Pyenson Lab

Talk: Closer Look at National Geographic Society Headquarters

Yesterday, the Pyenson Lab took a field trip a few blocks north of the White House to National Geographic Society's headquarters, here in Washington, D.C. Carolina Gutstein (who is visiting the lab as part of ongoing collaborations) and NDP were invited by the Committee on Research and Exploration to share more about our work in Chile, including some of our recent discoveries from our fieldwork earlier this fall.

We had a great time, and stayed afterwards to do some interviews with their staff. Our contact there managed to snap the photos below on NDP's camera phone during part of the interview, which they did in a dual format. The photos are a bit shaky, but based on the wide smiles below, we were likely sharing a good yarn or two from the field. 

 Left to right: CSG, NDP and NGS videography staff during filming (NDP courtesy of Chris Thornton)

Dispatch 12: Fin

I'm in the final throes of packing for my evening departure from SCL, returning back to the US.  We've done our final accounting, exchanges notes, photos and coordinated schedules for future efforts. Our fieldwork achievements on this phase of our research far outstripped our expectations: we leave Caldera having collected great data, expanded our understanding of the Bahia Inglesa Formation significantly, and formed stronger friendships and collaborations. We also have started training the next generation of South American paleontologists with our student researchers.

I'll update more on future plans in the coming months, so stay tuned.

We wish to gratefully acknowledge the funding sources for this work, which includes the National Geographic Society's Committee on Research and Exploration and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.

 

Core members of the Proyecto Paleontologico Caldera (PPC) 2011 field season. Left to right: CS Gutstein; D. Rubilar-Rogers; JF Parham; C Carreño Chavarria; J Le Roux; and ME Suarez. (Not pictured is NDP, who took the photo, and the many students who participated as well). 

 

Dispatch 11: More random shots

CSG and Catalina (who quickly earned the handle Catalingles) react to an erudite joke from NDP, while we wait for empanadas on the last day in Caldera. I can't recommend this empanada place enough, and I'm sad to have only discovered horno carne just as we were leaving. Empanadas in the traditional Chilean style are clearly the way to go for fieldwork. I wonder if they'll sponsor us. (Photo JF Parham)

A fairly typical breakfast scene: laptops, fieldnotes, photo SD cards, receipts, and empty coffee cups. We had a mobile WiFi unit with us (it allowed us to post these updates!); having consistent WiFi  also allowed us to indulge in massive Google Earth usage. The TP is for wrapping delicate fossil specimens. (Photo CSG)

The beach town of Puerto Viejo, ~30 km south of Caldera. We were refused service at its only empanada place. That wasn't much fun, but our palta y palmito (avocado and palm heart) lunch out of the back of the trucks overlooking outcrop was way better. (Photo NDP)

Jim fulfilling his life mission as a naturalist, moments after we team-caught a Liolaemus specimen (a South American iguanid lizard). When you're an integrative biologist, fossil and modern reptiles are just one, long fun continuum. (Photo NDP)

 

Ah, the gas station in downtown Caldera. We had three field trucks to tank up on a semi-regular basis: Geisha (in red); the Dimax (in white); and Mario's new, as-of-yet-unnamed truck (obscured in the far background). Yes, the station attendants look like racecar drivers. (Photo JF Parham)

Dispatch 10: Students in the field

Besides traveling and discovering the geologic past, one of the most satisfying aspects of our fieldwork here in Chile has been working with students. One of Jacobus' students, Catalina Carreño Chavarria, has been working on the stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Bahia Inglesa Formation, and her insights have really helped solidify the geological context of our work. Carolina has also brought along several of her students, including Yury, Ana Margarita Valenzuela Toro and Constanza-Paz Figueroa-Bravo. In the field, this bevy of students has brought a level of enthusiasm and excitement to our work. In some cases we have divided and conquered by splitting up with different teams of students doing different kinds of work. In other cases, we have had great moments of students teaching other students. 

Catalina, a geology student at Universidad de Chile, measuring section. This was one of those rare moments when we caught Cata with her head up; she was otherwise usually head down, absorbed in her work. (Photo NDP)

 

Carolina, in the middle, along with students, Anita and Constanza, both from Universidad de Chile, at CSG's dolphin skeleton site. Here they are learning the art of jacketing a block of rock containing a fossil in plaster and bandages. (Photo NDP)

Anita poses next to a protected geological site north of Caldera with orbicular granite. Such rocks are extremely rare (only a handful of localities in the world are known); the unique, eye-like structures are formed during the genesis of the granite while it is still molten rock (magma), deep below the earth's surface. (Photo CSG)

Constanza holds the skull of a fossil "river dolphin," likely a relative of today's La Plata river dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei), from a site of the Bahia Inglesa Formation. Carolina has worked extensively on such fossils from this area (see her 2009 publication on variation in Brachydelphis). At the Museo Paleontologico Caldera, Coni and Anita have been helping Carolina and Mario to make standardized, digital images of fossil dolphin material from MPC's collections. (Photo JF Parham)

 

Yury and Mario, doing the compardritos pose, atop the orbicular granite. Yury is working on his Master's degree at Universidad de Chile, focusing on the evolution and bony history of fossil penguins. He is golden in the field, both with collecting data and organizing logistics. He shares a special bond with Mario's truck, Geisha. (Photo JF Parham)

Dispatch 9: Desert in bloom

While driving from Caldera to La Serena, on the long road back to Santiago, we came across a most marvelous sight: the Atacama, after an unusually wet winter (ENSO-driven), is in bloom. We saw glimpses of this color as we were heading north, on the way to Caldera, but the extent yesterday was truly spectacular.

One photo doesn't quite do it justice. (Photo JF Parham)

 

(Photo JF Parham)

 

(Photo JF Parham)

Dispatch 8: Random shots

A collection of Pliocene age dolphin ear bones, in CSG's hands, for scale. Dolphin ear bones, also called periotics, are among the densest biological tissue, which increases their presevational potential in the fossil record. They are also very informative, from an anatomical standpoint, and they are very diagnostic to specific genera of dolphins. We think that this collection of ear bones represents several living genera of dolphins belonging to the group called Delphinidae. All of these periotics were collected all from one area ~the size of hockey rink. (Photo NDP)

 

A tarsometatarsus of a fossil penguin at the moment of discovery. This is the first penguin bone that I've ever found, and it's a nice one. According to Roberto Yury, it belongs to Pygoscelis grandis, an extinct relative of today's Antarctic penguin. "Antarctic penguins in the Atacama -- pretty cool," as Yury said to me. This was a pretty fun find. (Photo NDP)

 

This is what happens when you pack field gear into your Nalgene, and then forget to check the Nalgene before filling it with water for the day. Jim called this "knife tea." Everyone laughed except for me. (Photo JF Parham)

 

This is Geisha, Mario Suarez's truck and official MPC field vehicle. The etymology of the truck's common name derives from its previous owner, a local of Caldera. We don't know much more beyond that. But it is a great, grinder of a field truck. I love the geological hammer pulling out a perfect lamnid shark. She did get stuck in the sand, though. (Photo JF Parham)

Dispatch 7: Walking outcrop, measuring section

One of the major reasons we've assembled a group of sedimentologists and paleontologists is to better understand the succession of rock sequences in the general vicinity of Caldera. If you scope out a Google maps/Earth image of the area, you can see multiple adjacent basins that are full of marine sediments. Some of these basins have ashes (great for radiometric dating), others not; some also have diatomites, which are compact and (usually) easily identifyable layers that can be important for biostratigraphic correlation.

Ultimately, we're interested in establishing a robust stratigraphic framework of the rocks that make up the Bahia Inglesa Formation, so that we can better know the origin of familiar members from today's Humboldt Current (e.g., sea turtles, sharks, dolphins, penguins), as well as the extinction of bizarre ones (e.g., walrus-convergent dolphins and aquatic sloths). 

This aspect of work is fairly cerebral (as opposed to sheer brawn of an excavation) -- you're constantly checking your assumptions and interpretations against the rocks before your eyes. Here are some snaps of our work:

 

NDP, pointing to large rip up clasts within an immense conglomerate near the base of the Bahia Inglesa Formation. It is thought that the conglomerate represents a sudden and rapid flow of debris in a submarine canyon-like environment, possibly generated by a tsunami. (Photo JF Parham)

 

 The group continues to measure the thickness of the rocks above the conglomerate from the first photo, along the seacliffs near Los Chorillos, a site south of Caldera. The general geomorphology of this sequence looks strikingly similar to the Pacific coast of South America elsewhere, most notably in Peru. (Photo JF Parham)

 

 Now inland from the coast, the group continues to discuss how to interpret the sandstones and siltstones that form the Bahia Inglesa Formation. Left to right, Rubilar-Rogers; Le Roux; NDP; CSG. (Photo JF Parham)

 

 

 Here the group sits to directly at the Bahia Inglesa Formation's so-called bonebed. Our preliminary work has led us to conclude that there's actually several bone-bearing horizons in the area, some of which are associated with hard, resistant, and phosphatized surfaces called hardgrounds. Such surfaces may represent a prolonged period when only large objects, like the bones of dead seabirds, fish, sharks and marine mammals were deposited on the seafloor, with no overlying sediment covering them. Our work focuses on correlating these hardgrounds at one exposure to another, over a large geographic expanse. (Photo JF Parham)

 

 

We work from sunrise to sunset, trying to maximize our daylight hours. We've been lucky in having mild to chilly mornings and early evenings, bookending sunny midday hours. You can get away with long sleeves this time of the year, but be sure and drink lots of water because it is dry.

It is the Atacama, after all. (Photo JF Parham)

Dispatch 6: Vignettes of team members, part 2

Mario E. Suarez, curator and director of the Museo Paleontologica Caldera. Also a Co-PI on the National Geographic project, Mario has worked and published extensively on the fossil marine vertebrate assemblages throughout this area of Chile, which provides much of the framework for our research. It is also very surprising that Mario is wearing a baseball cap instead of a cowboy hat in this picture, but we'll let it slide this time; he is mid-sentence here, telling us about the fossil sharks from the Bahia Inglesa Formation. It looks cold, but the weather is actually really nice in the Atacama, at the moment (Photo NDP).

David Rubilar-Rogers is chief of the paleontology division at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago, Chile. In 2010, David co-described the gigantic Pelagornis chilensis from the Bahia Inglesa Formation. Also a Co-PI on our project, David also helps to coordinate activities with the MNHN in Santiago. Here, he is in the field today with the tarsometatarsus of Pygoscelis grandis, an extinct relative of the Antarctic penguin. (Photo NDP)

Dispatch 5: Vignettes of team members, part 1

We are in Caldera now, and I am seriously backlogged on posts. We've spent some long days in the field, measuring sections and collecting extensively -- I will post more about that very soon. But, for the moment, I want to share some photos of our team members. See captions for more details.  

Jacobus Le Roux, professor of geology at Universidad de Chile, explains the interpretation of a depositional environment at the base of the Bahia Inglesa Formation. Jacobus is a sedimentologist, with extensive experience in South America. Originally from South Africa, Jacobus has done geologic fieldwork around the world, including Antarctica. Jacobus is also a Co-PI on the National Geographic project. Note the helical burrows in rocks of the background; we're still not sure what organism made those. (Photo NDP)

Carolina Gutstein, moments after she discovered a Pliocene dolphin skeleton. She is holding part of the dolphin's ear bones in her hands. CSG is a Research Student at NMNH and a Ph.D. candidate at the Universidad de Chile, completing her dissertation on the morphological evolution of "river dolphins" in South America. Born and raised in Brazil, she is a Co-PI on the project, and she done the lion's share of the field logistics. (Photo NDP)

  

Jim Parham, curator of paleontology at the University of Alabama Museum of Natural History, logs GPS waypoints for field collections in the Bahia Inglesa Formation; Jacobus and his student Catalina stand in the background, atop a small hill (loma). Jim is a specialist in the evolution and biodiversity of reptiles, especially turtles. Jim and NDP met originally in graduate school at UC Berkeley; Jim also introduced NDP to Sharktooth Hill and the wonders of paleontology in California. Together, they recent published a paper describing a new fossil sea turtle from Peru. We'll be hearing more about fossil sea turtles from the Bahia Inglesa Formation. (Photo NDP).

More about other team members soon.