Field classes in paleontology (cont.)
IB 158 group photo on Moorea
The 2001 IB158 class gathers for a group photo at the Belvedere lookout on Moorea. (photo by Carole Hickman)
As in past years when Carole, David Lindberg, and/or Jere Lipps have taught the course, the students were enormously excited by the numerous opportunities for research, from the edge of the coral reef, through the lagoon, to the mountain tops. This course changes lives!

IB 108 (spring). Principles of Paleontology—Carole Hickman
This course includes a field exercise on shellbeds, fossil communities, and trace fossils in the Purissima Formation at Seacliff and Capitola State Beaches at Santa Cruz and outcrops on the San Mateo County coast.

IB 259/280—Jere Lipps
Jere used these course numbers to initiate field-based courses last spring and again this fall.

  In the spring, a group of Berkeley and Ensenada students joined together in a bi-national field trip to study the geology and marine biology of northern Baja California. (See UCMP News, May 2001) This past semester, Jere took eight students on a 4-day trip a bit closer to home. They began by viewing evidence of the “Cambrian Explosion” in SE California and SW Nevada. Then they walked the sequence in the White-Inyo Mts. from the Precambrian well into the lower Cambrian, noting how the fossils change from simple traces to full-fledged skeletonized biotas carrying trilobites and archaeocyathids. Hopefully, these trial courses will end in a formal Field Paleontology course taught regularly in Integrative Biology.
Students study a coral islet
The 2001 IB158 class examines the geology, fauna and flora of Motu Tiahura, a unique coral islet (photo by Carole Hickman)


January, 2002

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