What are some of your favorite science-related travel destinations?
I just visited the Burgess Shale and HIGHLY recommend. It's a tough hike, but you get to see hard- & soft-bodied creatures from the Cambrian explosion 500+ million years ago
Here's a fossil of a 500-million-year-old worm. One of the cool things about the Burgess Shale fossils is that they capture behavior. This is a worm with a digestive tract full of crunched-up shells -- evidence of predatory behavior.
And please do share your favorite science destinations. I've been wanting to see the Burgess Shale since reading Stephen Jay Gould's WONDERFUL LIFE in 1991 and would love to hear your must-visit travel advice. Thanks!
I just got back from the Galapagos and no one understood why I stayed on deck one afternoon with binoculars staring at this island (Daphne Major, site of much of Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch).
If you somehow end up in Turkey, we have them in Lake Salda, too.
PS. I did go to WA earlier this year, to check out the cousins of the guys in this lake. (And an eclipse.😉)
Not sure it's a whole trip in itself (combine with a visit to Ningaloo Reef and Shark Bay etc!) but swinging by the stromatolites in Western Australia with a bunch of biology nerds on our way home from fieldwork was an A+ weirdo science situation.
I know *way* too little Mandarin to explain to the busload of tourists that followed us skipping down the boardwalk why exactly we were so excited about these muddy-looking lumps in the water, but I think they caught the vibe in the end?
Ah a priapulid!! I spent a year or two volunteering to sort Burgess Shale fossils for the Royal Ontario Museum just so I could get to hang out with all the critters.
I planned my whole cross-country move route around fossil sites I wanted to see! Ashfall Beds in Nebraska and Mammoth Site in South Dakota were SO cool. 🧪
Do it! I was really worried about whether I could make it, but the guides are great and they set a very do-able pace. My guide said at the beginning "I've led this tour more than 200 times, and never had anyone not make it there and back, and I've never had to open up my First Aid kit"
