Tunisia in 1976

In the spring of 1976, I worked as a field assistant and interpreter (most of the people spoke some French) for Dr. J. Keith Rigby, Sr. in Tunisia. Keith was studying Permian biohermal reefs that outcropped in the mountains near the city of Medenine, but we had the opportunity to travel to a number of places in the country. The scenery was spectacular and the people were warm and friendly, always wanting to stop and visit with the odd Americans tromping around in the desert.

The village of Chenini built into the side of the hill.

Here I am with a group of children. They seemed to pop up out of nowhere. I could usually find a coin or piece of candy for them.

Taking the ferry across the Mediterranean to the Isle of Djerba, a popular tourist stop with spectacular white sand beaches.

A handsome young Tunisian boy; one of my many young friends while in the field. He is standing behind a block of sandstone that has Triassic vertebrate tracks all over it.

The open market in Medenine where you could find almost anything for sale.

A young mother at her home in Matmata, Tunisia, a town cut out of the loess deposits where the homes are carved down into the earth. After carving out a home in the loess, they would typically whitewash the walls.

The Roman coliseum at El Jem at sunset.

Detail of the coliseum arches at El Jem.

The Roman ruins at Karouan, Tunisia.

The town of Metameur, Tunisia.

Baskets of olives curing on a rooftop in the Djebel Tebaga hills west of Medenine, Tunisia.

Roman temple ruins at Gightes, Tunisia. While in the hills west of Medenine, we found old Roman quarries with marble columns partially formed, but still in the rock like the one seen below.

Partially formed column still in the old Roman quarry in the Djebel Tebaga.

The hills of Djebel Tebaga where we conducted our studies. The massive rock in the middle of this photo is a small fossil reef, called a bioherm, made up mostly of fossilized sponges. I am standing on a layer of sandstone that laps up onto the fossil reef.

Me climbing out of our field vehicle. The little Renaut got us around very well on the less than ideal roads of the Tunisian countryside.

Trace fossils on a sandstone from the Djebel Tebaga hills.

Photo of me on the outcrop in the Djebel Tebaga, wearing my Camp Loll, BSA T-shirt and probably pretending to know what I was looking at.

My mentor and friend, Keith Rigby, not in Tunisia, but sitting on the lawn at a home in Gunlock, Utah where we were running the BYU field camp one season.

California 1983

On a geology field trip in April 1983 led by Dr. Myron G. Best and myself I dug out these old pictures. Some of the old 35 mm slides are still pretty nice.

 Green hills of the Coast Range looking out over the San Jose valley.

 Tiburon Peninsula on a rainy April day with the occasional blueschist or greywacke knocker poking up through the grass.

Early morning along the Merced River gorge outside of Yosemite.

Agmatite – a mass of rock thought to represent the collapsed roof of a magma chamber.

 Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite Valley in the morning light.

Another example of agamite with numerous inclusions of different types in the granite matrix. Located along the Merced River gorge near Yosemite National Park.

Landslide on road west of Yosemite. The spring of 1983 was one of the wettest the west had seen in over 100 years causing many landslides.

The beautiful U-shaped, glaciated Yosemite valley.

Flow layering and folding in the rhyolite lava flows near Mono Lake, California near Mammoth, California.

Sedimentary dikes cutting across tuff layers near Mono Lake.

More of the flow folded rhyolite lava. Just spectacular.

Backyard Bird Feeder

Goldfinches and house finches clamor for the last of the seed in the feeder outside our kitchen window in December 2013.

Fall in Provo

Just a few shots around the house and up the canyon mostly at sunset and sunrise.

Moonrise over the Wasatch Mountains.

Undergrowth in the aspens along the side yard.

Maples and fire bush. Yellow Norway maple hangs over a smaller red orange native Utah Bigtooth maple and on the left a bright red winged euonymus, also called fire bush.

Bridal Veil falls in the early morning light up Provo Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains.

Sunset colors in the sky over the cottonwood and maple trees.

Purple alyssum, the last of the summer flowers in the front garden.

Limestones of the Oquirrh Formation in the Wasatch Mountains of Provo Canyon in the early morning.

Remnants of the summer garden. The tomatillos and tomatoes that didn't quite make it.

Burr oak acorns in the gutter in front of the house.

Another view of moonrise over the sunset colored Wasatch Mountains.

Spring West Desert Trip

Each spring I take a trip out into the western Utah desert to collect rock samples for my independent study course. Not many of the desert flowers were in bloom this time, probably because of the dry winter and spring weather. But the desert is still beautiful this time of the year. Here are a few shots I took in between collecting stops.

A little snow still capping Deseret Peak in the Stansbury Range in the distance, and beyond the trees, in the middle distance is a burned out area from a previous year's fire.

A brief stop at the Simpson Springs Pony Express station. What a life those riders must have had.

The colors of the desert are subtle, but beautiful, particularly with the touch of green in springtime.

On the north end of the Thomas Range, I stopped to collect some rhyolite. I also found a few pink topaz crystals and some pseudobrookite.

At the stop to collect rhyolite, one lone sego lily was blooming in the middle of the dirt road.

It seemed like every few miles I had to stop and chase one of these off of the road so that it would not get run over. This is the Great Basin gopher snake that is very common and useful in the western Utah desert.

These are really beautiful animals and I always hate it when I don't see them quick enough to stop.

Just east of the Thomas Range, these pointed volcanic hills form the end of the Keg Mountains.

I stopped in the Desert Mountains to collect some quartz. These low hills and mountains located just south of the road between the Thomas Range and the Little Sahara sand dunes have always fascinated me with their variety of different igneous rocks and dikes. But you want to arrive in the spring when the June grass (or cheat grass as it is also called) around the hills has not dried out. When it dries, its seeds gets into every crack and crevice in your boots and shoes and work their way in until you have to remove socks and shoes and pick them out.

Snakes aren't the only reptiles roaming the desert.

Crossing the railroad tracks east of Little Sahara reminded me of the dreadful day two years ago when my wife and I were the first ones on the scene of a terrible tragedy. Three young teenage girls killed by a train.

From the highway east of Eureka, Utah the view of Mount Nebo is spectacular. Snow from this winter still fills the three ancient cirques at the top of the mountain that were carved out during the last ice age.

Here in this black and white shot you can see the cirques even more clearly.

One last shot of Mount Nebo as the sun begins to get low in the sky. This one taken from near the town of Goshen.

These two pictures are of the setting sun striking West Mountain with the town of Genola visible at its base. At the top of West Mountain, not seen in these photos, is the BYU West Mountain Observatory. Beyond West Mountain, civilization once again intrudes upon the desert and I catch the freeway back to Provo. But it was great to escape even for just one day.