Salzkammergut

So my students and I spent the last week in Erlangen, Germany, hanging out with my colleague Wolfgang Kiessling and talking about reefs and statistics. While this week was scientifically exciting, There aren't too many exciting stories or photos to go along with it. Regardless, you should check out Wolfgang's AMAZING reef database, the PaleoReefs Database (or PARED).

http://www.paleo-reefs.pal.uni-erlangen.de/

Enter the weekend.... On Friday we were in Erlangen and today we are in Slovenia. On the way we drove through the Alps and stayed for one night in my old stomping grounds -- the Salzkammergut region of Austria.

First we stopped at the Adnet quarries. My favorite quarry cuts right through a late Triassic coral reef!

 Even the floor of the quarry is awesome! All those little dark spots are coral branches.

It is truly amazing how much you can see; all the little white flecks in the red are corals (or sponges, or shells, but mostly corals)!

Just look at that wall!

 My student, Anna, for scale...

Such gorgeous slabs!

One of the other quarries has an awesome Triassic-Jurassic boundary section. Well... the section doesn't have a great paleo record for the boundary (since there is a time gap), but it sure is clear where the boundary is!

After Adnet, we decided to try Hallstat again.... there was still some rain, but this time the weather got better! So up to the top we went!

Wet down in the valley....

and at the top...

Just hanging out on the cantilever lookout!

No, YOU'RE great Salt dude!

Clearing out....

 Wet but having fun!

Time for a rainbow!

This town is so gorgeous!

On Sunday we woke up to sun (YAY!)

Time for a hike around Gosausee (Gosau Lake)

Looking back at the Chalet.

So much glacial runoff!

Contemplating that nice glacier!

Don't fall in climbers!

Just like Corben Dallas, this area is SUPA GREEN!

After our hike we drove to Slovenia.... so much rock!

 More on Slovenia next time!

Museums of Vienna

Hello out there! This post marks the start of ~6 weeks of travel for me, visiting museums in Europe and doing field work with my students. As much as I love this part of the job things can get extremely busy, especially when trying to keep up with emails/demands from home. Nevertheless, I will try to blog every so often when I have something fun. And that, I have!

Last week my student Chiara and I visited Vienna (Wien), Austria! We looked at some beautiful corals at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien and the Geologisches Bundesanstalt Museum and also toured around a bit for fun.

Here are some of the lovely corals we saw....

Phlocophylia caliculata

Stylocoenia taurinensis close up

Thamnastrea rectilamellosa corallites look like the spiderman symbol

Distichophyllia norica

Retiophyllia norica

A lost specimen... 

I think it is a Triassic Palaeastraea cyathophylloides

Once we had what we needed from the collections we perused the rest of the two museums.

 And had some Sachertorte...

 Beautiful ammonites from Canada

Some amazingly huge ooids (pisoids)

More Triassic corals

Jurassic horseshoe crabs from the Solenhofen

Solenhofen Squids

We also saw a little of Vienna

Over the weekend we visited a few sites (and got wet), then did some more sightseeing in the Alps (and got wet).

Wet corals 

Cold and wet, but there is Apfel Strudel!