UCMP's Cindy Looy is leading a project to collect 130,000 years worth of sediment data from Clear Lake in order to better understand how life has adapted to climate change. Along the way, members of her team will report back to us with all the progress and drama from the field. Here's our first set of dispatches.

Assembling the barge

From Ivo Duijnstee:

Thu, April 26

First mud
It has begun. Except for some minor delays, the Clear Lake drilling expedition had a relatively smooth start. When our seven-headed UC Berkeley team arrived on site in Lakeport California, six members of the not-for-profit drilling company DOSECC had already assembled the large drilling barge to the point that it was almost good to go. Not much later, three sediment core curators of the National Lacustrine Core Facility (LacCore) arrived; completing the drill team in charge of the first days of this enterprise.

Fri, April 27

Today, a boat pushed the barge to its first drilling position in the southeastern part of the northern branch of the lake. This is in a part of the lake with a thick continuous sediment package. The deeper layers date back at least to the warm part of the previous interglacial (~130,000 years ago), a period we are very much interested in, as it may provide an analog for the current climate change in California.

Sat, April 28

From our Rocky Point base camp on the other side of the water, we can barely make out the barge’s position, as the sizeable drilling barge is reduced to a mere speck on the horizon. The inconspicuousness changes dramatically when night falls and the needle in the haystack turns into a beacon of light, as soon as the flood lights on the barge are switched on.

Tonight, the night crew (on the barge everyone works in two 12-hour shifts) made their way to the barge in the former county fire boat. This boat was made available for the crews’ semidiurnal commute by our collaborators of the Lake County Water Resources Department. Around 11PM, word reached base camp that the DOSECC drillers hoisted the first sediment core up on deck.

The barge has been moved out to the drill site.

Sun, April 29

This morning the night crew brought the uppermost 28 meter (93 ft) of sediment cores ashore, so the Holocene is taken care of. Let’s dig deeper into the Pleistocene!

Cindy Looy with the first core sample.

We have some cores!

So far, things are going smoothly on the drill platform. The day crew is off to their 12 hour shift, and the night crew is heading to bed. At the house in Rocky Point — our base camp — we are starting our pile of sediment-filled transparent tubes in the garage.

Mon, April 30

It’s media day!

Almost all day, camera crews, radio journalists, newspaper photographers and reporters were buzzing around, interviewing UCB/UCMP’s Cindy Looy and Liam Reidy, DOSECC Director of Operations Chris Delahunty and LacCore scientist Ryan O’Grady as they made visits to our floating drill site. We’ve had so much attention already, and the UCB press release is yet to come!

Chris Delahunty being interviewed for KQED radio.

The timing of the media is perfect: just like the weather, everyone in the team is in a sunny mood since the team has reached a greater depth than the USGS did at the same location during its 1973 Clear Lake drilling program. That means that the teams first target (115 m, or 377 ft) has been reached, and there is more to come.

Gravel.

At about 140 m (460 ft) into the sediment, it’s over with the monotonously greenish grey playdough that has filled the plastic core linings so far. In the dark, the night crew has struck gravel, making it impossible to get anything out of the lake bed. Fortunately, the drillers have some tricks up their coverall sleeves. For now they are mixing a special kind of mud that the day shift will use to get through the gravel layer. They will pump the muddy mixture into the borehole so that the gaps between the chunks of gravel will be filled with sticky goo; enabling the drillers to get the loose gravel out.

Tue, May 1

Alas, despite the fact the DOSECC team successfully crossed the gravel layer, things are not going well. Beyond the gravel layer there is sand and more gravel. Now things are going this slow, we decide that it is better to stop drilling at this site, and get started on a second hole nearby. As the two drillers prepare the drilling equipment for the move to the next hole, the scientific part of the night shift gets to spend an unexpected night in the house, where it is warm and couches are comfy... perhaps a bit to comfy when you are trying to stick to the nocturnal routine of the graveyard shift...

Renske with an armload of cores.

Wed, May 2

*S*  hifts are 12 hours long and days start incredibly early

*C*  ores are covered in mud and so are we

*I*  ncessant noise of the generators, shrouding the barge in heavy diesel fumes

*E*  very day starts at 5.45am

*N*  o matter what happens, the entire crew is always in great spirits

*C*  lear Lake is a neat location and the weather is close to perfect

*E*  asily one of the coolest projects I have ever been part of!

See more text, audio, and video coverage of the Clear Lake drilling project here.

Cal Day is the one day of the year when lucky members of the public can tour UCMP's collection. But this year, on the night before Cal Day, UCMP hosted a special event to take some of our closest friends behind the scenes.

Excitement is in the air. Also, a T. rex tail!

This invitation-only event included sneak previews of Cal Day exhibits, tours of the collection, the paleo art of William Gordan Huff, and fossils recovered during the construction of the Caldecott Tunnel's fourth bore.

UCMP-affiliated faculty curators, scientists, students, and educators were on hand to present a night that our guests won't soon forget. After some mingling and introductory remarks from Director Charles Marshall our visitors were whisked into the collection to enjoy a glimpse of the exciting work happening at UCMP.

Charles in action.

Ken Finger serves up some local fossils, fresh from the Caldecott Tunnel site.

Renske Kirchholtes and Robert Stevenson explain the story of Metasequioa to our guests.

Theresa Grieco showed off monkey fossils and talked about her upcoming trip to Olduvai Gorge (photo by Silvia Spiva).

Pat Holroyd revealed some of the hidden treasures of UCMP being uncovered thanks to our latest archiving grant.

Dave Lindberg neatly demonstrated how our vast collection provides an essential historic baseline for the natural history of California.

Anna Thanukos took visitors beyond the collection through the museum's many education and outreach projects.

Ash Poust dazzled onlookers with phytosaurs, pareiasaurs, and other impressive fossils from our broad collection.

Brian Swartz led the group from the sea to dry land with close-up looks at some of our fishy ancestors.

Diane Erwin pieced together a climate change puzzle using UCMP's California plant fossils.

This exciting, unique UCMP experience produced many smiles and set the tone for the Cal Day to come.

For more photos from the evening see this album on Facebook.

Find out how to become a Friend of UCMP.

Looking at UCMP's modern offices and collections space, one might not appreciate that the paleontology tradition at Berkeley stretches back more than one hundred years.  But now the CLIR/UCMP Archive Project is bringing this history to light. Some of the oldest supplemental locality files I have come across this semester contain class reports and geologic maps prepared by a Cal field geology class in the summer of 1911. Led by Bruce L. Clark, who eventually became the first director of the UCMP, the class camped on the south slope of Mount Diablo in and around what is today Mount Diablo State Park. The scientific goal of the one-month course was to reconstruct the tectonic history of the area through mapping of exposed rock units and collecting of marine invertebrate fossils that are indicative of geologic ages and past environments.

Here are some of the photographs from student Irving V. Augur's report along with the original typewritten captions:

Also in the archive are students' field notes and maps, such as the ones below by William S. W. Kew. In his notes, he recorded the orientation of rock layers (e.g., strike of N60°W and dip of 60°S for Locality 27) and scientific names of fossil invertebrates that had been collected at various locations on the mountain (e.g., Dosinia whitneyi is a clam).

[Fossils from Mount Diablo: top, a Cretaceous clam, specimen number 199004; middle, an internal mold of an Eocene heart urchin, Schizaster lecontei, specimen number 199000; bottom left, Miocene sand dollar, Astrodapsis sp., specimen number 199001; bottom right, a Miocene scallop, specimen number 199002.]

And yes, the fossil clam, sand dollars and scallop pictured above are the specimens collected by the students of the field course 100 years ago. Some of the fossils brought back are currently stored in the Campanile on the Berkeley campus, while others have found their home in the UCMP's research collections in the Valley Life Sciences Building.

After a month of surveying, the students examined these data to figure out the ages of rock layers as well as the arrangement of rocks beneath the surface of the mountain. Here is an exquisitely drawn diagram by Auger.

So what makes Mount Diablo geologically interesting? If you look closely at Kew's map with color-coded rock formations, you will notice that, as one climbs up the mountain, the underlying rock layer becomes progressively older from the Miocene (faint purple and yellow) to Eocene (red), Cretaceous, and Jurassic (green and orange)—which is a bit counterintuitive, isn't it? Furthermore, Auger's inferred cross-section through the mountain suggests that the strata are almost vertically oriented.

In his class report, I. V. Augur wrote:

"The general structure of Mt. Diablo region was for some time a point of disagreement, the reason being that while on the north side evidence of the strata dipping away from the mountain suggested an anticline, evidence on the opposite side did not bear out the assumption, since the general dip was in the same direction and the succession of beds reversed. Prof. J. C. Merriam, however, after a careful study of the structure and faunal relations, pronounced it an overturned anticline, which structure has been generally accepted by geologists who have examined the territory under discussion" (Augur 1911, p. 2).

After a century of additional research, the interpretation of the mountain's geology has changed. Experts today think that Mount Diablo is largely a product of a series of thrust faults (follow this link to see a simplified animation). Specifically, the Jurassic-Cretaceous rocks (which now form the upper portion of the mountain) have been uplifted along the fault zone in the last few million years, bending the more recent Eocene to Miocene rock layers on the southwest side of this zone (the lower portion of the mountain that was mapped by Kew and his classmates).

So the old class reports are uniquely valuable for giving us glimpses into the development of scientific ideas through the eyes of students. The detailed observations recorded in the class reports reveal that the field camp was really a group research project involving students.

An excerpt from I. V. Augur's report

A table of fossils colleted (from W. S. W. Kew's report)

An excerpt from Kew's report with comments (in blue) by the instructor (Clark?)

As one flips through these reports, it is worth keeping in mind that, in 1911, the theory of continental drift was still being formulated by Alfred Wegener. More locally, this is back when John C. Merriam and colleagues from Berkeley had been tirelessly digging up asphalt-covered fossils from the tar pits of Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, and an undergraduate student by the name of Charles L. Camp was busy catching reptiles and amphibians (such as this arboreal salamander) for the newly-founded Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

After 1911, Clark continued to teach and conduct research in the Mount Diablo area for many more years. This not only contributed to greater understanding of regional geology but also led to a fortuitous discovery in 1927 of one of the most significant Miocene mammal localities in California, the Black Hawk Ranch Quarry. Also notably, some of the students from the field camp went on to become respected geologists—Kew, for instance, pursued his doctoral degree in the Department of Paleontology and produced important works on fossil echinoderms (sea urchins, sand dollars, and their relatives).

To learn more about the geology of Mount Diablo, check out Doris Sloan's Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region (University of California Press) and take a hike on the interpretive Trail Through Time on a sunny day. I end with a few images from my recent excursion to the mountain with my colleagues. Considering the extent of Clark's and his students' survey effort, we may have crossed their footsteps at some point as we climbed Eocene marine sandstones (below left), traversed meadows dotted with California Poppies (below center), and stood by outcrops of ancient radiolarian chert (below right).

Special thanks to Dave Strauss for photographing Kew's map, David K. Smith for information on the geologic history of Mount Diablo, and Renske Kirchholtes and Emily Lindsey for the trip to Mount Diablo State Park!

More stories from the CLIR/UCMP Archive Project

Cataloging the archives: Update I

Cataloging the archives: Unearthing a type

We are pleased to announce the receipt of a grant of ~ $470,000 from the National Science Foundation – a two-year collections improvement grant to "Complete the rehabilitation of the orphaned USGS fossil invertebrate collection at UCMP."

In 1997 the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) accepted responsibility for an extensive invertebrate collection (170,000 fossils from 12,100 localities) the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Menlo Park. Unfortunately, the comprehensive documentation stored with the fossils was not preserved as archival material and was deteriorating.  Moreover, during the move the collection was scrambled, many of the wooden cases damaged, and the doors lost.  In 1998, one third of the collection was integrated into UCMP’s main collection.  This project will (1) re-house the remaining two thirds of the collection in museum-grade cabinets, (2) reorganize, re-label, and digitally capture the contents of the drawers, and (3) digitally capture and store the documentation in archival media.

This collection, largely from the West coast of North America from the last 25 million years, is unique and irreplaceable. It has generated over 1,000 publications, including systematic and biostratigraphic studies, paleoecological and paleoclimatic research, resource assessments, and geologic surveys.  Funds from this grant will provide important curatorial experiences for graduate students, engage undergraduate students in authentic research activities, and allow us to hire a Museum Scientist (invertebrate speciality) for the length of the project to direct the work.

This semester, the UCMP has been excited to host a visiting photographer, UC alum Dave Strauss.  A self-described "computer guy" for the last 42 years, he is also an avid naturalist, hiker, and mountain biker.  Dave finds inspiration at the UCMP through the opportunity to use his talents to communicate evolutionary and historical knowledge to the broader community.

A juvenile Triceratops specimen gets its moment in the spotlight.

Collaboration with Dave has provided many opportunities to contribute to science.  He has confronted technical challenges photographing unwieldy Triceratops fossil fragments with Assistant Director Mark Goodwin, to photographing tiny tadpoles just beginning to grow their skeletons with graduate student Theresa Grieco.  He is also assisting with the CLIR/UCMP archive project, documenting and digitizing historical records, particularly more unusual items like lantern slides (for examples of lantern slides depicting California geology, click here).

Dave's willingness to experiment with lighting, lenses, and artistry has paid off - he has helped at least 7 different researchers get great images for their work.  He finds he is learning more about photography as his paleontology collaborators push the boundaries of optics and camera technology with unusual requests, and he is able to quiz them about the most current research projects going on in the UCMP.

You can find some of Dave Strauss's work, including images from the UCMP collections, at his website.

Dave examines the fineness of detail captured in preparations of Xenopus tropicalis tadpole jaws.

Follow Erin Meyer as she takes us on a journey through the Caribbean, on the tail of an important snail she hopes to conserve. To learn more about her seasonal trips, visit her blog - "Adventures in Snail Conservation."

Lucy Chang, who is advised by Charles Marshall, has been awarded a three-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Lucy started as a Ph.D. student at Berkeley in 2010 with a general interest in paleoecology.  Upon notification of this award, Lucy initially expressed both gratefulness and shock, but is now settling in to the wonderful realization that this will give her just the time and resources needed to move forward on a dissertation topic with an interdisciplinary approach, integrating aspects of ecology, biogeography, and paleobiology  probably focused on marine systems.

Congratulations to Lucy!

Two graduate students in Tony Barnosky's lab, Emily Lindsey and Kaitlin Maguire, recently received the good news that they were the recipients of prestigious awards.

Emily Lindsey (second from left) with part of her field team in Ecuador. Photo by Tony Barnosky.

Emily had this to say about her Fulbright grant:

Kaitlin Maguire takes a break during field work in Oregon. Photo courtesy of Kaitlin Maguire.

"I received a Fulbright award to travel to Uruguay from March to December, 2013 (the academic year for the Southern Hemisphere). I will be working with colleagues at the National Museum of Natural History in Montevideo, where we will be putting together a database of Pleistocene fossil mammals for the South American continent — where the localities are, what taxa are found there, etc. This dovetails nicely with an NSF grant that Tony Barnosky (and I and several South and North American colleagues) received in December to radiocarbon-date several hundred bones of South American Pleistocene mammals to incorporate into such a database."

Kaitlin on receiving a Louderback Fund award:

"I am surprised and honored to receive the Louderback Fellowship. I plan to use the award to study diet change in Miocene horses of Oregon using stable isotope analyses. This award recognizes graduate students for their research and service to the UCMP. George D. Louderback was a geology professor and Dean of the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley in the early 1900s and I am happy to join the long list of esteemed UCMP graduate students and alumni who have previously received the fellowship."

Our congratulations to both!

Imagine that a “time machine” allowed you to go back in time — back exactly 64,999,995 years ago, just five years before the crash of the meteor that marked the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs. You have just enough time to do your field work, analyze your data, and write your Ph.D. dissertation. Your field work starts in the closest emerged land to the Chicxulub impact site. In no time at all you begin discovering new species of dinosaurs that are unknown from the fossil record, and you diligently test dozens of hypotheses about the behavior and physiology of these Mesozoic giants.

For three years you have that chance to explore a completely different world to the one where you grew up. Australia is still connected to a temperate Antarctica and India is on its way to cross the equatorial line. Continental seas cover extensive regions of North America, Europe, Asia and in South America, east of the rising Andes.

During your last year of field work, a series of small meteorites begin to impact the Earth. These events become more and more frequent and some of them have local effects similar to the volcanic explosion of the island of Krakatau in 1883. Your advisor and dissertation committee recommend that you come back, but you refuse to do so. You still want to do field work for your last chapter concerning the ecology of Titanosaurus in South America. It is literally the last chance to study these sauropods before they become extinct. However, communications with your family and friends make you change your mind. After carefully packing up all your samples, including Ornithuromorpha feathers, Nymphaeaceae flowers and pollinator insects, you come back to the present. The Cretaceous world is not a safe place anymore ….

Our reality today is in some ways not too far from this fictional story. Based in Laupāhoehoe on the Big Island of Hawai’i this past January, I took part in field work on the slopes of Mauna Kea and witnessed how the environment is changing in a precipitous way. I had the chance to do an altitudinal transect with climate change researchers from the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa. Starting at 1,116 meters we were surrounded by an amazingly beautiful native forest. Huge o’hia and koa trees dominated the canopy, while the understory was full of a variety of endemic plants, including the hapu’u fern, ‘ōlapa tree, ‘ōhelo berries and more than 15 other endemic species. Flying and singing amongst the vegetation, different species of native birds, (i’iwi, apapane, ‘oma’o, ‘amakihi) accompanied us. The bark and leaves of the trees hosted an abundant community of terrestrial invertebrates. Dozens of species of Drosophila, giant Leptogryllus crickets, colorful Tetragnatha spiders and, of course, the curious Hawaiian happy face spider, were part of this unique world.

However, as we descended, the increase of invasive species, like strawberry guava, clidemia and Kāhili ginger, became obvious. At 934 meters, most of the strawberry guavas were juvenile — they were the advancing front of an invasion. By 800 meters, the strawberry guava trees were older and the diversity of endemic plants had declined dramatically. Toward the end of the transect, we were in a pure strawberry guava forest. Most of the native plants were gone and many of the animals appeared to be absent as well. It became obvious to me that I was witnessing the potential future for the higher elevation areas.

Today, the disappearance of "critically endangered," "endangered" and "vulnerable" species could lead us further down a path toward what might be the planet's sixth mass extinction. Indeed, it is likely that many more organisms will go extinct in our lifetime. The clock is ticking for many species worldwide and we have a limited time to discover and document our existing biological diversity. Unlike the K/T extinction, we can use our knowledge of contemporary species distribution and abundance to prevent these extinctions. However, for this to occur, human society must undergo fundamental yet attainable changes. If we fail to learn the lessons from the past, there might not be a future from which to escape once the Earth ceases to be a safe place ….

Acknowledgement: I want to thank Scott Laursen for suggestions for the text and for letting me join the research team to visit Laupāhoehoe.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has awarded Judy Scotchmoor a Friend of Darwin award for her tireless commitment to evolution education. NCSE explains that the Friend of Darwin award "is presented annually to a select few whose efforts to support NCSE and advance its goal of defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools have been truly outstanding."

Read more about Judy, the award, and other Friends of Darwin.