St Barthelémy & La Désirade 2018
In January and February 2018, I conducted a fieldwork in the NE Caribbean region, on the islands of St. Barthélémy and La Désirade. The St Barth trip focused on vertical axis rotations measured through paleomagnetic research in context of the French GAARANTI project of Mélody Philippon of the University of the Antilles at Guadeloupe and her coworkers from among others Montpellier, and the Désirade trip was done in context of the PhD work of Lydian Boschman, aiming to obtain a Jurassic paleopole of back-arc basin rocks of the island that will help to improve Panthalassa plate reconstructions. Below an impression of the trip!
Mélody Philippon, Assistant Professor at the Université des Antilles, Guadeloupe
Lydian Boschman, PhD student at Utrecht University
Jean-Jacques Cornee, Professor at the University of Montpellier, France
…and me
The trip started with a bumpy flight from Guadeloupe to the tiny airfield of St Barthelémy…
Fieldwork in the Caribbean is not exactly a punishment…view from sampling site
Lydian and I, sampling
View on the volcanoes of St Kitts and Nevis
Lydian and Mélo, discussing strategy
Me, drilling holes in paradise
Mélo and me, collecting cores
Orienting samples
Mélo, taking measurements
Me, amusing myself with my drill
Our ride to nearby island Île Fourchue!
Île Fourchue, a small, deserted island with Eocene volcanics that we sampled
Pirate ship, on their way to raid our zodiac
View on St Barth from île Fourchue
Funny sampling sites 1: on a trashheap
Funny sampling sites 2: on a building site of a multimillion dollar villa
Funny sampling sites 3: On somebody’s driveway
Funny sampling sites 4: On a cliff with the most awesome view of St. Barth
…this view!
Me, working on the beach
Jean-Jacques, hunting for fossils
Lydian, drilling
Mélo, giving an interview to a local rock ‘n roll station
Goodbye St Barth, I hope to return!
In the small plane back to Guadeloupe
Lydian, sitting on the famous Jurassic pillow basalts of La Désirade
Me, standing in front of a dyke cutting the Désirade pillow basalts
Jean-Jacques and Lydian, orienting submarine drill cores…
The Dutch tend to enjoy their dykes
Some nice Caribbean wildlife…fishing birds
Hermite crabs
Iguana!
Nice little spider
Tortoises
…and finally, a blue full moon, hidden behind coconuts 🙂
Wonderful and interesting!