Yesterday, the last day our visitors spent with us, we worked directly underneath the Centenario Bridge in another Cucaracha Formation site (~20 million years old). It was a particularly important day for finding something interesting because we had a writer from the journal Science accompanying us - naturally, we wanted to impress him. Centenario is another quarrying site, where we dig pits at various fossil-rich contacts and hope that something interesting comes out. I lucked out and got to begin my day working at one of the quarries that was directly underneath the bridge's shadow. It's hard to say exactly how much cooler it was under there, but with the breeze and the lack of direct sunlight I can say with absolute certainty that it was damn comfortable. Unlike every other field experience I've had here so far, I wasn't sweating just from the effort of lifting my rock hammer. If I'd been able to, I would have followed that shadow for the entire day, working only under the protection it provided; sadly, the productive sights were concentrated northwest of the bridge, so I could only enjoy the lowered temperature for the early part of the morning. My particular pit proved less productive than I would have hoped, and by about noon I had found little more than a few broken turtle fossils.
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| View from the hill. |
At just around noon I went on a tour of the canal sites (all of which I've described in previous posts) with Aaron, the writer, and the other interns. We showed him all of the places where we'd found the most interesting specimens and even did a bit of surface prospecting just for fun, resulting in the discovery of a couple shark teeth. The writer seemed pretty pleased with the day, so hopefully his article will reflect positively on the project and our part in it. Before leaving the canal expansion zone for the day, we took a road up to the highest point in the work site, a hill right next to the canal. There were some incredible views up there, particularly of the bridge towering over our site. It would have been a great place to have eaten lunch, or to have spent the entire day, for that matter.
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| Creepy "archaeological" discovery made near our work site. |
In the evening, after returning from the field and cleaning up, we went to dinner in Casco Viejo (Panama's old town) to send off the field trip group in true style. The restaurant, called Diablicos, served up traditional Panamanian fare (which for me meant very few choices, but I didn't mind) and featured live dancers and a band playing musica tipico. The show was very fun to watch, and included dances with flowing skirts, torches, and devils. Plus they had some killer cocktails, including the coctel diablico, made from sugar cane juice, lemon, and rum - very delicious Most of the dishes ordered included rice and beans and a salad made of potatoes and beets (supposedly very traditional), accompanied by large servings of meat or fish. Myself and the one other vegetarian in the group ordered a plate of ravioli topped with a sauce based in roasted sweet plantains and honey. The sauce was incredible and different from anything I've ever had, but the pasta itself was exceedingly bland, which brought the whole thing down. Still, everyone else seemed to enjoy what they had ordered, and the entertainment was A+, so I didn't let the noodles get me down.
It was a bit sad to see the field trip group go. I had gotten to know a few of them pretty well over the past week and they would have made great coworkers/interns/housemates. It can be hard at times being around the same five people 24/7 (all of whom I had never spent a moment around just two months ago) so it was nice to have the others here to mix things up.
Yesterday, the last day our visitors spent with us, we worked directly underneath the Centenario Bridge in another Cucaracha Formation site (~20 million years old). It was a particularly important day for finding something interesting because we had a writer from the journal Science accompanying us - naturally, we wanted to impress him. Centenario is another quarrying site, where we dig pits at various fossil-rich contacts and hope that something interesting comes out. I lucked out and got to begin my day working at one of the quarries that was directly underneath the bridge's shadow. It's hard to say exactly how much cooler it was under there, but with the breeze and the lack of direct sunlight I can say with absolute certainty that it was damn comfortable. Unlike every other field experience I've had here so far, I wasn't sweating just from the effort of lifting my rock hammer. If I'd been able to, I would have followed that shadow for the entire day, working only under the protection it provided; sadly, the productive sights were concentrated northwest of the bridge, so I could only enjoy the lowered temperature for the early part of the morning. My particular pit proved less productive than I would have hoped, and by about noon I had found little more than a few broken turtle fossils.
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