This week has been relatively slow -- there are still permit issues, and Jorge has had a number of meetings/conference calls, so we haven't been spending a ton of time in the field. Still, we've managed to do a bit of field work and have ended up having a pretty varied week, which I'm all for since it helps the time pass a little faster.

Mangoes from Corozal.

On Monday we went to the off-site fossil storage building in Corozal to do more sediment screen washing. This is something I've done before and basically just involves playing with mud for a few hours, so I was excited from the moment I learned we'd be going. For the past few weeks we've had bags full of rocks sitting around in the lab prep room that we brought back with us from Hodges Microsite (Cucaracha Formation, ~20 million years old) and Jorge decided it was well time we took care of them. It was a perfect day for doing it too:  bright and sunny, which would have meant hell working on the canal, but on the shaded patio of our storage building with regular spray from the hose we used and a fully air-conditioned building at our disposal, we couldn't have been more comfortable.

The screening process itself.

Of the two steps involved in screen washing, the first is by far the easier and more enjoyable. You just empty your bag of rocks into a pail, cover with water and add a scoop of detergent, and start mixing with your hands. Most of the rocks (which, from Hodges, were all sandstones) go to mush on their own or with the slightest squeeze, so the job basically boils down to going after the few resistant rocks in the group while creating a slurry out of the whole so that it will (hopefully) go through the screens easily. Really, it's like hanging out chatting with your coworkers, while you just so happen to be elbow-deep in mud. The second step, though, is where things can get frustrating. There are three layers of screens, stacked on top of one another from finest at the bottom to coarsest at the top. Just about everything passes through the coarse screen, but in layer two things tend to get clogged up and can start overflowing. It takes a lot of patience with the hose running constantly and your hands trying to push the fine grains through; for the first few minutes it almost always feels like nothing is happening at all, but once things get going it's down hill from there. The screening process takes a while, but it's all worth it because only one person can do it at a time! So when it wasn't my turn on the screens at I was free to do whatever I wanted, and it just so happened that the yard behind our building was covered in mango trees with PLENTY of ripe mangoes! While one of us worked, the rest went around from tree to tree inspecting the fruit that had fallen to the ground and boosting each other up to reach the yellow/orange/red mangoes still attached to the branches. By the end of the day we had washed six bags of sediment and collected a few dozen mangoes -- a highly successful Monday!

On Tuesday we returned to Pina, with the intent to do more exploring and prospecting than we had been in the past few visits. Somehow we ended up walking a completely new section of beach, which amazed me, considering how many times we've been there by now. And there was plenty to find on this new stretch! Right off the bat Sam spotted a thumbnail-sized shark tooth ripe for the collecting, and things just got better from there. I found this one particular sandy bank that had a rib bone, a vertebra, a piece of turtle carapace, and more shark teeth than I ever would have believed! Granted, they were cookiecutter shark teeth, each no larger accross than a pencil eraser, but the sheer quantity more than made up for how small they were. They were quite literally falling out of the sandstone to the point that i couldn't look at any given spot without seeing one or rest my hand without setting one loose. It was really cool, and yet another reason to make me love Pina! I also learned that day that sea slugs are really bad at dealing with low tide -- I found two stranded on the beach and quickly heating/drying and another that was in less than an inch of water and struggling to follow the water out. Of course, I couldn't help but to put them into some safe tidepools, but for the two that were already starting to dry out I think survival chances were pretty slim. The one that was still in the water when I found it inked at me when I picked him up, which I had no clue slugs could do, so I think he ended up just fine.

Small rib I found on the beach.

Some kind of billfish skull -- we'll be
coming back for it!

Thursday marked our return to the canal zone, and it should be permanent this time! It's too bad that "permanent" will only last for three weeks until we go home (so soon!), but what can you do. Neither Thursday or Friday were particularly exciting as far as discoveries go, although I think Nicole found a complete molar at one of the sites. There's been a fair amount of rain since we last worked near the canal, so we're hopeful that as we tour the different localities we'll happen upon some newly-exposed major discoveries.