Rock non-flipping and some links

I can’t believe I missed it this year! I have to forgive myself, though, because I did my first triathlon on Sunday and was pretty focused on surviving that challenge. Pity I completely forgot, though, because the race was in a state park and I indeed could have flipped a rock or two.

You should check out Wandering Weeta’s roundup of blog posts about IRFD, as well as the flickr group.

I’m really happy for the folks that found this slug this year! They think it’s a banana slug, which I’m sad to have never seen despite those years of living in Northern California.

(photo by Susan Thomsen)

Now, for a couple of Friday links.

1. It’s easy to find articles about invasive mollusks, or sad endangered species stories, but it’s heartwarming when you find an article about a snail thought to be extinct that isn’t!

2. I love how different fields in science intersect to do cool work, and here’s a story about studying climate– El Nino and La Nina in particular– by looking at fossil bivalves.

3. Lollusk! This one’s a cutie.

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Most Extreme Tidepooling

A couple of weeks ago my mom and I took one of our annual roadtrips. We decided to go someplace new to both of us: New Brunswick! And as I had to restate many times to New Yorker friends and colleagues: that’s Canada, not Jersey.

The Bay of Fundy is a very interesting place. As anyone who did Geography Bee in middle school might be able to tell you, the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world (though people who live near Ungava Bay will dispute that).

In St. John there is a place called Reversing Falls, which is obviously a misnomer, but we did visit it twice and see rapids in two different directions, once when the river was rushing into the bay and once when the tide was rushing in stronger than the river rushes out!

The Hopewell Rocks are extremely cool formations in the Bay of Fundy caused by the tidal erosion, so of course we went at low tide. Check them out!

We were there just at the beginning of the window of time during which it’s possible to walk on the ocean floor among the rocks. I was curious what kinds of creatures might be able to live in this most extreme intertidal zone. My answer: snails!

The photos of these snails are a little wonky because they were well above my head! Many of them were also out and about rather than clamped onto the rocks, which I found curious. Apart from these snails and barnacles, there was a lot of kelp. The sea floor being exposed as the tide continued to go out was extremely muddy, so it didn’t look hopeful for seeing any other lifeforms. Still, what a cool place!

I tried to use the word EXTREME a lot in this post, if you hadn’t noticed.

Also, when you drive by a geodesic blueberry in middle-of-nowhere Maine, stopping for pie is recommended.

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