Luis Buatois continued his lecture tour during the first week of December with a stop at the University of Muenster (Germany) giving a Department Seminar on the work of animals in space and time. This was followed by a visit to Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia) for an invited talk on the trace fossil record of early Paleozoic evolutionary events and as external of the PhD defence of Ursula Toom. The trip to Estonia includes a visit to the Sarghava Field Station, the most likely host of the next Workshop on Ichnotaxonomy.

Dr. Toom’s research looks at the Ordovician and Silurian trace fossil record of Estonia, with some fantastic tomographic work. Her work isn’t done though! A prolific researcher, Ursula continues to shed light on the ancient life in Estonia from her position at Tallinn University. You can congratulate Dr. Toom and follow her research on her ResearchGate profile, and download her thesis from it’s record here.

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Written by Dr. Luis Buatois and Brittany Laing

This past September both Dr.’s Mángano and Buatois travelled to Halle, Germany, to attend the 3rd International Conference of Continental Ichnology. The meeting was organized by Oliver Wings at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. There, Gabriela Mángano delivered her keynote talk entitled “Continental invertebrate and plant trace fossils in space and time: State of the art and prospects.”. Luis Buatois gave a talk entitled “Trace fossils, water table and depositional evolution in eolian systems (Cretaceous Mulichinco Formation, subsurface of western Argentina)”. Activities during the conference include visits to several museums, including the Halle Paleontological and Zoological Museums and to Museum of Prehistory. One of the highlights of the meeting was the post-conference fieldtrip to visit Permian-Cretaceous outcrops in the Bavaria, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt regions! The collections at the Museums at Gotha and Schleusingen were visited as well.

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By Luis Buatois

What is better than learning about trace fossils? Learning about trace fossils in the gorgeous setting of Asturias, Spain!

This will be the third iteration of Dr. Mángano’s and Dr. Buatois’ field course in Asturias, where they travel the timescale and look at everything from carbonate reefs to turbidites. They’ll be joined by geological sciences students from Canada and Spain, giving a truly international flavour to the trip.

While I can’t share exactly what the students will be learning (they need to learn that themselves!) I can share photos to make others jealous of this incredible adventure!

Students listening as Dr. Buatois gives a lecture on the sedimentology of the surrounding rocks.

Ph.D. candidate Maxi, graciously acting as my scale.

The best classroom on earth.

Some of the more… adventurous students, trying some fresh-from-the-sea cuisine.

By Brittany Laing