How else would anyone spend such a sunny class free day other than the 2nd annual Geolympics? So pushing studying aside, undergraduate and graduate students partook in an earth and planetary science competition. We had mineral and rock ID, strike and dips on the geo-gon, height estimation, triangulation, temperature guessing and map folding with one bad hand (on table and then in the air). Burgers/veggie burgers, hotdogs, potato salad and the normal BBQ items were thoroughly enjoyed.

I managed to take a few pics on the way home. There were some amazing rocks and the road followed the river for a while. So beautiful.

I woke up being surrounded by 2 half naked men. It was great. We drove into the park using 2 cars. We got stuck in traffic at one point and had fun goofing off until they let us all through. It took us a little while to get to Curry Village and then take a hybrid shuttle to the trailhead for the Mist Trail. We all hiked up to Vernal Fall, had lunch at the top and talked about some petrology and geomorphology. There was a bit of snow at higher elevations... enough to have snowball fights. We kept going and made it to the top of Nevada Fall and had enough time to bathe in the sun. The John Muir trail was closed near the top of Nevada. So we took the steps down back the way we came until there was another trailhead where we could get onto the Muir Trail. This was was a bit easier with switchbacks instead of stairs. However, snow covered parts of it which made it a bit challenging to slide on.

What a lovely Friday for departure. We hugged Josh goodbye and were on our way to Yosemite! Corina led the way but Dan'l beat us all by about 10 min. We passed by the huge landslide outside of Mariposa and found our campsite at Dry Gulch Campground, right next to the Merced River. We dropped stuff off and set up our tents before going into the park. We all walked up to Lower Fall, the lower tier of Yosemite Fall. What a beautiful sight! Corina made some lovely ratatoui for dinner.

It was that time of the year again where campus is full of so many people of all ages. The seismology lab advertised making your own earthquake with chalk outside. McCone also held a marine science exhibit full of little creatures right outside of the main entrance. Ramsden Room was open to anyone dropping in and wanting to talk to fellow students. The EPS department also had a set of lectures set up in the lecture hall which made people conscious of the Earth. We also had a table just outside of Wheeler. And mappers from George Brimhall's class demoed the equipment to alumni. Richard Allen led a walk to the Hayward Fault which ended at Memorial Stadium. Then there was the alumni dinner celebrating their 40th reunion. Great group of people and tastey food. I cropped all of the group pictures at the end of the album.

After waking up in a bunk bed with a semi-real mattress, we got all packed up and walked up this little mountain with our tour guide to scope out the surroundings using the LANDSAT map and our eyes. Then we were ready to go get breakfast in Baker, CA. Our little sedan couldn't take another ride along the Zzyzx Rd. and our right rear tire decided to pop. We watched as Dave drove over the horizon. He came back about 5 min later and finished our tire changing. We drove very slowly over to Denny's in Baker. And then we made a stop in Barstow, CA to get a new tire. What a great trip!

After a rough night of sleeping in a tent battered by wind we all got up, packed up camp as best as we could. We tried going to eat breakfast at the Crowbar since it was too windy to make it ourselves. Apparently they didn't have enough room for all 10 of us and shunned us out the door. We decided to make our own breakfast in these nearby caves that were used during the Depression times. Breakfast burritos were provided by Jazz's splendid cooking. Then it was a Snowball Earth kind of day. We made a few stops in the very strong wind to look at outcrops of stromatolites that are over 1.8 Ga in addition to a lovely talc mine. We got date shakes at this date farm and saw a bunch of hummingbirds (yes, in the desert). And we finished off the day at this sandy place where there were dropstones and banded iron formations. We stayed at Zzyzx, which is owned by the Bureau of Land Management and used by California State Universities as their Desert Studies Center.

After packing a lunch for the day we drove along highway 5 and followed a Road Log that pointed out geological features according to miles along the road. We hiked up/along the Red Wall Canyon Fan / Northern Death Valley Fault Zone. The fault was apparent in the landscape as many streams had noticeable displacement. The desert pavement was fascinating as it totally transformed rocks into objects that looked nothing like the originals. We ate alongside the road. We stopped at the Furnace Creek visitor center area. How can they have a green lawn in the middle of the desert? We hiked up this Teahouse that was no longer in service. We examined the Furnace Creek zone of the Black Mountains Fault. The clouds were magnificent. We hiked to the top of this red little mountain that really was a cinder cone. A storm was on its way in as we were greeted with rain and dark clouds. We stayed at Tecopa Hot Springs Campground.

After waking up at our campground in Furnace Creek we were off to see Dante's View to get an overview of Death Valley. Then we drove to Mosaic Canyon to look at faults and multiple structural deformation. The hike was hot but manageable. We ate lunch (mostly pita and hummus) outside of the van in the parking lot. Then we headed over to Badwater - the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. Soooo hot! We examined the Turtleback near Badwater. We ended the day at the Mesquite Dunes as the sun had already set past the mountains. We stayed another night at the Furnace Creek Campground.

Today consisted mainly of driving, and singing in the car, and more driving... We got a little late start, leaving Berkeley at around 11:30am or so. We made a stop at an In N Out that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The clouds were magnificent and a bit threatening at the same time. We arrived into our campsite at Furnace Creek campground in Death Valley at about 9:30pm.

Cheers to the first GAB field trip of the 2007 fall semester. This was also our first over night expedition and it was in none other than Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. We drove on over to set up camp then immediately went to Pfeiffer Beach to play football, have wheel burrow races and to look at ROCKS as well as marine creatures. We watched a bit of sunset then headed back to camp to eat dinner and chill around the campfire. The following morning we headed out by noon but Point Lobos State Reserve is far too expensive since we would only have an hour or two. So we headed to a beach. I didn't take any pics - I was too busy playing with sand and Pacific Ocean water. Great trip ya'll!

Devin and I tried to get as many angles of McCone as possible.

UCB's 1st Geolympics took place at Faculty Glade on campus. The major EPS event consisted of 4 exercises: rock and mineral ID test, strike and dip on the geogon, length and height test, and triangulation. It tested all of the necessary tools and methods that a good geologist must master. After enjoying some delicious food (thanks Judy and Coreina for being the main chefs), the winner was declared. The first Geolympian, ever, was Joel Scheingross. He celebrated by drinking out of his trophy and thanking his fellow competetors. The remainder of the day was spent running around, playing catch, and talking about how we should be studying for finals and writing papers. Beautiful day to match a totally magnificent event.

After noticing that the field trip test run did not provide the geological outcrops that GAB needed, leader Charlie decided to choose 2 different routes for each group to take. Josh's group took the Bayview Trail to Laguna Trail. Charlie's group took Sky Trail to Fire Lane Trail where they met up with Josh's group at the Laguna Trail. After regrouping, we headed down to Santa Maria Beach to enjoy the waves and sand while eating our packed lunches that were provided before we headed out. After lunch and a group photo, we all headed back up to where Fire Lane Trail and Laguna Trail meet up. Josh's group then took the Fire Lane Trail while Charlie's group took the Laguna Trail back. It was a wonderful day and we lucked out on the weather. There were quite a few more rock outcrops which we did our best to identify and then map. My GPS trip odometer read 8.46mi and moving time was 4hr20min and stopped time was 2hr50min. Great trip and I think Charlie for putting it all together splendidly.

Charlie, Wendy, Eric and I decided to check out the Point Reyes National Seashore before we brought the rest of the GAB group out there. We first checked out the Earthquake trail at the Bearvalley Visitor's Center. Then we took the Bear Valley Trail to Mount Wittenberg Trail. We went to the summit of Mount Wittenberg, expecting a nice view but to our surprise, you could not see anything but trees and a few USGS marks on rocks. We went back down to where 3 or 4 trails met up to have lunch with a slight view of the ocean. Afterwards, we took Z Ranch Trail and saw our only good outcrop. We took a strike and dip, marked it on our map and continued onward. Horses came and past on the Horse Trail. Then we were back at the Bear Valley Visitor's Center. It was a fun day but sort of disappointing geologically. So we decided to ask the park rangers what would be a better place to see some good rock outcrops. All in all, I got to test out my new GPS. We had hiked 6.14 miles with a moving time of 2hr59min and a stopped time of 2hr51min.

This field trip was rather hectic. After getting a sort of late start, we forgot one of the essential tools for surveying - tape measurers! After tracking those down, we got to the field to survey a landslide scar in Briones Regional Park. After sifting through many possible landslides to survey, we decided on one that didn't involve a lot of walking through devil weeds to get to. I'm talking spikey EVIL weeds here, look for your self.

Last stratigraphy field trip. We went to the Marin Headlands and looked at all of the outcrops of chert in addition to some pillow basalts and some sandstone. It's the evolution of the ocean all in one rock outcrop! The only downside is the tick bite that I got upon returning home. Other than that, kick ass.

This trip consisted of driving around and looking at roadcuts that have created some great outcrops. The turbidite flows were fascinating and it was interesting to look at the recent volcanics of the Sonoma Volcanoes.

Yay for surveying! We went to the Lehere Site near Mt. Tamalpais and Stinson Beach. My team consisted of Judy, Josh and Claire. Our team name: the BEDROCKERS!

Landslides! Hell yeah! We went around Berkeley first but I didn't take any photos since I see it practically everyday. Then we went out into the east bay into the Pitsburg area to the Contra Loma Regional Park. Then to the Black Diamond Regional Preserve, which was in the same area as EPS 50 Field Trip 2 when we went on a mining tour. We mostly looked at deep-seated landslides in order to compare and contrast with the shallow ones the following day.

The last day in Utah... We took a little stroll to check out this turbidite flow. We headed to this rest stop to eat lunch and hang out for a bit. Then we were on our way towards Salt Lake City. I won't forget Lauren and Devin singing Vogue in the car. We still had a little time to kill before our flight left so we went to Great Salt Lake, which smelled rancid and wasn't all that exciting. Modern sabkha... interesting... Then to the airport. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 8:30pm. We crossed over into Pacific time and arrived in Oakland around 9:30pm or so. What a great trip! Thanks for being such a blast you guys.

Hoorah hoorah for manco shale. We found countless fossils in these deposits and it was sure fun to climb around. We were supposed to go check out Gunnison Butte but the road was a little too muddy for our mini-vans. So what do we do? We drive to Colorado! It was the first time I've been there and we checked out the Colorado National Monument. It was pretty awesome and we got to see some precambrian rocks that are like 1.7 billion years old! After dinner we attempted to get some homework done, or atleast some of us did....

We saw some awesome petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints as well as an awesome outcrop that clearly displayed a fault on our way to Arches National Park. Arches was truly breathtaking and the hike to Delicate Arch completed the day in an amazing way. Even though we pissed off stupid photographers, we posed for a group picture. Unfortunately, the person I handed my camera to did not take the picture, so I don't have it. =( A group of us went to Ben's Mexican and American restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we celebrated Devin's birthday with some rich brownies and soft serve ice cream from Cathy's. Happy happy birthday!

This day involved going to Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park. These are some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. Afterwards we checked out some limestone deposits in some Navajo sandstone. Then we checked out the mudcracks and strange green clay material. Then there's the famous Jesus cloud, or Pillsbury Doughboy cloud, depending on the van. Our day was complete after we had a great jam session with Josh on the guitar and Charlie doing the main vocals.