Spring Break Field Trip to San Salvador Island, Bahamas
Eight students in Connie Soja's Seminar on Reefs (Geology 426) spent spring break
in the Bahamas with Connie and her husband, Brian White (Smith College), exploring
Pleistocene and modern reefs on San Salvador Island. Students focused on identifying
coral, algal, and fish communities to determine guilds and diversity trends in nearshore
and offshore reefs. Underwater cameras and slates facilitated data collection and recording,
including recognition of the widespread decline of the staghorn coral
(Acropora cervicornis) in the Bahamas and Caribbean. Exciting encounters with Great
Barracudas, turtles, spotted rays, parrotfish, and a diversity of scleractinian corals
(remember from Paleo class??) made the trip a wonderful educational exercise! Thanks to
Colgate and the Geology Department for funds that subsidized the costs of this trip.
Pictures from the Trip!
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Survivors of the first snorkel dive on "Dump Reef"
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Jann Vendetti and Kate Clark work in the lab on algae identification
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Posing at the site where Christopher Columbus first
reached the New World
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Becoming a part of the sedimentary record in Fernandez Bay
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Snorkelers in Pigeon Creek
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Discovering ecological baselines in Pleistocene reefs of Grotto Bay
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Encircling a Pleistocene fossil of brain coral, Diploria strigosa
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A juvenile blue tang nibbling algae growing on common star coral, Montastrea annularis, in Snapshot Reef
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added 8 April 99
