Student weblog - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Day 13-16: The Way Back

It’s time to head back for Perth; we have only four excursion days left for the last 1500 km. It now becomes apparent that we were not the only ones who experienced some problems due to the rains; one of the roads that were closed was turned into a river. Three road trains (trucks with 2 or more trailers) got to experience the devastating power of the water and were washed away. It was only due to the heroism of a farmer living nearby, who happened to own a helicopter and a jet ski, that the truckers were saved (see picture).

Luckily, our drivers (Bob and Jimmy) keep us well out of harm’s way; when it’s not safe to go somewhere, we won’t.

On the way back a few stops are squeezed in – we’re very lucky to have so many people with us who have done research in the region before. Stan Awramik from the University of California takes us to a locality which contains Archean stromatolites deposited in lakes. Jan Smit (VU University Amsterdam) takes us to Dales Gorge in the Karijini national park. The rocks in the gorge contain remains of a gigantic impact that must have occurred in the Archean, 2.4 billion years ago. The remains consist of a layer of small silica balls (spherules) that were formed when a very large meteorite hit the Earth. During the impact, the impacted rocks got so hot that they melted, and were thrown into the atmosphere. In the atmosphere, the material cooled again, causing the formation of the spherules. The spherules may subsequently travel long distances through the atmosphere (100s of km) away from the impact location. At this outcrop a spherule layer of about 10 cm in thickness (!) is present (photo). The 10 cm layer above it was deposited during a tsunami that resulted from the same impact.

On the final night of the excursion we are invited over to the home of Professor Kliti Grice in the Perth Hills area, where we enjoy the local wines and a dinner of wood-fired pizza. The people who made the excursion possible were thanked in speaches of the various participants.

After 3500 km, $700 worth of beer, over 200 mm rain, amazing geology and biology and a lot of adventure we arrive back in Perth. This marks the end of our blog, we hope you have enjoyed reading about our experiences as much as we did writing about them. We'd like to thank everyone who contributed to the expedition and to Bernd Andeweg and Stan Hes for posting our messages. Tomorrow everyone goes his or her own way; some go home, some stay for a holiday in Australia or Malaysia.

So for the last time: Greetings from Australia!

Marten en Iris

Day 12 - More Rain

The rains of the last couple of days have slowed us down quite a bit. Rains this heavy are totally uncommon in this time of year. On average about 20 mm falls in June, in the last three days about 140 mm came down, according to some miners we spoke to. Heavy rains like these cause most of the unsealed roads to turn into mud pools, some roads even get flooded.

The roads to the locations we were supposed to visit in the coming days are all unsealed and it turns out that the roads leading towards today’s outcrop are closed.

In comes Plan B: the iternary is rearranged a bit so that we will do some geological mapping at the Dawn of Life Trail: a site that is likely to be turned into an area where tourists can see Archean stromatolites similar to (but somewhat less spectacular than) the ones we saw yesterday. Currently, no detailed maps are available for the planned geotourism area and the people from the Geological Survey figured that if about 20 geologists would visit the area, they would probably be able to compile a map in a day or so.

Sadly, it turns out that the mapping site is unreachable due to the rains as well.

Plan C. We’re currently in Marble Bar which is named after the spectacular Marble Bar located in the middle of the town (in fact the bar is composed of Chert, but settlers mistook it for Marble). Since we’ve ran out of options we may just as well pay a visit. Glad we did. The Bar has some interesting geological features like folding and faulting, which we will not elaborate on. It is overlain by some very nice pillow lavas – structures resembling pillows that form when lava erupts from the seafloor into the sea.
The rains caused the Marble Bar Gorge to flood. So, when the skies clear a bit in the afternoon we go for a swim in the gorge! Finally the rains are good for something.

At the end of the day we visit Coppin Gap where some typical Archean rocks are preserved. They consist of Banded Iron Formation – rocks made up of alternating layers of chert and iron-rich chert. They formed when oxygen (mostly formed by stromatolites, see our previous entries) entered the atmosphere. Before oxygen was present in the atmosphere and ocean, all the iron that entered the ocean could remain dissolved. But as soon as stromatolites started producing oxygen, all the iron started ‘rusting’, causing it to sink to the bottom of the ocean. This caused massive amounts of iron to be deposited as Banded Iron Formations.

A large part of the world’s supplies of iron is mined from such Archean Banded Iron Formations. Western Australia has lots of them and, with iron demand peaking in countries like China and India, WA’s mining industry is booming. That becomes apparent when we meet some miners in Marble Bar’s Iron Clad Hotel, who try to persuade us to apply for a job – the demand for geologists is large here.

Marten and Iris

Day 10 & 11 - Warmest welcome in Australia's hottest town!

Following a relatively quiet night at the campsite of Marble Bar - known as Australia's hottest town, we packed up some of the tents (yep, bushcamp again!) and we set off in the direction of the Normay Mine and Trendall locality. Both these sites are in the North Pole area of the Pilbara. This area thanks its name to the ironic sense of humour of the early settlers who could not think of a place more unlike the northpole than this hot and dusty place. Boy, were we in for a treat.

The first 100 km were normal sealed roads but the other ~70 km to the Normay Mine site were unsealed. The roads seemed to have coped well with the rain and quite soon we arrived at a group of portable cabins in the middle of nowhere: Normay Mine. A married couple lives here, taking care of the mine, which is now no longer in practice but is kept guarded for possible future use. After a G'day to the couple and partly deflating of the tires of the trucks - more impressive dirt roads coming up - we continue our journey towards the old ruins of the North Pole battery, where they used to crush the big rocks that were mined to make them more usable. Besides old iron, we encounter here the first doplets of rain.

Last night in the short briefing about the plans for today and tomorrow we were warned about the road conditions and the possiblity of having to carry out road-construction duties. None of us took that comment too seriously untill we were in front of a rivercrossing that was too steep for the vehicles to cross and we had to adjust the slopes with shovels and picks and rebuild them with stones we gathered along the riverbed. This happend about 4 times over a length of ~16km; with an average speed of about 2km/h it took us about 4 hours to arrive at a point close to the outcrop we wanted to see. With the sun setting quickly, we could not not go any further, so we made camp for the night.

The camp was set up close to the riverbanks of the Shaw river, which formed an impressive sight: dried up and very wide. It only took 5 minutes out of the trucks for the rain to start pooring down already. Today Spiderman did not serve as a blanket against the mud but as an extra roof, put up between one of the trucks and two trees. The tents were already wet before we even put them up and to create a campfire was quite a challenge. It was already pitch dark when we finally got a reasonable fire going and everyone gathered around it for dinner, the heat of the fire outweighing the presistent rain. When everyone was stuffed by the kangaroo-stew  (and the vegetarians sin carne of course) made by our chef Jimmy and Jozua & Stephen had delighted us with some marshmallows, people diverged; either getting warm and we! t near the fire or cold and dry underneath Spiderman on the other side of the truck. Halfway through the evening it rained so bad we had to dig trenches around our tents to protect them against flooding. If it would continue to rain like this all night the changes of success were minimal. After warming up by the fire once again (drying up was not feasable any longer) people started to retreat to their tents. Luggage was left in the trucks and tents were shared with 3 or 4 instead of 2 tonight.

It kept on raining during the night and after some restless sleep we were amazed to find that most of the tents were resonably dry inside. On Kath's advice we stayed in the tents to keep as dry as possible and only more than an hour after sunrise the rain ceased a bit and people emerged for breakfast. Slowly confusion fills the camp because it is not clear if we could reach the outcrop we were supposed to see. Safety is the first priority because if something happens we have to help ourselves in this remote area. Around 11am the Toyota 4WD returned from the outcrop with the message they could reach it (again) and we were allowed to walk up there. Quickly it became clear why we have endured the wet and muddy circumstances of yesterday and this morning: before us lies one of the oldest and best preserved outcrops on Earth: the Trendall locality with an age of >3.4 Ga! Not much deformation or metamorphism (heating up the rocks) affected the rocks after deposition, preserving them very well. Kath Grey is a firm believer in the biotical origin of the layers in these rock, that look like known stromatolite structures. But there are also people who disagree and say that it is possible to form these structures abiotically. It remains science afterall and the one with the most convincing evidence wins.

At around 12 o'clock we have a quick lunch and leave the camp hoping we manage to get back to Marble Bar tonight. This is not sure because the dirt roads we passed yesterday might be in a completely different state after all the rain last night. The way back to the Normay Mine site is quite an adventure not only having to do road-reconstructions but we also had to dig the vehicles out of the mud multiple times.

It takes the whole afternoon to get back to the Normay Mine site (20 km away from the Trendall locality) where we arrive at sunset. The married couple kindly offers us their toilet and we all get small samples of the minerals jade and jasper, which they have found themselves in the area. Luckily they do not object to the usage of the dirt-road and after a slippery one-and-a-half hour ride we arrive at the main road to Marble Bar. From there it still takes us about an hour to get back to the campsite where we arrive around 9.30pm. The idea to go the the famous pub is prosponed because after showers, dinner and a discussion about the plans for tomorrow, everyone was just too tired.

Iris and Marten

Day 8 & 9 - Sleeping under the stars with Spiderman

After drying out our tents When you have lived in a small country in Europe most of your life, it is hard to imagine the distances that you have to travel while being in Australia. Only when you see the signs that say "next service station 150km" or "Perth 570km" you notice how used you are to think on 10km-scale. Our total expedition-route is >3200km in about 10 days; needless to say we spent a lot of time in the 4WD trucks. This is exactly what we did the last two days, squeezing in some geology along the way.
In Carnarvon, we left for Tom Price. Because we did not leave very early and the roadconditions are unpredictable due to the weather, we have to skip the geology of today. But even without the stops the chances of making it that far East are not very high, therefore we prepared for our first 'bushcamp'. We stop just before sunset at a 'luxurious' parking lot (it has two concrete fireplaces and toilets, although regarding the smell most of us prefer a bush).
First things first: find firewood before it gets too dark. Then the luggage is loaded off the trucks and beds can be made. Thankfully the weather is nice and - although a bit scary when taking into account the previous nights - we decide to forget about the tents and just sleep in our swag. A swag is basically a waterproof cover for you sleeping bag with a mattress inside. Bob is preparing a big tarp to prevent the swags and bags from getting dirty (dust+rain=mud). When it is all spread out it becomes clear the tarp contains an enormous advertisement for the movie Spiderman 3. Details of how they got hold of this item remain unknown: Bob won't say more then: "Ahh mate you know: someone knew someone who knew someone who ...".

When everyone is sufficiently satisfied after dinner, we get a short briefing about camp-hygiene, not very pleasant but absolutely necessary if you want to prevent illnesses spreading through the group like a house on fire. When dishes were done we spent the rest of the evening around the fire playing a group game of "Werewolves", where innocent townspeople need to find the three werewolves in the group before they are all 'slaughtered'. After two games people are getting tired and we roll ourselves up in our swags falling asleep while looking at the stars.

The next morning we wake up before sunrise (5.30am) and set off to Tom Price once again to restock our supplies - including beer. The goal of today is to reach Marble Bar, a tiny mining town in the East Pilbara. This is not in the original schedule at all, but it is the best we can to taking into account the weather forecast and the road conditions: especially the dirt-roads suffer from the rain. Although the distance is considerable (remember .. think in 100s of kilometres) we manage to make two stops related to geology.

Quite late we arrive at the Marble Bar Caravan Park where we put up our tents again for the night, not trusting the weather. Everyone goes to bed very soon after a simple bbq-dinner and a short discussion about the plans for the next two days.

Iris en Marten

Day 7 – Unplanned humid conditions in tropical Carnarvon

After two days of nice sunny weather, really old stromatolites, beautiful beaches and sunsets, we were in for a surprise during the night between day 6 and 7.

The night, which begins abruptly at 6pm here (no twilight what so ever), started out quite nicely: we put our tents up in the sun at Carnarvon Caravan Park (Carnarvon), had a beer, walked along the one mile jetty and closed it off with some very nice pasta for dinner (with the compliments of Bob and Jimmy). The clear skies gave no warning for what was in store and a few of us were even tempted to test their swags out in the open and watch the stars all night. The skies here are absolutely stunning due to the lack of big cities and other light-pollution. At one o’clock trouble started slowly with a little bit of rain and all the outside ‘swagmen/women’ were forced to go either back to their tents or seek refuge in one of the trucks. Around 4am we all were brutally deprived of sleep when a lot of the tents were literally blown away in the height of the tropical storm that had arrived at the west coast. Some of us were lucky and only had to redo their outer-tent (in the poring rain and pitch dark), other tents were completely ‘destroyed’ and getting rapidly filled with water (photo). Our first encounter with a tropical storm, very rare in these parts of Australia (so actually we should feel lucky to be here at this special time; right try that again when all the clothes and sleeping bags are dry!). The storm only lasted for a few minutes but the results were drastic. Around 5am, when raining ceased a bit, everyone gathered around the bus for some toast and tea, waiting for the sun to rise which eventually happened around 7am. Because the rain still continued most of us stayed in our tents or the trucks and only ‘surfaced’ again when it cleared up a bit. Sleeping bags, swags, entire backpacks full of clothes, wallets, hiking boots…some people had them all soaked. Luckily we were staying at the campsite and the laundry facility contained a drier, which we claimed immediately. Some of us went to town to escape the wetness, others showered and hanged around the laundry area playing cards, because it was nice and warm there due to the electric heater that one of the really nice grey nomads (retired Australians with a caravan or camper exploring their country) lent us out of pity. For the remainder of the day things like drying out our tents (when it stopped raining), cooking lunch if the rain allows us and a pub dinner were on the list.

Going further North (like planned) is not possible today because most of the roads in the area we want to go to have been closed and you actually get fined if you do go there, because you will destroy the roads. We will stay for another night in Carnarvon and try to continue our trip tomorrow; unfortunately it looks like we have to skip some of the amazing geology in the process.

The only thing we can do for now is hope for the weather to clear up and have a lovely dinner at the pub.

Iris and Marten

Day 5 and 6: Shark Bay and Carbla point.

On day 5 we continue our trip up north towards Shark Bay. The 500 km long drive gave us a pretty good idea of the vast emptiness of Western Australia. Even though we’re using the main highway of WA, you can drive up to 70 km without seeing farms, houses or any other trace of civilization (except for the road, of course). After the 70 km, don’t expect a village; it will probably be nothing more than a roadhouse (basically a petrol station plus a small shop).  Even oncoming traffic is rare. But at least there is a (bitumen) road here; when we’re in the outback, those will be rare as well.

At the end of the day we reach Hamelin Pool, located at the southern shore of Shark Bay, which is named after the Whale Sharks that linger there some times of year (but not now, unfortunately). This is one of the highlights of our excursion; Shark Bay hosts colonies of marine stromatolites. Worldwide, only two such colonies are known (the other one is in the Bahamas).

So, what is a stromatolite and why do we care? Basically, a stromatolite is just an odd-shaped bump on the sea-floor (photo). It consists of sediment material that is trapped by slimy cyanobacteria; some sediment (say, sand) gets stuck on the slimy layer of cyanobacteria and becomes part of the stromatolite. On top of the trapped sediment new cyanobacteria grow. In this way, a mat or mushroom shaped structure is built up.
The reason we’re interested in these slimy bumps is that they are thought to have formed most of the earth’s free oxygen in the atmosphere. Without them, life on earth would probably be nothing like we know it. Cyanobacteria are thought by some to have existed as long back as 3.3 billion (Dutch: miljard) years ago and were certainly present 2.7 billion years ago. About a billion years ago the Earth’s atmosphere held a significant amount of oxygen.

Back then, stromatolites were extremely abundant, but, ironically, the oxygen they produced allowed for the evolution of animals that had stromatolites for breakfast, lunch and dinner, making them extremely rare.
The reason that stromatolites are present in Shark Bay is that the water there is extremely salty; almost nothing can live there, except for the cyanobacteria. The high amount of salt in the water is caused by a sand barrier further up in the bay which restricts the circulation of ocean water. The high amount of evaporation does the rest.

We saw some stromatolites yesterday as well. Those weren’t located in the ocean but in a small inland lake; Lake Thetis. Unfortunately, the water level there was a bit high, making them practically invisible (should have brought the snorkeling gear).

Next day we’re off to the beach at Carbla point (also Shark Bay but further North) to see some more stromatolites. After a bumpy ride of about 30 km of bush tracks we reach the beach. Of course, there’s nobody there. In fact, you need a permit just to get there. After a long walk along the beach (which consists only of very small perfectly white shells), looking at the stromatolites, we had lunch, packed up and headed for Carnarvon.

Marten en Iris

Day 4 – Gravity wave centre and Pinnacles

After a short night and cold morning, we were picked up at half past 7 by two big 4-wheel drive trucks and we meet up with our drivers (Bob and Jimmy) as well as some of the Australian participants. It took a while to get all the luggage loaded onto the roofs (see the photo) of the trucks but after 30 minutes we finally hit the road.

The first stop of today is Physics-related: the Gravity Wave Centre. The centre is located near the small town of Gingin (Gingin WA) and part of the University of Western Australia (UWA). It started in 1990 as a research centre that focused on the detection of gravitational waves and the development of gravitational astronomy.
So, what are gravity waves? As geologists we may not be the right people to explain it to you, so we will keep it short: the movements of masses can distort space-time and create gravitational ripples (the bigger the mass, the larger the distortion). Gravity waves have been predicted from Einstein’s theory of relativity, but they have not yet been observed. Currently a detector is being built and they’re hoping to get some results in the upcoming 5~10 years.

The second stop of the day was geologist-friendly again: the Pinnacle Desert (photo), located in the Nambung National Park. The area owns its name to the thousands of limestone pillars (pinnacles) that rise out of the yellow sand. Limestone consists of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), the same thing that forms on your showerhead or water boiler, but in nature it mostly consists of shells, corals and other remains of (small) sea-animals.
These pinnacles originated because small limestone particles and sand were blown inland by the wind, forming high dunes, stabilized by plants. Rainwater and acidic fluids from the soil above seeped through the dunes dissolving part of the limestone particles. The dissolved limestone washed down into the underlying rocks, following cracks created by the roots of the plants. When these roots took up the water, the limestone was left behind and ‘glued together’ (cemented) the sand. During the period that followed, erosion took place, removing the loose sand and leaving the hard limestone pinnacles behind.

We spent the night at Cervantes Caravan Park: our first night camping!

Day 3: Visit to the Geological Survey

After a good night’s sleep, briefly interrupted by two phone calls in the middle of the night (should have turned the stupid phone off) and breakfast, we arrived at the Geological Survey of Western Australia at 9 am. Following a welcome by the vice-president of the survey, we were provided with the gory details of the geological history and paleontology (fossils of early life) of Western Australia, at a speed of approximately 100 million years a minute.

Just before the lunch break we visited the core library of the survey. This library does not contain books but rocks, obtained by drilling while exploring for oil, gas or ores. The drilling can extend up to a few kilometers below the Earth’s surface. In total, the library holds at least 100,000 km (!) of cylinder-shaped rock samples. After the lunch we held presentations of the posters prepared back in the Netherlands.

summarizing the whole course attached to the excursion in less than two hours.

We ended the day with a nice group dinner at a fish restaurant offered by the Dutch universities (thanks!).

Tomorrow the real work starts; get up at 6 am, no breakfast, and the first long drive to the gravity wave centre in Gingin (not making it up!).

Iris and Marten

Day 1&2: Flight & Sightseeing

Our trip finally began! After twelve hours in the plane watching crappy movies and eating similar food, we arrived in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur airport turned out to be as much fun as an airport can get after such a long flight (not that much), even though it earned the title of being the second most customer friendly airport in the world (yay!).
Three hours later we were back in our square metre for the final six hours to Perth. Luckily the skies were clear and we could enjoy the pretty shorelines, reefs and sand dunes of Western Australia.
After the obligatory bureaucracy in the form of a yellow card (“are you importing any firearms, drugs or explosives?”, “Do you have tuberculosis?”, “Did you visit a farm in the last 30 days?”, “Did you clean your boots?”), we picked up our backpacks and went to an arranged van. One of us walked out of the airport without his bag but with $100 and an oversized T-shirt: when Marinus checked in at Schiphol airport, the kind blonde ground stewardess forgot to attach a tag to his bag. After two days of nervousness, it finally arrived and, much to the delight of all of us, he put on some clean clothes.
After a nice diner and a good night’s sleep, we enjoyed a free day to get used to the time& weather, spent in sunny Perth and Fremantle (see photo).

Marten en Iris

Picture : Skyline van Perth. (Photograph: Iris)

Eendracht Expedition 2008

Hi, readers of the VU-blog!

First of all: who are we? We, Marten and Iris, are two Earth Science master-students who are going to write here about our trip to Australia with the course ‘From Lifeless to Living’. We will give you the juicy details about what we are doing, but also give some ‘educational’ background info on what we are actually looking at. Both Marten and me have a bachelor’s degree in Geology and are currently enrolled in a master specialization which focuses on Structural Geology. More information about our background can be found on this page, together with the participants of the expedition: http://www.falw.vu.nl/eendracht.

The official name of the expedition is ‘The Eendracht Expedition 2008’. The name Eendracht refers to the ship of Dirk Hartogh, who was the first European to set foot on Australian soil in 1616. As you can see on the website of the participants, there are also students and staff from Leiden University going along as well as people from Australia. This is because the expedition is a result of a collaboration between the different institutions, combining the fields of geology, biology and astronomy in one single fieldtrip.

Our destination is Western Australia, the Pilbara area to be precise, which is East of Exmouth (see map). But why are we going there and not somewhere a little closer to home? This is because some of the oldest rocks on Earth can be found there.

The rocks we will be looking at were formed in a geological period called the Precambrian. This period comprises the oldest history of the Earth; it starts with the formation of the Earth, about 4.5 billion (Dutch: miljard) years ago and ends 0,542 billion years ago.

A lot of Big Things took place during the Precambrian: the origin of life, the formation of the current atmosphere and the formation of the first continents; to name a few.
Unfortunately, very little Precambrian rocks remain nowadays, and what remains is often unrecognizably changed by processes like continent collisions, volcanism or metamorphism. This complicates reconstructing what things were like in the Precambrian; imagine solving a puzzle with most of the pieces missing.
Somewhat more fortunate for us is that the few remaining pieces of the puzzle are primarily located in places that make very nice destinations for (adventurous) travel: South Africa, Greenland, Canada, Antartica, and, of course: Western Australia …

Even though the rocks we will be looking at in Australia are really old (3.5-2.5 billion years!!), they still contain fossils of really old lifeforms: stromatolites, which are build-ups made by bacteria. We will also visit places with living stromatolites (which are very rare), look for meteorite impact evidence, see various volcanic deposits and study BIF’s: Banded Iron Fromations (we will explain what those are in a later post).

We will travel with fancy outback-proof busses of a touroperator that will also provide the tents – that is probably why this trip is called expedition – and very important: the food. The route we are going to follow is also shown in the map: we start and end in Perth making a tour of about 3500km up North in three weeks. Yes, no doubt we will spend a loooong time in the bus. Because most areas we are going to visit are quite remote, we hope it will be possible to post regularly, but we do not know for sure if that is going to work out.

Well, that is it so far for our introduction of the Eendracht expedition. We are really looking forward to the trip, even though they warned us not to expect any comfort what-so-ever.

Until the next post!
Iris and Marten

Map of Western Australia with the route of
the expedition: from Perth along the coast to the Pilbara
and back throug the outback (modified from Google Earth).