One of my last samples comes from Isle of Wight, more exactly from the beach at Brookgreen (approx. location: 50°39’04″N 1°27’31″W). The sand has lots of foraminifera, maybe one day I’ll try to separate them on classes but right now I just wanted to share this photo with you (check the Photo Photomicrography section for [...]

Last days I came across this great clip on youtube about sand saltation. The author used a macro lens and captured on digital support the movement of sand particles on desert dunes. An extraordinary perspective of something rather ordinary… enjoy watching!

Several weeks ago I received a sand sample from Istria, Croatia. Unfortunately I don’t have any more details about the location but the sample got my attention nowadays due to a small label that said: “Foraminifera”. So just from curiosity I made several photos and, indeed, there are plenty of small foraminifera inside! The photos [...]

Today we did another hike in Saxon Switzerland mountains (Sächsische Schweiz) just less than one hour drive from Dresden. Together with the Bohemian Switzerland (Böhmische Schweiz), the area belongs to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains (Elbsandsteingebirge) and it represents the preferred weekend destination for most nature-lovers from Dresden and surroundings (see also my previous post about [...]

Did you ever ask yourself what is your city made of? I mean the historical buildings, there where concrete, glass or metal have not been in use as in today’s buildings. Well, I must confess that I didn’t think much about it. Until now. Because on this Friday evening we joined the annual “Dresden long [...]

Shale (in German: Schiefer) is the name used for a sedimentary rock made of… mud (actually a mix of clay and some other minerals like quartz and calcite). The fine-graded rock can be broken into parallel layers and it is often used in Germany for covering the roofs of houses in mountain areas. House covered [...]

The Tharandt Forest is one of the biggest forests in Saxony located at only 20 km west of Dresden. These two reasons gave us sufficient motivation for a one-day trip during the prolonged Pentecost weekend. Nevertheless, there is at least one more reason for going to Tharandt: the Geological Open-Air Museum, another time journey through [...]

Questenberg is a small village with 350 inhabitants in the southern Harz and we just learned about it from the Geopark Harz leaflet no. 12. The village was mentioned in the guide for the presence of alabaster balls outcropping at the surrounding slopes. Alabaster intrusions are small, ball-like gypsum deposits concentrated within the mother rock. [...]

As I wrote in a previous post, Harz region has been born from a sea bottom several hundreds of millions years ago. The remains of seashells and other marine animals have piled up and turned into a thick limestone layer which found its way out to the surface. An old quarry can be seen left [...]