Reefs of the Dominican Republic- Part 1

Hello all. Happy New Year! For the first post of 2017, I wanted to share a blog post that should have been up 6 months ago (oops.... things have been very busy). But since it is the dead of winter for some of you, I thought this may help you forget the snowy weather outside (or not if you live south of ~45N).

Reefs of the Dominican Republic- Part 1 (should have been posted in July 2016)
The past two weeks have been awesome, I have been working in the Dominican Republic, looking at the modern and ancient reefs of Hispaniola. The DR is stunningly beautiful and the people are very friendly! This post contains the first part of the research trip, the "modern" reefs

Sunrise...

First Day on the island, this is my awesome field assistant (and also my husband)

The Dominican Repulbic has some amazing beaches, I prefer the ones that are a little more off the beaten path... Paradise!

Even the tiles have coral reefs in them!

Pleistocene coral reefs make for beautiful building stone!

Our first task was to look at modern reefs and collect some corals. I love snorkelling, and the reefs here are stunning!

Urchins hanging out on some beachrock.

I do love my job!

But even on this beach there are some lovely Pleistocene rocks!

No snorkel gear needed!

Modern next to Ancient!

Corals, snails, and bivalves all cemented together!

Check out the next post for Part #2 of the field trip!

Fossils around Austin

This past weekend we went fossil hunting with UT Professor Emeritus Jim Sprinkle! We visited several spots with outcrops of the Cretaceous Austin Chalk (although this was the most picturesque)

Jim was awesome, he really knows his local fossils!

We were all hunting for the best specimens!

Check out the spoils!

A beautiful oyster with original coloration, this is Exogyra tigris (tiger striped Exogyra)!

Another oyster bored by sponges (Exogyra ponderosa)

Some weird and wonderful serpulid worm burrows!

A host of steinkerns, casts, and molds (brachiopod on left, gastropods on right)!




The echinoids were my favorite though, I never find these in the field! Here's a very pretty regular echinoid (Salenia texana)

And a big beefy irregular echinoid (Heteraster obliquatus)

Oh, and a wee little shark tooth!