More prepared for fell hiking

I spent most of yesterday gathering everything I need to bring, putting everything in plastic bags (my backpack is not water-proof) and packing it in an efficient way. Late in the evening, it was finished (barring a few items that were forgotten or need to be acquired today).

The result was very comforting:

Preparing for fell hiking

 

For about a week now, I have made preparations for a hiking trip with three friends to the fell (the mountainous landscapes in Scandinavia, and parts of England) of Jämtland (a province in western Sweden).

We will start off our one-week adventure the next Wednesday, the 1^st of August, and I still have more things to do before that, but I though I’ll write a short post about it now, before I am all set, to tell a bit about how I expect this to be. Then, I hope to write more once I am finished packing, about how I have prepared. Finally, I will – of course – post once we are back, to tell all about our epic journey!

Track tale

A few weeks ago, I found three trackways of different animals in the same place in the forest. It had been raining the day before, so the first ones were clearly visible in the mud. Looking around to see if I could figure out in what direction it had gone further, I found another series of tracks from a different animal in drier mud, so they might have been made significantly earlier. As if that was not enough, I later discovered a third track type close by.

I took some photographs to document the discovery, and though I should dedicate some time to research on what animals that could have made these tracks, but, frankly, it was not difficult to guess. But, to make sure, I compared them to pictures from a Google Images search on tracks from my suspects, and got a good match.

Recall that I have plans to make a slideshow with pictures of my rock collection (which I am still building up) – I thought I’d do the same with these tracks, mostly just to try it out and get some practice for the “big one”. This slideshow took about five hours in total to make, so it is tremendous work to compose such a thing, and it will probably take weeks of work to make the rock collection clip.

Still, I am rather proud of how well this turned out, at least for being my first, and using the shitty programmes I have been struggling with…

I could not upload it here, so I put it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLy7JxQ_OeU

Work find II

Well I'll be – I found another vertebra in a sample at work today (see previous post)!! At least, I am pretty sure it is a vertebra. 

The pictures are not very good, but at least the last of the three shows its characteristic shape (sort of...). Just trust me, it looks far better under a stereoloupe.

Work find

About a week ago, I got new work – well, I have worked there every year since the first time, about six years ago – in the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). In fancy terms, I could be said to be sorting benthic invertebrates, meaning that I pick out small, bottom-dwelling creatures from samples of lake or river bed, separating them from mud, debris and various types of plant material they come with. This is the rough work before experts take over to determine the species of the animals, and use that data to assess certain environmental parameters (e.g. acidity) of the water. Previously, I have also been doing some gross classification into major groups.

The benthic zone is a more technical term for the bottom of a body of water. Here, we are only concerned with Swedish freshwater bodies, so there are no marine creatures. We do not specifically look for invertebrates, but there are no bottom-dwelling vertebrate animals, at least not in Swedish lakes and rivers; thus, we only find invertebrates in the samples – with a few exceptions, such as occasional fish that accidentally are caught with the sample (which gives it a horrid smell, I might add), and another that I will describe soon.

My old essay on dinosaur warm-bloodedness

I learned that it is not possible to upload files on blogger. If you would like to read the assigment answer, please email me (ib08sose@gmail.com) and ask for it, and I will be happy to send it. 

A new basal theropod dinosaur with feathers, and what it means

Well, “new” is perhaps not the best word, since the astonishing find was made some year ago, but the paper was published recently. I have not accessed the paper, but made some basic research over the internet, after seeing a post on Paleoexhibit. This dinosaur, a juvenile megalosaur called Sciurumimus albersdoerferi (new genus and species, or, as scientists would say, gen. et sp. nov.), from the Late Jurassic period, is a fantastic discovery, not as much because it is the most well-preserved theropod found in Europe, but because it had feathers!

Image from http://www.globochannel.com/wordpress/2012/07/03/fossile-piumato-riscrive-la-storia-dei-dinosauri/. Apparently, the feathers are supposed to be visible under ultra-violet light.

Feathered dinosaurs are found virtually all the time in these days, especially in Asia and South America, but they are always closely related to early birds. Sciurumimus is indeed a theropod, the major group of dinosaurs from which birds evolved, but it is a megalosaur, a much more primitive member of the thropod group. Thus, this discovery shows that feathers appeared much earlier than in bird-like dinosaurs.

A second self-trip

Friday the 29^th of June, I went on another forest trip by myself, to another part of the Vänge forest. It was a much shorter trip than last time, but I made some fun discoveries nonetheless.

Not unexpectedly, there was lost of pegmatite here as well.

On moving closer to examine this heap of rocks, my eyes were caught by something red and juicy.

These are woodland strawberries (a.k.a. wild strawberries, or smultron in Swedish), and taste absolutely delicious! One of the best things about Sweden is the everyman’s right or right to roam (allemansrätten), which means that anyone may pick and eat wild berries, mushrooms, game (at least small) and such – as long as it isn’t private property. A few woodland strawberries make excellent snack if you are out in the woods, especially when they are well ripe – they taste sweeter then, just like strawberries.

Between the woodland strawberries and the pegmatite heap, there was a not so much exposed exposure containing a far less tasty mystery.

Coming soon...

Wow! So many things have happened in a week’s time that I want to write about here. Now I’m just here to tell you about what is coming up, because it will take some time to prepare the texts and material. I have a paid job now for three weeks (one of the things I want to tell about), so I have less time than before for actual writing, so it might take (even) longer before I am done…

Apart from the job, and the fascinating thing I found there (!), I made another forest trip on my own initiative, taking some photos of some rather spectacular findings, and, more importantly, discovered a large amount of medium-sized rocks heaped under and near a railway that goes through my home village (or whatever you would call it), Vänge, where I picked up a few cool rocks – and in that moment decided to build up a rock and mineral collection! I have been thinking and looking around in Vänge for other sites where I could find more accumulations of handy-sized, loose rocks (not too small to be of note, and not too large to be cumbersome to carry and store). Although the entire railway seems to be laid over a layer of such rocks, I will not follow it, simply because of the danger it would bring: its flanks are full of dense vegetation, so it could be difficult to get away far enough if a train comes, and, a few days ago, when I prospected at one of the two railway crossings and a train came, I was quite stunned by its force – you could hear the rails vibrate vigorously already half a minute before the train arrived, and it passed with such a thunderous roar that is seriously frightened me – I had never imagined it would have been so… so… so much. Anyway, my point is, although there could surely be a gold mine of intriguing rocks there, it is not worth the risk, however small, of an accident happening.

So I will be looking for safe places to search for impressive rocks with peace in mind and serenity in body. I already have though of two such locations, and there are parts of Vänge I have not explored much at all, so it is definitely worth checking out sometime, and there is always the forest (which, actually, might be more interesting, because there is a much greater chance that the rocks there are indigenous, and, knowing their natural environment, one might be able to say more about or tell more from them).

Of course, the rock collection has barely started, so I will not make a post about it in the near future – I must build it first! – and, moreover, I plan to make a video clip with a photo gallery of the rocks – a more flashy way to display them – which will take even more time. (Blame a good friend of mine, Oliver, music student at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, who, having his own website about film music (http://www.filmscore.se), approved of my nature clips with exaggeratedly epic background music and encouraged me to produce more and longer such – and what way to flash up a slideshow of a collection of dead rocks better than accompanying it with equally epic music, just a lot more of it! Mwuahaha!! I am crazy, and I intend to make the most of it!)