colleague. And I was quite impressed by the students too. They were fit, uncomplaining and quite responsive. So I looked forward to doing it again!

The river Caher cutting through thick glacial sediments

The next day it was even better. The weather was still gorgeous, and this time I could take some of the talking from Ian; I handled the karst features and the glacial sediments. We even had a photographer with us; one of the cartographers was not needed in the lab and came with us. And he also came in handy with the judging of the ring fort sketches! And this time the students were even more on a roll than the day before; after I'd done my 'terrace pitch' several came up to me to discuss the matter more. That's how I like it! It was a great way of starting this fieldwork. Thanks to Ian and the students. And I think that even though I'm a lab rat I pulled it off!

Ireland, finally! The road trip.

I've announced it in who knows how many blog posts. I would make my debut this year as staff on a geographical field trip in western Ireland. And now I am there!

A week before departure I was quite apprehensive. Would I know all I needed to know? Would I manage to bring it all across in a fairly good way? Would my students have the discipline to prepare themselves? But then in that week I read up a bit more, I had my magical session with Roland, and I exchanged some emails with my studetns which were hope-inspiring, and in the last days before departure I was looking quite forward to it.

So first thing was getting there. When we had done the recce, we had flown in. That's the easy way! But too expensive for over a hundred students. So we would travel by coach, and a few minibuses. So on Saturday morning I was rudely awoken at 5.30, got a shower, got my luggage, and biked to university. There I parked my bike in my office, had a final coffee, and went to where we would meet our students. And as soon as we saw a bunch of coaches pull over, we checked if we had them all, and embarked.

Coach 3, my means of transport, proudly parked at campus

All went well. Until we came to a traffic light near Bristol. Where the bus suddenly didn't want to go into first gear. And you can pull up in second gear; I've tried that myself. But it shouldn't be necessary. So only two hours up the road we already lost a coach. Luckily this is taken into account: there's enough space on the others to accommodate refugees from a stranded coach. But it was somewhat of a bad omen...

Coach 3 two hours later

Without further incidents we came to the ferryport though. And onto the ferry. And four hours later also off again. And then we were off again!

Hazy view from the ferry

I had been headhunted by some of the men travelling by minibus, in order to vacate some space in the now a bit more crowded coaches, and together we moved faster and more luxurious to our destination. And we couldn't possibly enjoy the amazing surroundings; it was pitch dark. It was close to midnight when we got there. I randomly picked a hotel room that would turn out to be spiffing, resisted some offers for a pint, and went to bed. The next morning it would get real... Stay tuned for more exciting news!

The view next morning out of my hotel room