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Day 9

Hot hot hot

In the morning a group of porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) joined our breakfast and I realized again how much I enjoyed the peacefulness of our last breakfasts. We filled up the tank with 20l of petroleum (good one – as was promised us) and started our day. This time we wanted to visit again the deposits of the big Río Blanco landslide. But this time the more distal parts of it. As we made our way we passed a trophy hunter who shoot the poor Nandus and Guanacos in this area. I´m really sure that this is not allowed in this area.
On our way down to the Río Blanco we crossed a strange feature during our way which seemed to be a small landslide of a coastal bar or a former shoreline. The slope is just 5° and maybe it was more a creeping mass than a real slide.
As we reached the area of the landslide we were stopped by a gate which, though it was open, a clear sign that this was private property. There was nothing we could do then to ask the owner for permission. As we arrived at the estancia we were quite afraid of our invasion of the property. The trophy hunting and some of my horror stories of other professors made clear that our success depended on the mood of the owner. Luckily, we were able to get the permission to the area. With nearly cloudless sky and no wind we had optimal conditions. But the burning sun also let us suffer. It was nearly 25° in the shadow and shadow was scarce. We jumped from one outcrop to the next, seeing not the same structures as yesterday but similar. Maybe due to the velocity and inner mechanisms some kind of slab are prevailed in the internal part. The terrain are mostly hills which are called hummocks. From what we saw all of them had this prevailed structure on top. This could be an interesting part of our story. Of course our drone was important as well. We received really nice air picture and videos showing the immense greatness and extent of the location.
As we went back the sun was burning heavy on us and we were very happy to reach our car and cool down.

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Day 10

The very last day

We were hitting our last day. The exhaustion was visible in everyone’s face but mostly in Vladimir´s who stayed at the car today. We wanted to visit on last time the Lago Ghio and tried to check on some sedimentary structures and to fly the drone a few time. Unfortunately, the weather changed again over night. It was more or less 10° colder and we had strong winds. That meant nearly no drone today except for a few pictures from the air.
Despite that it was a successful day. We were visiting beautiful outcrops and confirmed our theory about the evolution of the hummocky terrain and the evolution of the lakes. Though we couldn´t find any organics today the information and data we have is enough to publish a nice paper. During the afternoon the sun came out and lightened up the lake which has a beautiful turquoise color. I think I have more pictures of the lake than of the outcrops. After we went back to the car we made a small retour to one of the highest shorelines of the old lake and to see the other side of the moraine which is the huge Río Blanco landslide. After we came back we all needed a nice beer (except for Diego who had to drive) and on the way back I nearly fell asleep.
I think I will write during the next days a small review of the field trip. But I can certainly can say that it were successful ten days and that I have learned a bunch of new things. 

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Day 8
Concretion

Today was panned to be a more relaxing day. After the 16 km of walking yesterday I personally found this quite reasonable. Our plan for today was to visit one of the smaller landslides, make a few drone pictures and sample a few peat bogs. We had only a 2 km walk to the headscarp. Though, we had to cross a steep and deep river canyon. It took us not long to reach the scarp (we were all fresh and motivated) and after some discussion we decided to split up again. Diego and I were taking a few drone pictures while Tomas and his group was taking peat samples at the nearest peat bog. It took us nearly one hour to complete the flights while using all of our available batteries. I believe that this data is really valuable. As we caught up to Tomas, he told us that they sampled again organics using all of the pipes they had. We went on to the next peat bog, but it turned out to be complete solid ground with no chance of sampling anything. So we just had a look on the outer margin of the landslide where we had a nice look on the big Río Blanco slide we visited yesterday. As we went back another 60 m high scarp laid ahead of us and some feeling befall me that we only took the routes with the steepest slopes.
Nevertheless, we made it back to the car (though I forgot the canyon in our way) and because we had some time left we decided to visit the Lago Ghio landslides. There we discovered one of the strangest features I have ever seen. They are concretions – oval to ball shaped accumulation of minerals which just look like someone had put his clay trash there. But no, these things can grow quite big and sometimes (if you are lucky) fossils can be found inside (though I didn´t find one). Additionally, we found a quite spectacular outcrop right at the margin of the lake. With a nice sequence of lacustrine deposits, landslide deposits and shore deposits. The complexity is really stunning and we decided to visit the outcrop on our last day again.

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Day 7
Drilling baby

Our second day in Bajo Caracoles began with a small breakfast and nearly wind free and cloud free weather. Optimal conditions for flying the drone. As we made our way to the proposed area, which was located near to the Lago Ghio we stopped for an Australian couple who stranded at this small road. A stone had completely destroyed the engine of their bully. We promised to take them back to Bajo Caracoles when we came back. After one hour of driving (so much less than with the days before) we reached our destination and decided to walk the 3 km to the main scarp of a massive landslide. It has a length of around 7 and a width of three kilometers and seemed to be either part of a glacier lake outburst flood (short GLOF) or a landslide which collapsed into a lake. There we let the drone fly to take pictures for a nice DEM. Tomas and his crew walked ahead to some of the nearest peat bog area. After we caught up to the group Tomas told us that they have recovered 1.50 m of peat after hitting the sandy ground. That were good news and so we moved on to our next peat bog. This one was bigger than the last one and gave us promising results. After drilling for 4 m we hit the base level – just in time because we had no more tubes. The drilling was quite easy… the water level was high and the sediments very soft. Only by pushing the tubes into the peat bog we moved the core more into the ground. The results were really good and we could sample at least three times. The last peat bog was also promising and showed a complicated structure of sandy, silty and clayey layers. We took the whole drilling core with us by wrapping it up nicely with plastic film. As we made our way back to the street, we had to cross the headscarp. This meant an approximately 50 m high wall of death. With temperatures around 20 °C and cloudy sky it could have been worse. Nevertheless my lower leg burned as hell. We also had to move the three kilometers back to our car. After 16 km of walking the mate tea and beer was hard-earned.

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Day 6
Hot and Cold

Today we moved down to a little village named Bajo Caracoles. It´s located southern of the Meseta del lo Buenos Aires and is a very small town. Nevertheless, we took a retour to see a few landslides at the Río Blanco area. As we arrived the wind has gotten quite strong though we had a sunny and nearly cloudless sky. After 1 km of walking we arrived at the headscarp and decided to try to fly the drone. After nearly 85% of the mission the drone had strong problems to move forward due to the wind. We cancelled the mission and decided to move downwards to the river to search for some organics. The valley is nearly bowl shaped so the winds are not as strong as on the top. We felt now the burning of the sun as we checked lacustrine sediments at the base-level of the river. With some luck we could find a few woodened layer and some carboniferous woods as well. After walking downstream we reached the dam of the lake. Here basement tertiary material which is strongly folded and faulted is covered by some fluvial and later by lacustrine sediments. Unfortunately, we couldn´t find any organics. Next year we might come back to sample some OSL.
As we made our way back to the headscarp I felt like my head was bursting due to the heat. Only sometimes strong winds could cool me off, but at the end of the trip my water bottle was complete empty. Next day I will definitely take more water with me!

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Day 5
Becoming an archeologist

After the last two days have been rather disappointing, we were hopeful this morning to see only a few clouds on the sky. The night has been especially cold and for me quite uncomfortable. So the breakfast was silent until the owner came with a glass full of hot chocolate which turned the tables for me. Our fifth companion Karl stayed at cabin again, due to is illness.
We four other people knew that this day contained a whole lot of walking. What we missed the last two days had to be made up again. So we started at the same location as the other days and made our way to the most southern earthflow. We climbed up rapidly without any break until we reached about 1 1/2 hours later a nice spot. The outcrop was around 2 m high and could gave us some wind protection. So we took our lunch there and tried to find some organics. But in the sandy layer of the eolian sediments nothing could be found. 30 m towards the headscarp we found another outcrop, this time containing some in-situ bone fractures. My dinosaur’s adventure mode was on the spot and we tried to remove parts of the spine and rips of a Guanaco. This can bones can be certainly dated. I would have liked to find more bones. Something really made me enthusiastic about this bones in the sand. As we continued our way to the north we stopped a few times for some outcrops but couldn´t find any organics. It seems like the further north we came the more dunes and sands have accumulate during time. Nevertheless, our drone came in handy and we fly a few times. Though the wind force was near the maximum limit of the drone and at some point it happened that the drone was having real trouble of containing its position. But the pictures it took were really good and could help us to reconstruct the history of the area. We moved then further to the south over large desert pavement surfaces and former parts of the old landslide until we came to the headscarp of the reactivated landslide. Unfortunately, we weren´t lucky of finding any organics. The main deposit type were eolian sediments and dunes.
After 15 km of walking we made it back to our car and had a really good asado (barbecue) at our hostel tonight.

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Day 3 and 4
Weekend feeling

Patagonia is beautiful and wild, but also not predictable. This is especially true for the weather. The last two days were not really successful. A winter storm restricted our work heavily and we had to stay nearly all the time at the cabin. Furthermore one of our colleagues is getting sick. I just hope that is fever is going away and that he can recover rapidly. On Saturday we went to the field, but only found a few lacustrine deposits with different deformation grade and a complex sequence of extensional faults and compressional folds. Though we found same organics, our car ire was not having it and broke. We had to change it and drove to some mechanics afterwards to fix it.
Due to the cold our fingers were frozen after one hour and we drove back in the city to catch some WIFI and check the weather forecast. It didn´t look so bad and hopefully we will continue our research tomorrow.

Day 2

Heavy legs

Today we wanted to continue our research of the reactivated landslide. Fortunately we also fixed the heating system of the Czech cabin – so they could sleep a bit better, though one of the group seems to have a hard time with staying healthy. With crossed fingers we reached the place we the construction work blogged our way yesterday. They let us through and a wave of relieve filled the car. This day we didn´t wanted to walk as far as the other day. It was meant to be a short trip the reach the headscarp of the reactivated landslide. We found a few interesting sedimentary sequences – a mixture of fluvial, eolian and lacustrine deposits which were deformed by the advance of the earthflows. Additionally, we could use the drone for the first time. It gave us really amazing results, as we saw this evening. The drone pictures can be used not only to create a DEM, but also to have nice picture from bird-view position and to recognize other places which we could visit the next days. I think that this kind of technique is not only easy to handle but gives as a lot of information.
As we made our way to the headscarp eolian sediments became the main deposits. We are now thinking of using OSL for dating the burial time. It seems perfect for it.
After 9 km of walking we reached our car. My legs felt as heavy as on the first day. And due to some nasty sunburn on my legs they also hurt quite a bit. This time we stayed in Los Antigous for dinner – and I think this was quite a good proposal.

Day 1
The very first field day

My very first field day started early but not as early as I expected. We had breakfast at 8 am where we were could try four different types of jam. Typical for this region are the so-called “fine fruits” or “frutas finas” in Spanish. As we went to our first spot at the northern side of the Meseta (Plateau) del Lago Buenos Aires it was very fast clear that we were not able to reach it during this day. The gate was closed and our chances to drive to the foot of the landslide with our car, like last time, declined rapidly. As a back-up plan Tomas suggested a second complex landslide on the western side of the Meseta. But which took us at least one hour to go there.
As we followed the gravel road the Murphy`s law was activated again. Just 6 kilometers before we reached our destination the road was blocked due to construction work. After going through some options we decided to go to one of the nearer spots in order to get some samples.
This was no easy task as between and our marked locations a river was flowing. We followed the road a bit but didn´t reach any bridge. In the end we decided to cross the river – which was in retrospective a good decision. Though, we have one guy in our group who twisted his knee two weeks ago and had to walk carefully. With is long legs he wasn´t much faster than I was. We crossed several fences each time more gratefully! After 1 ½ hours we reached one of the designated area – the peat pogs. There we discovered interesting deformation sequences and different sliding episodes. Probably, the deformation is triggered by creep, while an unconformity marked the line between deformed and undeformed sequence. We took a few organic samples from each of the sequences and can hopefully reconstruct minimal and maximal ages.
As for the way, it was quite a long one. In the end we walked for 16 km – and that was just the first day. So tomorrow the construction work is finished and we plan to make our trip as planned today.

Preparing for the field trip

Field trips are one of the most exciting parts of our scientific life. This is it what apart us from other sciences. Going into the field, seeing what we study, feeling the air (or not if you are in a mine or caving) and speaking with the local people. Field trips have a great intrinsic motivation and afterwards you are usually fired up. Of course it depends strongly on the outcome of the field trip. That´s why preparation is a keystone for a prosperous and successful field trip.

The last two weeks were kind of stressful. Before Christmas organizing anything was difficult because of the closed funding. Indeed, not even the flights were booked. Within one week I managed to book the flights (though the funding was not clear and is to this point not clear) – the double funding with Strategy and CUAA (Cotutelle de tésis) inhibits the problem of unclear competencies. The administration board tells us different things than our organizations board. It feels like every PhD student has made a different travel expanses report. I just hope that the account won´t be this difficult and that we are in the future better prepared. I also managed to get a car for us which is not as expensive as the last time with AVIS. Unfortunately, AVIS wasn´t providing any four-wheel car, which forced me to find alternatives. Now a have a receipt and everything should be set. The equipment was another big point which is up until now not fully organized. Though I´m just waiting for the financial board to respond to the last documents I had to hand in. Delays were, in my opinion, avoidable. Because the projects runs for more than three years now and somebody should know what to keep in mind while ordering big equipment. I just hope that the remaining month is enough time to solve the problems and to get the equipment to Argentina sound and safe. What´s definitely left is the booking of the apartments – I have to set this next week. Looking at my to-do-list sheet a lot of check marks are already set. It´s good to know that most of the points are clear. And I hope to have a nice field trip.
 

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