Dispatches from the field: Baja California, Pt. 1

Ove the last several days I've been traveling through the Baja California Peninsula with Daryl Domning of Howard University (and my advisor) and Larry Barnes, emeritus curator of fossil marine mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. The reason for this trip is to re-visit some sirenian localities, including the type localities of Dusisiren reinharti and Dioplotherium allisoni, both in Baja California Sur.

The Pacific coast, somewhere along the road from Tijuana to Ensenada.

However, we first made a stop in Ensenada, to look at some specimen of Metaxytherium arctodites (including the holotype) under the care of our colleague Francisco Aranda-Manteca of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC). After a couple of days in Ensenada we headed out to our destination near San Juanico in Baja California Sur. We wouldn't get there until two days later, the route to our final destination is long and takes us zigzag-like through a great deal of length of the peninsula, but the long drive was worth it. The scenery is just stunning!

The sun sets over the cacti somewhere along the road from Ensenada to Guerrero Negro.

Outcrops and long winding roads, near Santa Rosalia, this was on the leg of the trip between Guerrero Negro and San Juanico. You can see the Sea of Cortez in the distance.

More tomorrow, including our first day in the field, stay tune!!

Fieldwork in Baja California was made possible through an NSF EAR grant to D. P. Domning & L. G. Barnes. The text in these posts reflect my own opinion and not those of the granting agency or institutions to which I’m affiliated.