Taxonomy term

Every spring, troops of geoscience students set out to observe firsthand the minerals, rocks, folds, faults, unconformities, ore bodies and other features that populate the geological landscape. And by this time each summer, they (and the instructors brave enough to have accompanied them) have mostly returned home, sporting unkempt hair and sun-tanned limbs. These students — after putting knowledge and skills learned over several years to the test — are the latest group to have survived the rigors of geology’s enduring rite of passage: field camp.

Although field camps based east of the Mississippi River do exist, and a handful of American schools run camps abroad in places like Ireland, Italy and parts of Africa, the vast majority of camps in the U.S. are still  conducted out West. From the Black Hills and the Great Plains, across the Rockies and other mountain ranges, to the Desert Southwest, the western U.S. offers much in the way of beautifully exposed outcrops, distinctive landscapes and transects through long stretches of geologic time.

The people of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa share a long and complicated history, evident in culinary and genetic similarities, due in large part to their close proximity. Now it appears that the animals of the region have shared an even longer history. Researchers studying mammal fossils in Spain and Morocco recently determined that a migration event between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa occurred more than 6 million years ago — more than half a million years earlier than previously thought.