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After the first field trip of 2004 that aimed to reconstruct the Mesozoic extension and inversion history of the Gobi Altai, and the Cenozoic transpressional (re?)activation of the Mesozoic or older structures, the trip of 2005 mainly focused on paleomagnetic investigation of the same area. Basically, this was done for 4 main purposes: quantitative analysis of vertical axis rotations associated with restraining bend formation, magnetostratigraphic numerical calibration of the Cretaceous palynological timescale, the reconstruction of a Mesozoic and Cenozoic apparent polar wander path for the Gobi Altai, and strain analysis of the region through analysis of the anisotropy of the magnetic susceptibility. The fieldtrip was carried out during the months june and july 2005, by a team from the Universities of Leicester (who took the initiative), Utrecht (paleomagnetic laboratory "Fort Hoofddijk") and Ulaan Baatar.
The team...
Erka, the jeep driver
Baadama, the van driver
Kheegie, the cook
Uyanga, the translator and student Geology
Butemj, geology student from the university of Ulaan Baatar and master driller...
Gijs, MSc student from the paleomagnetic laboratory 'Fort Hoofddijk', Utrecht University
and me...
The activities...
Sampling occurred with a water cooled power drill, which is an adjusted chainsaw.
And we have mainly sampled volcanic basalt rocks that occur throughout the region. Here at the 'Bold' Mountain, with Fox's Mountain and Arts Bogd in the distance.
I think the best 'drilling picture', of Gijs at Fox's mountain, with Arts Bogd in the back...
Butemj drilling in the intrusive basalt plugs of the Tsost field (note the columnar jointing). In total we have collected approximately 1600 samples for paleomagnetic analysis, which is quite a lot...
In two long sections, basalt lavas intercallate with lacustrine mudrocks. These sections are used to (for the first time) numerically calibrate the palynological timescale for the Cretaceous of the Gobi. This is important, because palynology (focusing on pollen and spores of plants) is the best means of dating in continental sediments....and therefore the only way to get reliable age constraints on the well-studied dinosaur evolution in central Asia...
but sampling these clays was hell...fractured to a depth well beyond 2 meter, so start digging...
Gijs and Butemj climbing (on one of the colder days of the field trip).
Gijs and Uyanga taking the most photogenic opportunity to descend...
One of the most spectacular structures...Paleozoic white marble basement overthrusting Cretaceous lavas...
...and of course we had to climb up the marble thrust sheet...
...and yes, it was quite windy that day :-)
Returning to camp after the last field day, after a day of 20 km walking in 35 degrees in the desert...
Camping in the desert...
View at the camp right at a thrust that ruptured during the 1957 Gobi Altai earthquake (8.0 on the Richter scale)
And from the various campsites, the views were mostly fantastic...imagine drinking your well deserved (warm) beer after a hard day's work, seeing this... (although when you actually do, you're thinking about a shower and a fridge...)
In the camp, sometimes visitors drop by. Here a kid of a local ger with a bike (and it's not easy driving a bike in the desert...)
Living in the desert means that you always have to keep track on your water supplies, and refill when you have the opportunity. Here, water is taken from a small well at an oasis. These are quite rare. Normally, water is taken from wells, dug a couple of metres deep.
Cooking occurs on wood (if present), or otherwise dung fires in a hole in the ground, with a large cooking pan resting on rocks around the fire.
We had quite frequently contact with local people, and we really enjoyed visits to their ger (or their visits to our camps for that matter).
The nomads travel around during summer, but in the winter they frequently return to a kind of 'base camp' with shelter for the cattle. Also useful to hide during thunderstorms, as Gijs shows here...
This is Bogd, a typical desert village in the Gobi region. The mountain Arts Bogd in the distance. The villages normally form around wells or small streams (which is the case here). Bogd was founded in the '50s and contains maybe several hundreds of inhabitants.
Wild- and semi-wildlife
The Gobi desert does not contain many fierce creatures, but the snakes are to be handled with care...
Also scorpions (about 3 cm long) should be carefully handled...in one occasion, approximately 15 of these animals hid underneath our tents when we decided to move camp...
One will see many small steppe horses
that travel around freely, although they are normally owned by someone
And many herds of sheep and goats roam the steppe-desert.
...and of course camels. These are all domestic, enjoying a beautiful oasis. But although they are owned by someone, they are free to roam the desert (and they do).
Occasionally one can see foxes, although they are a little more difficult to catch on camera...
This Five-toed pygmee jerboa (as opposed to the long-eared jerboa that was for the first time filmed recently) was friendly enough to pose for the camera at a distance of 2 meters from the lense...
and again...
still...
...and thank you very much, you can go now.
But the most impressive wildlife encounter was this one...
We encountered this group of 30-40 steppe condors, or black vultures feasting on something...
So we approached these enormous birds...
...which have the size of a swan, or even bigger...
...to see that they were feasting on a dead young camel. It is amazing, but these birds managed to kill the camel by picking the eyes out first, and then attacking the rear end of the camel, bleeding it to death. We arrived approximately 1 hour after the kill...
Views and skies... I particularly like to capture beautiful skies with my camera, and the Gobi region is a pretty nice place to do so... so here is a selection of the best views. I have these pictures at 8 megapixel resolution, so if you want to use 'em for anything, please let me know, and I can send you a high-resolution image.
Baga Bogd
Arts Bogd (west, south), Baga Bogd (right, north)
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Mongolia
2005
