50 Best blogs for Zoology students

Quite a while ago, it has been brought to me that my blog made it on a list featuring the best blogs for students of zoology. Please follow the link below. I am sure you'll find other blogs that are worth exploring....

50 Best blogs for Zoology students

I am not a very busy blogger, anyway, but I have to announce that my activities here are quite limited at the moment. There is a reason for that: It's male, 8 days old and is keeping me very busy besides doing my PhD. Haha. Nevertheless, there are a couple of posts in preparation that I will spill out as soon as I find some time to shape them a little bit.

best, r

Off-topic: My top records 2009

Like last year, I would like to ponder on the most exciting records that this year brought to me...

Coalesce - Ox (relapse records)

I always thought they split up some years ago, so I was a little bit surprised as the band announced a new record and a tour this year. I didn’t expected too much because most of such reunion-records are rather lame and bands usually never find their ingenuity of the “early days”. In this case, however, it is not a typical reunion because they just split and re-formed many times. Long story short: Ox (both, Lp and ep) completely blew me away. It’s like taking the best part of every Coalesce release (including their Led Zeppelin cover album) and welding it to a perfect album. They even made it to include clean vocal parts within some songs, which in my view usually appears misplaced in such music. The blunt guitar riffing topped with the acridly barking vocals is typically coalesce but the clean singing and the almost "morriconesque" interludes really make it a special record. I think this is probaly the last Hardcore album that really means something to me.

Baroness – Blue Record (relapse records)

Gaudiest metal record of all time. Baroness once emerged from a rather rough small cove embedded somewhere between Hardcore/Crust Mountain and a more advanced Heavy Metal Volcano not unlike early Mastodon. At least since their last release “red album” they got a little bit more straight forward and fancy. I don’t mean this in a negative way. The “blue record” follows this path consequently. It twinkles and sparkles with every pearly guitar riff passing your auditory meatus. Not to mention the hymnal vocal parts that instantly reminded me of Hot Water Music. Sometimes, I felt a little embarrassed because some songs are so cheesy but at the same time it sounds amiable and refreshing for this kind of music where every band tries to sound as evil and brutal as possible. This is a honest release of a honest band.

Bat for lashes - Two suns (Emi)

I don’t know too much about pop so I can’t present a thorough review like for the records above. This is a very fragile and spooky pop album that was my background music as I walked through summer nights of Zürich.

Hammer Party

Sorry, it is Sunday, I finished my tasks scheduled for today (building up an ikea-something) and my significant other is trapped in a synchrotron somewhere in France. Let me dump the internet with useless information (nothing new, actually).

Probably on every student field trip a picture like this is going to be taken. It was a third years field trip, so you still see tools from DIY markets, which are infact unsuitable for torturing rocks. They easily chip. I once shot a fellow student in the leg while I tried to decompose a cherty limestone. Blood everywhere, I tell you. She sued me and I still have to pay her smart money. So get decent gear for fieldwork. Safety first!

Some details of the story are exaggerated to justify a blog post but basically it's true.

2012

Go and see this movie. Being a geologist, I really enjoyed the part with the Yellowstone eruption (fig. 1). Although 99% of the stuff happening there is far beyond being realistic, the explosion of a caldera appears to be more or less like that (according to what I learned in my volcanics-class). However, the pyroclastic cloud in the movie appears quite comfortable. A real one probably wouldn't release an aircraft that it once caught.

Fig. 1: Zzzzsch-Kraboom

Apart from the CGI earth decomposition, which is well done, I would recommend to movie directors to throw all this emotional crap away and add self-irony and dirt instead. The pretence to create a movie which tries to sell family-compatible ethics although there is terror and destruction everywhere just doesn't work. All of this pathos really destroyed the movie more than the earth has been destroyed in the movie. Haha, but that's okay, they want to earn money. I understand that.

My wish: just show the cool parts and add cool music. I found the following clip on youtube which is pretty close to what I imagine:

New old Blog

It is online for quite a while so it is not really new: A blog by Kevin Bylund called Ammonoida which is focused on Cephalopds from the U.S. Kevin joined the recent field trip. He is an Ammonite-specialist and there is probaly no one who knows better about the Geology of Utah and adjoining areas.

Back to the field, yeehaa

Recently, I have been busy to finish a poster for the meeting of the german palaeontological association (see the german website here). Furthermore, I just finished a manuscript, which is suggested to be submitted as soon as I am back from the field.

I am going to the see Lower Triassic of panthalassian shallow marine environments involving the Thaynes Formation and the Dinwoody Formation in the "Confusion Range" of western Utah. There are localities like "disappointment hills" and "cowboy pass". Sounds pretty "amazing", does'nt it, haha! I will join a team of French and American researchers. For the last 10 days, I will be on my own down in southwest Utah to see the Virgin Limestone (sounds better). I Hope to be back on 13th of october.

I will listen to this one constantly, all the time, no kidding!

Christian nonsens

Please excuse me for lowering the level of this blog (it's almost on sea bottom anyway) but the following story teased me.

Recently, I attended a christian presentation showing a little movie "Die Millionen fehlen" (the millions are missing). For those who speak/understand German may follow the YouTube-links below.

Such creationists/young earth-"scientist" documentaries are widespread and I usually ignore them or watch them just for amusement. The whole presentation was more a sermon than a movie with subsequent discussion. I was really disappointed in almost every aspect.

In the first place the announced coffee buffet was not as rewarding as expected, which essentially is a mistake on my part. The movie and the arguments to support a young earth were pretty bad and it was one of the worst creationist movie I had ever seen. After the presentation there was a preacher talking about the usual Christian stuff and I do not dislike it a priori. But one thing really annoyed me: He said that even every child is a sinner and will only find redemption in the acceptance of Jesus. Holy Crap! Although I know about protestant Religion (I am baptised and confirmed but I don't give a crap) I never expected such a harsh statement. It really came obvious to me (for the first time) how sick this stuff is. I already read Dawkins "the God Delusion" but I felt quite distraught to experience from first hand how serious people are about that.

After the show, I strolled around, enjoyed the coffee and one guy (same age as me) approached me and asked me who I am and what I felt during the ceremony. I am a very polite guy and I didn't start a religion-is-stupid-discussion. I really wanted to know what he thinks about the movie because I know plenty of religious people who are convinced that creationism is just weird drivel, so I was interested in his position. He was that kind of "every word in the bible is true"-guy accordingly the earth can't be as old as scientists say. I replied, well, you may be right but I can easily disprove the hypotheses supported in the movie with simple considerations that students learn in their first year. So my central question was why do you think those “scientists” are right although every evidence points against those hypotheses. The main pitfall and most hypocritical statement of the movie was the following: The bible doesn’t provide answers for every aspect of the world. But this doesn’t means automatically that it (the bible) is wrong. However, this is exactly the reproach of creationists to scientists. Something like: Science is not able to explain everything, accordingly science is wrong because religion does so.

Fig. 1: The proof that Jesus doesn't know anything.

My reply to such stupid "arguments" is that this is (to quote Dawkins) the beauty of science. If everything would be solved no further research is needed. So shut down all universities and go home. Furthermore the bible or God doesn't explain how evolution works. How the first cell evolved or how it "has been built" (see fig. 1). None of the big questions is answered with God. The guy said ok but my "considerations" are biased because I attended non-religious schools and I didn't experience the truth as offered by Jesus blablabla. Paradoxically, he admitted that the world is constrained by the laws of nature. But when it comes to evolution he just don't believe in what science found out. Here I wondered why, why, why, creationists always exclude evolution, palaeontology and biological research from natural science?

After 90 minutes or so we came to an end and he said that I may be right but if God doesn't exists and the bible is just a nice book like any others what justifies his moral behaviour? So he can start killing and plundering because it doesn't matters at all. How fucked-up is this opinion? I mean (its so trivial, I know!) do we need an ancient book filled to its half with blood and punishment to know how to behave in the modern world? The next point is that he believes (as the protestant followers in general do) from his heart and soul that Jesus was sent to our world to suffer for our sins in advance. If Jesus took all the burden of humanity’s sins so all what you have to do is to confess your sins to god and you will be saved? This is the point where you can just go and kill people isn’t it?. Jesus was a very nice guy and took the load already. Just confess it and everything will be fine. This really is beyond any logic.

To come to and end. I never felt more dismayed about people that should know better.

Amen.

Global Ichnology

Accidentally found on youtube: "Trace fossils" in different languages spoken by leading scientists of this discipline.

Fully equipped for fieldwork

Inspired by the latest post of my former college mate "Lost Geologist" i decided to carry on with this photo-meme. Here is my gear:

Nothing new under the sun...II

Hey folks,

recently I was busy with finishing my studies and planing our move to Switzerland. I have several projects scheduled for NoLogic. There is something in petto for "traces first", I will introduce a pretty cool "trace fossil of the second" and I will post a summary on the field work related to my diploma mapping project.

Finally, I can officially and nonofficially call myself now a Diploma Geologist or Master of Science, respectively. As mentioned already, I will go to Zürich Switzerland to continue with my PhD project. I am not responsible for my webpage of our institute but if you want to check out a darn sexy picture of a handsome devil, don't miss out this unique opportunity. I am pretty sure, the IT manager will ad some more information soon.

see you...

Ferron Sandstone revisited...

...with google street view!

One of my todays main achievements is that I figured out how to get google earth working on my linux system. After several months without playing with this nice little tool, I really enjoyed to take a tour. I discovered the street view mode and played around a little bit. It is a fancy feature and it is not only suitable for spotting girls in central park. Even better, it is perfect for exploring road side geology. For instance, I found my beloved little fluvial channel of the Ferron sandstone on which I reported earlier.

Cool, isn't it?!

The Coprolite Street

...is located in Ipswitch, Suffolk (UK):

This occurrence made it into the international Journal Ichnos:

Pickerill, R.K. 2006: Ichnologic picture. Ichnos, vol. 13,#2, p. 95.

"Yes this is for real and who would like to live there. Coporolite Street is located in Ipswich, Suffolk, U.K. in its dock area. Mark Jay at Ipswich Building Control informs that the name relates to the coprolite that was shipped into the area to be processed by a nearby fertilizer plant. Thanks to him, W. Remena and S.K. Donovan for providing this remarkable occurrence."

Coprolites are pieces of (extruded) fecal matter that became fossilised. Me and my student fellow Moritz investigated more than 100 specimens in order to learn something about the palaeoecology of Permian fresh water deposits of the Planitz Formation (Zwickau, Saxony).

Fig. 1: A nice co(pro)llection of specimens recovered from lake sediments in Zwickau/Saxony.

Fig. 2: A pretty decent specimen showing the heterpolar coiling typical for Heteropolacopros, for instance. So we peeled this shit off and explored the interior with binocular microscopes.

Fig. 3: A ganoid scale probably related to palaeoniscid fish.

Although being a very interesting project, this study revealed nothing in particular. First, different sizes of coprolites didn't show any significant trend or a favoured lenght/width ratio. The problem is that a single organism may produce fecal matter with various forms and, vice versa, numerous organisms may produce the same general form and size-range (Aldridge et al. 2006, Baxendale 1979). Accordingly, it is hard to tell whether these coprolites were produced by one single species or if they are the result of teamwork of a multitude of phyla.
The majority of the investigated coprolite material was anisopalar-coiled and resembled (not as delicious though) wraps or crêpes. According to Jain (1983) such a morphology is expected being produced by organisms possessing a scroll valve. None of the predators that are recorded by body fossils in these lake sediments match this criterion. Xenacanth Sharks which are accused by Kogan (2006) to have left this mess are not in charge anymore because they had a spiral valve which would rather produce a coiled fecal ribbon rather than such 'coprocrêpes'. All what we can say with confidence is that the producer was a fish feeding predator preferring actinopterygian fish like Paramblypertus, Amblypterus and Igornichtys (Kogan, 2006).

References

Aldridge, R., Gabbott, S., Siveter, L. and Theron, J.: 2006, Bromalites from the Soom Shale Lagerstätte (Upper Ordovician) of South Africa: palaeoecological and palaeobiological implications, Palaeontology 49(4), 857–871.

Baxendale, R.: 1979, Plant-bearing coprolites from North American Pennsylvanian coal balls, Palaeontology 22(3), 537–548.

Jain, S.: 1983, Spirally coiled coprolites from he Upper Triassic Maleri Formation, India, Palaeontology 26(4), 813–829.

Kogan, I.: 2006, Paläontologie, Sedimentologie und Paläoökologie des Unterrotliegend Planitz-Sees im Erzgebirge-Becken, unpublished Master thesis, TU Bergakademie Freiberg.

Countries visited!

Animated by the latest post on clastic detritus I went to this site and checked all countries that I visited already. This is what i got:

visited 22 states (9.77%)

Pretty lame for a geologist but I am young and just about to start my serious live. Furthermore, I must admit that I should have to exclude most of the checked countries if the Band I played in hasn't been on tour so much.
It is somewhat embarrassing that I made it (except Jordan) to the "Western Countries" only. I definitely have to go to Asia and Southern America. Suggestions where to go next are welcome!

However, by whining about not having been out so much, something came into my mind. As much as I traveled by the age 25, I probably belong to the uppermost 2 % or even less of all people. So we are pretty privileged and complaining about it would turn us to assholes.

Off topic: My top records 2008!

Unfortunately, I didn't get too much Vinyl this year and most likely I ignored other fantastic records of other bands, artists etc. Any way, records released 2008 that encouraged me the most are the following (no particular order):

The Night Marchers - See you in Magic (Swami Records)
www.myspace.com/thenightmarchers

Its hard to describe this Album. Since featuring members of former bands like Rocket from the Crypt and my beloved Hot Snakes, the general sound and style is somehow a mixture of such "John Reis Bands". It's no run-off-the-mill punkrock/postpunk/garage/something - it's cheesy and dark halloween spooky rockmusic and just awesome.

Fleet Foxes - s/t LP (Sub Pop)
www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes

Long story short: Imagine The Shins covering old artrock like Yes sitting in a log cabin somewehre in the rocky mountains during late summer. I guess this would be my favorite soundtrack for my retirement. Listen to "Mykonos" at their myspace and you will literally hear the sun rising.

Lemuria - Get better (Asian man records)
www.myspace.com/lemuria

I constantly listened to this one all over the year. This music is odd in a way because its edgy and catchy at the same time. Poppunk/Indierock/something but still unique and authentic. Some lyrics really seized me and cheered me up during the nights in the lab as I finished my thesis.

Taxonomy can be tricky...

...not only in palaeontology...

found on failblog

Rocky Votolato @ Beatpol Dresden

Just two pictures from the Votolato show in Dresden (Beatpol 09/27/2008)

Check myspace.com/rockyvotolato!