morocco 2017 (part 2)

So I was initially not going to talk much about actual geology stuff but was advised that I was being silly as actually, who wouldn't find geology interesting! I also need to point out that I tried to grow a beard and you might see it in some of the photos. Please forgive me, I looked like a complete hobo!

For me, Morocco is something new. For a start due to the completely different character of the geology in the first place. For example, some of the limestones (rocks formed in shallow water environments) are the exact same age as those that I observed in Spain however, as they were created in totally different ways, they have none of the same fossils etc present. The Atlas Mountains are also not typical of mountain ranges. Most people will probably remember from GCSE Geography (or GCSE Geology if you were lucky) that mountains form when two bits of continent collide into each other and them upwards. That does not happen here, in summary they are basically being pushed up and being kept there by hot mantle flowing underneath down from a large 'mantle plume' underneath the Canary Islands.

I have added some photos to my albums and you will see that most things appear brown. These are various types of mudstones and sandstones and conglomerates. The lack of vegetation was due to the fact that we were on the drier side of the mountains that has less exposure to the sun. This was hard to believe as my lips cracked within about half a day and despite covering myself in suncream, my nose was a vibrant red colour throughout. The area was also covered in evaporites such as gypsum (sediments chemically precipitated due to evaporation of an aqueous solution). It is always a funny sight watching geology students licking rock faces to see what time of evaporite you have (e.g. halite tastes very strong). I even managed to pick myself out a nice pink gypsum for my collection.

During out trip there, we were looked after by Moha and his team of drivers. He is a good guy who made the whole trip very easy so I have to add a cheeky plug for him and you can see his website here. I have to add though, that one of his drivers did like to put his foot down and due to the terrain in Morocco, the roads are quite curvy. Doing 120 knots around these bends whilst at the back of the mini bus was not a pleasant feeling and the subsequent g-force (yes, it felt that way to me) meant I had to steal a front seat for the long journey home or risk vomiting over everything.

Some of the highlights then. Firstly and most importantly came on the last day of fieldwork when our professor (Charlie Bristow) took us on a secret trek to see something secret. Luckily I also study palaeoecology at uni and the lecturer there told me that we would go and see some relatively newly discovered dinosaur footprints. As you can imagine, I was in complete 10 year old mode as seeing actual dinosaur stuff in 'real life' as opposed to a museum was a completely surreal experience for me and one of the main reasons I got into Earth Sciences in the first place. A few kilometres walk up a dried riverbed and through a hive of bees (one of which stung a friend of mine - I laughed and carried on - dinosaurs much more important than helping with stings and risk getting attacked too) and there they were.

There were two locations, at the first was 2 or 3 sets (hard to distinguish) of adult prosauropod footprints. One of my friends was able to fit his head in the space. At the second, there were 3 sets of adults and one set of juvenile prints in between. I held back a little wee and just imagine these huge pre-cursers to the even larger sauropods walking around in herds. What a great day (not even the threat of bee stings on the way back bothered me).

Another highlight had to be (most of) the food. Mornings consisted of bread, pancakes and fruit etc. Lunch times consisted of tinned fish, bread, olives, fruit and veg etc except for one day when we had these vegetable naan breads. The only way that I can describe these accurately is by saying that I could not physically eat anymore and had no pockets to take more. It was absolutely amazing food! Every evening meal was a Tagine. As a rule, I don't like meat off the bone and most of the Tagines were lamb, chicken or beef that was on the bone. Luckily, the starter was a really good traditional soup (don't ask what was in it) made even better with hot sauce. One Tagine however consisted of meatballs and egg, it was just the best. Overall, it was a good detox which unfortunately had to be ruined by a KFC upon my return to the UK.

I think this is all I have to say other than this was my very last bit of geological fieldwork as from September I start a different type of masters degree that will see me do different sorts of fieldwork. I'll always have my geology routes though and I do look forward to the alumni field trips that my university do.

morocco 2017 (part 1)

It has been a little while since I wrote my blog, mainly due to the fact that I have been busy trying to complete my Map and Thesis (dissertation for geology students) and other assignments.

Every Easter I have to go on to an assessed field techniques class. The first was in the Isle of Skye (Scotland), the second was in Scourie (Scotland) and the third was to Morocco. Unfortunately, I could have done with the training we got whilst in Morocco for Spain as it was geared for to the advanced level fieldwork required to complete the Map and Thesis. No worries though, learning via shear panic is always more helpful in the long term...

Morocco started off as most of my travels do, with delays and frustrations at the airport. After finally changing planes due to technical reasons we shot off to Marrakesh and from there a 6 hour journey through the Atlas Mountains to a place called Ouarzazate. Here we stayed in an ok hotel just to break the journey up to the place we actually needed to be, a place called Bou Tharar. This was a small village in the middle of nowhere but with fascinating geology, of course this had to be the place where we did our first bit of assessed work. This training ground would have been useful before going on my trip to Spain but hey ho. I won't talk much about the geology but the area was beautiful (some photos here) and had children everywhere. We were warned early on about the kids asking for 'stilo' or pens but nobody was prepared for the swarms of kids that seemed to come out of nowhere. Despite being told not too, I could not help but give a pencil to this one kid who followed me around for most of the morning, didn't beg and, along with a few others, was interested in what I was doing. They wanted to look through my hand lens and read my book which was actually really cute. Anyway, when I gave him the pen (thinking there was only 3 kids here) another few climbed from out of this ditch and came running over. It was weird and the pens had to go away.

I normally would not like to be rude about hotels and stuff but when we first walked into this hotel, in the downstairs dining area, there was a squatting toilet. As you can imagine, the first thing that I needed to do was check the toilet in the room and to my relief, it was a normal toilet. I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't mind roughing it, but squatting toilets is a no no.

From Bou Tharar, we moved into the Dades Valley for a bit more hiking and a sedimentary log assessment (one of the most boring bits of field work). The hotel in Dades was much nicer and with a pool, a freezing cold pool. Food was not as nice mind. Some more geo touring and writing notes about all the interesting regional scale geology that was taking place in Morocco followed up until ready to travel back to Marrakesh.

The journey back was not as painful as I first though, only 7 hours and the hotel at the end was a nice 4 star hotel. I won't talk much about it here as will write a part 2 with all the good highlights etc.