090521

This blog must be starting to feel neglected. This weekend, as with so many recent weekends, I am working hard to catch up with various tasks, many of them self-imposed. I am working on a paleontology/sedimentology project with two other people, a study of a small carbonate buildup in North Alabama, which is more than 300 million years old. One of us, not me, plans to point count a large number of thin sections. Point counting is when you use a grid to randomly select points on a surface. At each place where the lines cross you identify what's there, and the result is a tabulation indicating which things are common and which others are less common or absent. Well, Doug can't count points unless he knows what he's looking at. We have been working on a dictionary, so to speak, of what he might find. One of the fossils in this rock is a microscopic alga (?). There may be several different species represented, and I have spent the last few days measuring, counting, and examining specimens of this critter so that we can define what we should call these little guys when they show up in the crosshairs. I think it's a lot of fun to figure this stuff out, but the early stages, lots and lots of measuring and counting, require loud rock music so that I can stay focused. Bands like Mott the Hoople and the Velvet Underground are particularly useful for this purpose. I will show you guys some pictures later, in case you are interested, once I figure out what's going on.