Slovenian Karst and Nerdiness

Today we worked hard an played hard.... specifically, we got nerdy about Karst! The term Karst comes from the "Kras" region of Slovenia so we are in the perfect place!

Check out this amazing Karst!

Deep crevasses!

Nick is about 6'3"... he's pretty tall....

Until he jumps into one of the karst gullies

The scenery is lovely too!

View over the Vipava Valley

After the karst, we drove down to the Adriatic Sea to dip our toes in the Mediterranean. Here is the View over Isola, Slovenia towards Italy.

Mussels growing in the harbour!

Piran, Slovenia (an old Venetian city)

I was so proud of my student, after taking in the views, he had to stop and look at the kart pisoids in the boulders!

Tomorrow, we have to get to work cutting rocks. No more nerdy tourism sadly.

Slovenian field work 2016

This week we are in Slovenia collecting rocks for Nick's MSc thesis. It is so very different from Morocco, instead of Tagine, we have pasta and steak, instead of mint tea, beer and espresso, and instead of scorching heat, we have rain.... oh so much rain.

The snails and worms are very happy though!

As are the wildflowers!

There are some beautiful oolites in Slovenia; here is an intraclast-rich oolite!

The one similarity is the age of the limestones (Early Jurassic) and the fact that the scenery is stellar!

Nick and his section's namesake, Kovk town (pronounced "COKE")

Far over the misty mountains....

Trees snapped from a bad winter storm.

Hardground and brachiopods

Side view of the hardground.

I swear my equipment always breaks in Slovenia!

Far in the distance is the Adriatic Sea!

Stunning encrinites, those little star shapes are crinoid ossicles!

Better weather means nicer photos and happier geologists!

This part of Slovenia is very Austrian...

This is the traditional way to dry hay!

Sampling the limestones here is not easy. Nick is a trooper and has an impressive swing with a sledgehammer!

rock chips = cuts

We got stuck behind a logging truck, but watching "the claw" was pretty fun!

Classic karst!

Vipava Valley, many vineyards! :)

Photography in the field

This week we are out in the field checking out Paleocene-Eocene carbonates. We are in Slovenia, with a nice view of the Adriatic Sea!

There are some beautiful large benthic forams, check them out!

And some cute little corals!

And an echinoid!

One of the big problems we are encountering is this stupid fence on the roadcuts (good for safety, but tough for geology)!

My friend Kathleen Ritterbush gave me some great photography advice that has really helped us out this week! I thought I would share it here, in case it will help any other field geologists. Kathleen told me to get a Collapsible Light Reflector, like this one:

This portable piece of photography equipment is awesome, because you can direct light towards a shaded fossil, or block the light if you need your shot to be shaded. With the fence over the roadcuts, the shading disks are a lifesaver! So you can make a shot go from this...

To this...

I am also loving my new camera! It is a Canon Rebel SL1.

It is a digital SLR from Canon (so most of the new (EF) lenses fit on it) but it is as light as a point and shoot (body is 13oz)! While it isn't as rugged as some of the bombproof camera (this is mine, it is also great in the rain/dust/getting dropped/ underwater) it takes amazing photos and is WAY cheaper than a top-tier DSLR. You can compare the specs with a higher end camera like the awesome EOS 6D here. Obviously the 6D is better, but for the money (Sl1 body and standard lenses is about $600 vs $2000) and for the weight (13oz vs 24oz), I like this little Rebel a lot!

TL;DR: Canon Rebel SL1 takes wonderful photos and is light enough to be a field camera, but it isn't "rugged".