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Timor Leste 2010
In July and August of 2010, I participated in a fieldwork in East Timor, that focused on the analysis and reconstruction of the mainly Pliocene arc-continent collision history of the Australian continental plate and the overriding Banda oceanic plate. This project - funded through the National Science Foundation of the USA - was carried out in collaboration with Nadine McQuarrie and Garrett Tate (Princeton University), Ron Harris (Brigham Young University, Utah), MSc student Richard Bakker (Utrecht University), Johnny Suarez (SERN, Timorese geological survey) and we ran into Brendan Duffy in the field, from Canterbury University, New Zealand. This project balances cross-sections across the Timorese fold and thrust belt, determines in detail the uplift history captured in synorogenic deep-marine Pliocene basins, and corrects for vertical axis rotations. In addition, we work on thermochronological analysis of the belt. Below you find an impression of the field trip, and the participants.
The Crew
Nadine McQuarrie, Princeton University, USA
Garrett Tate, Princeton University, USA
Ron Harris, Brigham Young University, USA
Richard Bakker, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Johnny Suarez, SERN, East Timor
And me...
An impression
Ladies, going to the market
Market
Someone though it would be a good idea to climb to the top of this hill (1 km elevation)...4 liter of water turned out not to be enough...
Ron, looking for a needle in a haystack
Garrett sampling amphibolites
Mud from a river that flows into the ocean, spreading out at the apex of the delta
Richard & Garrett, early in the death hike
Getting a little steeper
View from the top
The island of Wetar
Ron, entering a dead-end track
On the way down
There actually was some sort of a track
Permian Crinoids
And the ammonite of a lifetime...
River crossing
Richard, disagreeing with something....
The beach of Dili, the capital of Timor Leste
Right...
Gas station...
Cloud around a hilltop (going up a major normal fault actually)
Great camping spot this was! Sulfur hotsprings and a couple of hundred years old Portugese spa!
Johnny, taking a smelly bath
Ron and Brendan Duffy, waving arms
Spider romance
Frog romance
My kind of romance
Sampling river sections means having 15 kids around you all day...which carry all your stuff! Great help :)
Richard, finding forams
Me, not knowing where to start
Tilted kids?
Richard, and a VERY bright little boy. Kid is 6 years old or so, but he figured out what we were doing, which rocks we wanted to sample, stole my hammer and ran upsection, to find exactly the blue clays we needed...I was seriously impressed.
This one?
Yep, this one :)
Richard, measuring samples
Me, drilling them
Great scenery to work in!
Johnny, Fernando (the driver) and Richard, sampling
Richard, playing in the river
And drilling the river bed
Johnny and Richard working in the river
Graben!
BIG millipod
Nadine and Garrett at the beginning of a rainy day...
Clouds assembling...
...and here we go
Where are we?!?!
Cheerful, but wet lunch
Slippery when whet...
Garrett, giving it a go
Getting better and better...
Don't always follow the paved roads...
Mist. No gorrillaz
Pillow basalts!
Cleto Suarez and I, sampling the Viqueque Type section
Which is a beauty..but walking barefeet through a river with inclined clay layers makes you pretty tired
Playing jumprope :)
Problem...
Fernando, Johnny and I discussing the alternatives
Me, giving it a shot...
Woehoe :) Made it! We actually had to drive back on the same day...the next bridge was gone too. |
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