Another World at Black Mesa: Oklahoma Academy of Science field meeting, part three.

This is the fourth essay about the Field Meeting at Black Mesa; see below for others by myself and by Marco Micozzi. Other field trip leaders, please send anything you would like to post to srice@se.edu, including photos (don't flood my inbox, though).

After lunch, a few of us took the UCO van with David Bass and Chad King and others. No, David did not find any aquatic inverts for us on this trip. We headed northwest on dirt roads.

First, at an unmarked spot, we saw a few sauropod dinosaur tracks, almost hidden by mud. Chad King demonstrates that the sauropod that made the tracks must have been about the same size as he.

Then we went to see Three Corners, a place where humans have arbitrarily drawn lines on a map, with the result that Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico meet at this spot. Some of us were able to jog through three states in less than ten seconds. In this photo, David Bass and his assistant Kinsey Tedford look off into the distant and uncertain future of three states.

Then we started on the trail to the top of Black Mesa itself. Before we had gotten very far, Chad demonstrated how to get a tree core out of a juniper, by which we could see that it was far older than you would expect a little tree to be. But, out in the high plains, the way for a tree to survive is to grow very, very slowly.

The trail went on and on and on for two miles parallel to the mesa before making an abrupt turn and climbing up. Most of the rock layers formed from Jurassic sediments, and some of them were quite visibly green. But the top of the mesa is a cap of volcanic rock only about five million years old. Near the top we found some mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus), but we did not find the wafer ash Ptelea that I am quite certain I saw somewhere around here about a decade ago. I stopped at the top of the plateau and admired the view of the juniper-studded hills and the Polanisia flowers, while the others went to the end of the trail, to the highest point. I did not, because I figured that if I was riding the back of the elephant, there was no need to mount the head.

As I returned to the van, I was frequently alone. There was no wind. I could literally hear nothing except the ringing in my ears. This is something most of us can probably not experience anywhere that we live, where we are always near road noise or, at my house in Tulsa, a constant flow of old propeller planes.

For the Saturday evening presentation, Leland Bement of the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey illustrated his research in the Black Mesa area, which has had continuous human occupation at least back to the days of the Clovis culture, when Native Americans made “stone” tools out of dinosaur bones. Since the Santa Fe Trail ran through this area, the caves have not only Native American art but white pioneer inscriptions as well.

What was perhaps most amazing of all to me was the stars. Tired from long hikes, I chose not to go to the star party (regarding which I hope others will write), but I did look at the sky from behind my distant cabin. There is very little light pollution—Black Mesa is almost as isolated from civilization as is Death Valley—and the Milky Way was clearly visible, something I cannot see even from the “small town” of Durant. If you haven’t seen the Milky Way, you have not seen the sky. You are looking into the flat disc of stars that make up our galaxy. There are so many that it looks like a band of milk. (The word “galaxy” comes from the Greek for milk.) Billions of stars! The black splotches are not the absence of stars, but the presence of dark nebular clouds hiding yet more stars. In other directions you can see the relatively few (but absolutely many) stars that surround us in our distant arm of the galaxy. Even the minor stars were bright, so that I was unable to recognize the constellations that I thought I knew. I was totally disoriented. And that, my friends, is the right way to feel when beholding the universe.

That’s all I have to say right now. Other field trip leaders, send me your stories and photos. And for those of you who did not have time to come (heck, it was only a nine hour drive each way for me), I hope you can experience the field meeting vicariously through our blog entries.

Stan Rice, president

Another World at Black Mesa: Oklahoma Academy of Science field meeting, part two.

This is the third blog entry about the OAS field meeting at Black Mesa. See below for entries by Marco Micozzi and Stan Rice.

On Saturday morning, we gathered for our respective field trips. Many students were required to take some of these field trips. One of them started at the crack of dawn, or even before: Bill Caire of UCO led an excursion to collect mammals from traps. I’ll let Bill tell you more, if he wishes to. Not to scare any of you campers, but you might as well know. Bill and students found a bear track in the mud in the camp.

But the rest of us started our trips at 8:00 or 8:30. I went on a local botany hike led by Gloria Caddell of UCO. The bluffs had a lot of shortgrass prairie species, plus a few scrubby trees, mostly netleaf hackberry (Celtis reticulata), soapberries (Sapindus drummondii), one-seed juniper (Juniperus monosperma), and fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica). We had left most of Oklahoma, with its ubiquitous red cedars (Juniperus virginiana), behind. We also got help from Northeastern State botanist Suneeti Jog.

At least we thought it was going to be a botany hike. But we had not even gotten up onto the bluff before we found a snake failing to hide itself in a cholla cactus. That is, we saw more herps on this trip than did the people on the herpetology trip. Richard Butler, correct me about this if necessary.

Some of us got into the trip with all of our senses. Of course, we could see the beautiful flowers. We learned that you have to look closely. To see, you have to do more than glance. Gloria identified for us no less than eight species of composites that had yellow ray or disc flowers. But we also got to feel the biota. For example, Grindelia gumweeds actually exude enough gum to make them look like goblets of cream. Of course, it felt gummy. But some of us got to feel three different kinds of pain. First, a tiny plant called Tragia has almost invisible and very nasty stinging hairs. And the beavertail cacti have big thorns—which poked some of us—and the even nastier little hairs, which got in my hand when I ate a cactus fruit, and which got in the lips and tongue of a less fortunate person. And I definitely felt the spiny tip of the yucca leaf that I accidentally and barely touched—it was like getting poked by a sword.

But we also used our senses of taste and smell. The cactus fruits tasted fresh and slightly sweet. And the buffalo gourd’s scientific name is Cucurbita foetidisssima, which means “the most foul,” which some people discovered to be truly the case. And next came a perfect example of how terminology can bias perception. Gloria wanted to know what we thought the fragrant sumac smelled like. Nobody had any really clear idea. But when she told us that one of the plant’s names was skunkbush sumac, of course we all started imagining that, yes, indeed, it smelled like a skunk.

Finally, we could hear the wind in the grass and the tree branches. There you have it—all five senses. Gloria showed us almost as many plants before we got on the nature trail as after; I wonder how many casual visitors think that nature exists only on the other side of the Nature Trail sign!

Stan Rice, president

Another World at Black Mesa: Oklahoma Academy of Science field meeting, a botany trip

This is the second entry about the Field Meeting at Black Mesa last weekend. The first was from the field meeting organizer, Marco Micozzi; scroll down to see his essay and photo. This second entry was written by the president, Stan Rice.

On September 19, 2014, hundreds of people hit the road and headed out through the Panhandle of Oklahoma as if being shot through the barrel of a rifle. We came to rest right at the very tip, at Black Mesa State Park. Black Mesa is like a different world, more closely resembling New Mexico than any part of Oklahoma with which most of us are familiar. As we left most of the trees, and even many of the shrubs, behind, we knew that we were also leaving behind comfort and safety. We were exposing ourselves not only to stormy weather (which, despite predictions, did not materialize) and almost desert-like conditions, but also to biological dangers, everything from rattlesnakes to hantavirus. Hantavirus has already claimed lives in the Panhandle.

What surprised me most about this meeting is that there were over a hundred undergraduate students. As president, I had begun to worry that perhaps OAS was becoming a coterie of old people. But the average age of the people at this meeting must have been about twenty, despite the considerable statistical leverage provided by seasoned individuals such as Craig Clifford, David Bass, and myself. I can only hope this means that science is alive and well in the next generation of Oklahomans. Of course, they will probably all find jobs in other states where the pay is better.

Once we all got settled down in our bunkhouses and tents, we had dinner provided by a caterer who was actually willing to drive all the way out to Black Mesa. I am still amazed that any caterer would be willing to do this.

Our evening program was a presentation by Dr. Anne Weil of OSU.

She teaches anatomy in medical school during the academic year, and does vertebrate paleontology research in summer. She studies dinosaurs and ancient mammals. The land that is now Oklahoma had some truly amazing dinosaurs. She handed around what appeared to be pieces of rock. But they were fossilized dinosaur bone fragments. Even after being told what they were, I could not tell that they were anything other than rocks, except for one, which clearly had fossilized bone tissue in it. She conveyed to us some of the excitement of scientific research, often punctuated with “Yay!” and “Woo!” By using microscopes and isotopes, Anne said, we can ask and answer questions that Cuvier could not even imagine.

In the next entry, I will write about a couple of the field trips in the vicinity of, and up to the top of, Black Mesa, on Saturday, September 20. I remind the field trip leaders that if you were on other trips, please send me a summary of what you saw, plus photos, so I can post them on this blog.

This is the first of a series of essays about the Fall 2014 Field Meeting at Black Mesa. This essay is by Marco Micozzi of East Central University, who organized the whole field meeting. President Stan Rice will also post some essays in upcoming days. Field trip leaders, feel free to send Stan essays and photos (srice@se.edu; not too many photos at one time) or else (for council members, if you still have the logon information) post it yourself.

Dear All,

As field trip leader, I want to thank you for a wonderful time at Black Mesa State Park and for all the students you brought with you. I believe they have some great experiences that they will carry with them forever. For most, this was their first time to the area so I am sure they are happy they came with your support. I am also happy that the weather cooperated and the stars were out. Even without a telescope, it was impressive! To the speakers and field trip leaders, it was a delight to have so many students talking about their experiences when I walked by them during the meeting. You made an impact. I thank you for your quick email responses during the planning stages and hope you will return the favor to the next field trip leader. I hope you consider grabbing hold of a state park in the future and being the field trip leader in the future. It is a pleasure working with David and getting to know all of you a bit more. If you know of more passionate teachers to help lead trips, please bring them aboard. In addition, please have your friends check their email and send any updates to David. There are many incomplete email addresses floating around out there.

The group photo (above) is for those teachers that had students hike to the top. If I count the five students from ECU that are not in the photo, I believe this is the largest group we had. For that matter, this was the largest group we ever had at this State Park for a field meeting (compared to 2003 and 2008). Please promote the next meeting in the Spring and help get students to the Technical Meeting in November. Check the website for details.

I am sure not everyone is “bright-eyed” and “well-rested” to start the week, but is was sure worth it!

All the best,

Marco