Trip to Chile, pt. 4

After some fieldwork (see previous post) it was time to do some preparation of the material we collected. We did some preliminary prep work at the Cabañas, but most of it was done over at the Museo Paleontológico de Caldera. There was also a lot of additional material collected over past expeditions, and we wanted to take good publication quality photos, specially of the material from Cerro Ballena.

Members of the expedition get some initial prep work done on some of the material we collected over the past few days.

More prep work, this time at Museo Paleontológico de Caldera. Cony and Carolina talk about fossil billfishes, while Ana and David are busy preparing pinniped material.

 Luckily, before we headed back to Santiago, we had time for one more trip to the field. This time we went to some Neogene badlands, that have yielded remains of sharks, cetaceans, pinnipeds and penguins. Our time was limited, but was still fun to be out in the field one last time.

Neogene badlands of the Atacama, even with less plant life than the ones I visited earlier in the year in Baja California Sur. In stark contrast with what I usually deal with in Puerto Rico.

One of several shark teeth we found. This one hints at the age of the deposit.

One last view of the Atacama, as the sun settled and we headed back to Caldera and to Santiago the next morning.

The trip is not over, more to come, so stay tuned!

Go read previous installments of this series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Also, go see Nick's here, here, here and here.