Indo-Pacific Ancient Ecosystems Group

This is the ship carrying our samples from Singapore to Rotterdam. currently near the Suez Canal, in a week time it (he/she?) will arrive in Rotterdam

Following a 7h drive from Balikpapan to Bontang we had a brief tour around the most important outcrops visitted in December 2011. Especially in the central and northern areas 3 new and one old locality was cleared of vegetation. Already from the car when we jsut arrived we saw that TF110 had tremendously changed (see picture). In each locality enoirmous amounts of branching corals, molluscs and foraminifera where found.

Because of very erratic availability of internet service (connection is basically only available between 05.00-06.00 a.m. here a three in one update. During the past days we first experienced a half day of serious rain, not motivating us to go out, and making the roads very difficult to navigate. In the afternoon we explored the area to the southeast of Talisayan, and found several outcrops with either friable Operculina packstones or a more marly facies, in which evidence of past presence of abundant mollusks was frequently present.

 Finally we were lucky today! After having spotted a track on the satellite image we first crossed through the forest along the coastal ridge, only to discover that there also was a road. Along this road we first encountered limestones, soon to change into coastal plain deposits. The facies is very similar to the Garden Hotel outcrops, although most age indications seem to hint at an older age.

Tidal channel to the Southeast of Tanjung Redeb. Today Rackmat, Dedy, Alex, Ken and I (later referred to as we) explored some areas near to Tanjung Redeb for potential fossil sites. Unfortunately we were not very successful and discovered mainly estuarine to deltaic deposits characterised by the cheer absences of (macro)fossils. Back in the hotel I discovered that Leupold, back in 1920, referred to these deposits as 'Sterile Formation'. Hopefully more luck tomorrow.