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Published: August 9th 2015
This is day 3 in Coldigioco, in La Marche region of Italy. So beautiful here!! We're in the middle of wine country, surrounded by mountains and fields of sunflowers and grape vines. We've been out for dinner every night so far, to a nearby restaurant called Il Carbonaro, and each night I stuff myself with pasta and wine before realizing that there is still salad and another course of meat afterwards! It is said that you can't go wrong with food in Italy... Seems true so far, every meal I've had had been delicious. I'm still getting used to having wine at every lunch and dinner, brought out in a pitcher like water would be.
Each day has been absolutely packed traveling around the area and learning about the geology of the region. We've been learning lots about the famous K-T boundary, the 2cm layer of clay sediment between the Cretaceous and the Ternary marked with impact glass and radium that indicates the time when a giant meteor hit the Earth and wiped out all dinosaurs! This well-known geological point in history was discovered in Gubbio, Italy, by Walter Alvarez (who's book we're reading) and in part by Sandro Montinari,
The K/T!!
Evidence of the K/T Boundary, at which point all dinosaurs went extinct. Seen as a whitish layer discontinuous throughout, in La Marche near Coldigioco.who is our professor here and lives at Coldigioco. Walter Alvarez is coming to our program for the last month, which is pretty awesome AND he fiddles so I'm excited to play some with him! I haven't had much time to play my instrument yet, because our primary "down time" has been at breakfast and after dinner, when we're all exhausted. I'll get to playing more soon though.
I love the people on my program so far-- it seems that geologists are adventurous at heart! It's been really hot every day, so two nights ago, six of us decided to hike up a nearby hill to a medieval watchtower and sleep outside. We cousins find an official path up, so bushwhacked through a bit of forest, and trampled up some farmland to the top. I didn't get much sleep, but there were shooting stars all night and the moon when it first came up was bright orange. When we got up in the morning, the sunrise over the Apennines was breathtaking.
Yesterday we spent the day driving through the Apennines and my god they're breathtaking! In Frassassi, the limestone mountains are so tall and rigid, rising up on
The Furlo Gorge
The Furlo Gorge, from the small town of Furlo, Italy. Exploring some Jurassic stratigraphy! either side of the narrow valley that the road cuts through. And Gubbio, a small Medieval town where the K-T boundary was discovered, is nestled between the mountains like a gem in the wilderness. I am loving driving through the country and small towns of Italy, because it's absolutely stunning and about as far from the tourist-mobbed Rome you can get.
Today we travelled to Furlo, Italy, to the Furlo Gorge to explore more K/T boundary and a full sequence of sedimentary Jurassic-age limestones. The gorge formed as the Apennine Mountains were uplifted, and the already-existing Candigliano River cut through the rock. Also explored some fossils and ammonoids, and went for a swim in the Candigliano! It finally rained in the evening, a refreshing dose after all this heat. Tomorrow we will travel to Ancona, a sea port on the coast where Sandro was born, to explore some more mountains and eat some seafood. Arrivederci!
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Kathi Ray
non-member comment
Italy
Thanks for letting us follow your journey in Italy. I'm looking forward to hearing about and seeing photos of the countryside and geological formations you study. Don't eat so much pasta and wine that you ruin your svelte figure!