Tour_Photos

1. One of my October 2001 tour groups, standing on the cliff of 1.9-billion-year-old Baraboo Quartzite, East Bluff of Devil's Lake State Park, Wisconsin.

2. Watching bald eagles soaring overhead, from a point bar on the Upper Mississippi River, Wyalusing, Wisconsin. Earlier in the day, we'd visited a major karst cavern com-plex and had a picinic lunch on the bluff overlooking the meeting of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers.

9. Facilis descensus: the down escalator of the giant dunes on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, Warren Dunes State Park, Michigan. This favorite tour site is an excellent place to explain the interplay between geology and native-plant communities.

4. Finding abundant brachiopod and gastropod fossils in the Pennsylvanian La Salle Limestone, Oglesby, Illinois. Other stops this day included Starved Rock, Matthiessen, and Buffalo Rock State Parks.

3. Looking for fossil-bearing ironstone concretions at the world-famous Pit 11 locality, near Braidwood, Illinois. The prize of the day was a 300-million-year-old dragonfly wing.

6. Searching for fluorspar crystals among the spoil piles at the American Fluorite Museum, Rosiclare, Hardin County. For many years, this section of southernmost Illinois was a center of mining activity. However, the last active mines were shut down a few years ago due to foreign com-petition. It's still a great venue for tours, though.

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5. Exploring a small cave in a Niagaran dolostone outcrop, on the bank of the Fox River, Kane County, Illinois. When this rock unit was deposited about 420 million years ago, North America lay south of the equator and much of the continent was covered by a shallow, saltwater sea.

7. It may look as though I'm trying to levitate that tilted slump block with magic hand signals, but in fact I'm explaining how geologists use such clues as current ripple marks, mud cracks, and crossbedding to interpret ancient environments. In the canyon of Bell Smith Springs, Shawnee National Forest, Illinois. (Photo taken and generously supplied by Ann Thompson)

8. Investigating limestone strata of the Mississippian Period, along the Ohio River at Cave in Rock State Park, Illinois. The Mississippian was a fascinating time, when Illinois was on the equator and huge carbonate deposits accumulated across the midsection of North America. (Photo taken and generously supplied by Ann Thompson)

10. In the geologist's paradise of Trans-Pecos Texas, March 2002. Here tour participants examine the environ-ment at the base of an ancient coral reef, near Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This outcrop of the Permian-Period Brushy Creek Formation shows sediments that were deformed before they turned to stone. Nearby, there is the cross section of a channel cut by submarine-avalanche currents.

13. Making the scene in El Solitario. I usually eschew here-I-am-in-front-of-Nature shots, but on this occasion I couldn't resist. Besides confirming the presence of the tour guide, who seems to be wearing the same shirt whenever his photo is taken, this photo shows the landscape northward from the abandoned settlement of Tres Papalotes, in the heart of the geologically magnificent and rather inaccessible Solitario Dome, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Texas. This is the place all good geologists go when they die; getting here while still alive makes a great scouting trip for the afterlife. (Photo by Michael "Mr. 4WD" Bill.)

14. One of the final stops of the March 2002 Trans-Pecos trip was the McDonald Observatory, in the Davis Moun-tains. This University of Texas facility, which actively en-courages the public to visit, stages star parties, solar viewings, and tours of its 107-inch Harlan Smith Tele-scope. The nighttime starscape from this clear, high van-tagepoint was breathtaking.

11. On the Permian Reef Trail, above McKittrick Canyon, Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This was our first close look at the unique vegetation of the Chihuahuan desert, and it proved an excellent place to see the internal structure of a massive, 250-million-year-old reef.

12. Gypsum, gypsum, everywhere. Exploring the Salt Flat playa and graben, to the southwest of the Guadalupe Mountains. While the salt deposits here have been deemed commercially important, much of what one sees from the Route 62/180 roadside is gypsum. This challenging envi-ronment is home to plants remarkably adapted to the parched, alkaline soil.

15. Another terrific group of participants, on the April 2002 tour to Indiana. Here we're on the trail near the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian contact, in secluded Shades State Park. Most of the Hoosier State was experiencing flood conditions during our trip, but it didn't prevent us from fulfilling our itinerary. In fact, it made the scenery at the waterfalls we visited all the more impressive.

16. The same hearty gang in the stratigraphically breathtaking Newton County Quarry, Kentland, Indiana. As the violently upturned and contorted strata and shatter-cone structures in the quarry suggest, this is an astrobleme, or major meteorite-impact site. The hard hats and steel toe protectors show that the quarry management wisely enforces MSHA safety requirements for workers and visitors alike.

17. On the final day of the Indiana trip we ventured deep underground, into the vast Wyandotte Caves complex located just a few miles from the Ohio River. Our hikes took us through giant chambers, subterranean stream channels, and narrow passages adorned with drip sheets and a multitude of other speleothems. This stop, together with a surface exploration of sinkholes and a disappearing stream farther north, gave us a good look at one of the world's most famous karst regions.

18. Mid-May 2002: On the trail at Whitefish Dunes State Park, Door County, Wisconsin. The weather was a bit nippy for the time of year, but it was still the perfect opportunity to see fossil stromatolites, giant sand dunes, and boreal lichens and clubmosses. Later that day we toured the Ridges Sanctuary and found dwarf lake iris, trailing arbutus,and arctic primrose all in full bloom. The day before, we visited the kames and eskers of Kettle Moraine State Forest, and examined the 11,800-year-old Twin Creeks Buried Forest north of Manitowoc.

19. One unplanned but not completely unexpected high point of the May 2002 Wisconsin trip was the discovery of many eminently edible morels at several locales we visited. As much as I'd like to promise this kind of happy hunting on all future spring trips, one never can never exactly predict when the next bumper crop will come.

20. Marchlike weather in late May -- and even a little snow and sleet, even if it isn't visible in this photo. We're on our way back from exploring the High Fall Dam site, in northeastern Wisconsin's Marinette County. Here there are glacially sculpted and abraded outcrops of the granitelike rock mangerite. This is one of the northernmost exposures of the Wolf River Batholith, a giant mass of igneous rock emplaced underground some 1.1. billion years ago.

21. Participants and guide for the Mazon Fossil-Hunting Expedition in June 2002. One essential component in any successful search for fossils is the presence of kids, who usually have a knack for finding even more good specimens than the adults do. In fact, parent-and-child teams are becoming quite a tradition on my tours. It's the perfect mode of learning: the junior members of the expedition benefit from being valued members of a grown-up group, and in turn the adults appreciate the kids' enthusiasm. My own biggest payoff is that I get to help encourage the youngsters' budding interest in earth science and natural history. (Photo taken and generously supplied by Cliff Watson)

22. For several years, I've been invited by the Nature Conservancy to give a geology tour as part of the "Autumn on the Prairie" celebration at the magnificent Nachusa Grasslands Preserve in Lee and Ogle Counties, Illinois. Here, tour-takers and I discuss the hydrology of a "sand boil" artesian spring and fen. (Photo taken by Tom Mitchell)

23. One of the most enduringly popular trips I offer is the Fossil Finders excursion to Mazon Creek country in Illinois. Here, a small hoard of 300-million-year-old treasure collected by one person on the trip: ironstone concretions, most of which proved to contain animal fossils.

24. The last Fossil Finders trip of the 2004 season included a very productive stop at a stream in Kendall County, Illlinois, where the water is usually lower and easier to ford. The day before this trip, however, it had rained heavily, the water level was up, and most of our fossil collecting was confined to the near bank. As it turned out, there was still plenty to find -- particularly Ordovician brachiopods and trilobites.

26. . . . and I was impressed with how quickly everyone learned to distinguish the fossiliferous Galena Dolomite from other, glacially derived rock types, even when they were covered by stream-dwelling algae.

27. And the wonderful sense of cooperation that day extended to certain members of the group getting free airborne transportation across the creek.

28. Also in October, under the auspices of the newly created Natural History Exploration Guild (for more on the Guild, go to www.nheg.org), I led another tour to Wiscon-sin's Baraboo Range and Driftless Area. Here's part of the tour group with their red-capped guide, at the Devil's Doorway, in Devil's Lake State Park. (Photo by Kay Furey)

29. The day after we climbed the East Bluff of Devil's Lake, our group continued its exploration of the Baraboo Range. Here, at the old Rock Springs quarry, one tour participant examines the famous exposure of ancient ripple marks, which have been tilted into an almost vertical orientation on the north limb of this great syncline.

30. In early February it was too early to start the Guild's second season of tours. Instead, I took my Lake Forest College ethnobotany students for a visit to Chicago's magnificent Garfield Park Conservatory. Here my class ponders the economic uses of such tropical tree species as Theobroma cacao, which provides the "drink of the gods" we call chocolate.

31. Later in the semester I traveled with the same terrific class down to Evanston's famous Spice House, where proprietors Tom and Patty Erd gave us a fascinating introduction to the history and culinary uses of exotic spices. While at first I wasn't sure how this tour would be received by my students, I was later told it earned the coveted "Awesome" rating.

32. At semester's end my physical-geography students at Lake Forest College -- another great group! -- braved the unseasonably cold weather to investigate the geology and hydrology of McCormick Ravine Preserve, fronting Lake Michigan. Here we begin the homeward ascent -- I having survived my customary quicksand demonstration and they having weathered the stiff onshore winds in fine fashion.

33. In early April, the weather in southernmost Illinois was ideal for my latest Redbud Special trip. Here is most of the group, Guild members all, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, in Fort Defiance Park, Cairo. (Photo by Lesley Smith)

34. One of the participants' most favorite locales on the Redbud tour is Bell Smith Springs in Shawnee National Forest -- a spectacular canyon setting that features a multitude of botanical and geological treasures. To get to this site's Natural Bridge, however, hikers must be prepared to ford Bay Creek.

35. Two inquisitive members of the Redbud Gang investigate the underside of the Natural Bridge. Note the ash tree that has gown up between the arch's span and the canyon wall behind it.

36. As the Redbud participants quickly learned, unglaciated southern Illinois has a lot more ups and downs for the hiker than the northern end of the state does. Here, at Fern Clyffe State Park, we took the Round Bluff Trail to see the superb spring-wildflower population and to get a good look at the pockmarked tafoni structure of the sandstone cliffs.

37. Whoops. As my fellow-travelers will tell you, I do my utmost to plan my tours well -- but once in a very long while nature intervenes. Here, the Ohio River has risen to the point the entrance to the famous Cave in Rock is under water. However, note the pleasant blend of awe and philosophic cheerfulness here displayed by two participants -- these are dominant Guild-member personality traits. As it turned out, we detoured by taking the local ferry across the Ohio to Kentucky, where we got a sampling of Bluegrass geology instead. While waiting for the ferry, my colleagues raided the local ice-cream parlor to stock up on what had already become this expedition's leading food group.

39. The warm, sunny weather my tour-takers experienced in ealy April in southerrn Illinois was not in evidence farther north two weeks later. Despite that, my Mini-Trek hikes at Starved Rock and Matthiessen State Parks were a sell-out. Here we all are, except for the tour guide, who here served as photographer. It may have been a bit chilly, but the terrific cameraderie of this group, combined with the excellent display of early woodland wildflowers, made this one of the most memorable Guild-sponsored events to date. (Photo kindly supplied by Kathy Sharpe)

38 Later in April: the Guild's first 2005 Fossil Finder's trip, to the world-famous and ever-popular Mazon Creek area. Here three participants show the dogged persistence that resulted in finding such 290-million-year-old relics as a Pecopteris tree-fern pinnule, a shark's tooth, and a number of other marine-animal fossils.

40. In mid-May, Guild members ventured north to the Kettle Moraine, Horicon Marsh, and Door Peninsula locales of eastern Wisconsin. Here trip participants take in the view from the observation platform at Whitefish Dunes State Park.

41. Members of the same tour combine fossil-hunting and birdwatching at an abandoned quarry near Sturgeon Bay. Here we explored the Silurian dolostone of the Niagaran Escarpment that in places contains laminations formed by colonies of algae or cyanobacteria 420 million years ago.

42. Besides seeing bald eagles, cormorants, wild turkeys, kingfishers, egrets, porcupines, muskrats, and various other representatives of the Wisconsin's fauna, we beheld the blooming of two of the Great Lakes region's rarest wildflowers: dwarf lake iris (Iris lacustris, left) and arctic or bird's-eye primrose (Primula misstassinica). This image was taken at the incomparable Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor.

43. Nothing is more enjoyable for a tour guide than to have a group that brings its own superabundant enthusiasm -- and that asks plenty of good questions, too. In mid-May I had the pleasure of leading a hike for Ms. Allison Greer's first-grade Greeley School class in Winnetka, Illinois. We hiked down to the Lake Michigan shoreline and investigated the geologic origins of this and other local landmarks. Here, Allison explains the follow-on assignment to her class.

44. Later the same month came the spring's last Fossil Finder's trip, to the same Kendall County, Illinois sites I introduced educators and collectors to the previous year. At this site we found Ordovician brachiopods ("lamp shells") and the enigmatic Tentaculites.

45. And at this site the same group discovered that wading the stream shown in Photos 28-31 was well worth bringing a pair of high-topped rubber boots. We found several excellent Isotelus trilobite specimens, as well as other half-billion-year-old fossils.

Note; As the Natural History Exploration Guild has grown, I've been placing more recent tour photos -- especially those taken by other Guild members -- in the Guild's Members' Gallery. Please visit it!