GeoCultura Tour Leaders – What have they been up to?

Jon leads our tour showcasing spectacular scenery and dinosaurs in Canada’s Rocky Mountains and Badlands, and provides participants with some unforgettable experiences while doing so. But what do leaders do for their own vacations? Well, one answer for Jon was to follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin and visit Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands earlier this year. Not content to just sit back, marvel at the landscape and the wildlife and bask in the warmth, Jon kept busy understanding and photographing what he saw.

Image above: Male frigate bird inflating his pouch for display, on Seymour Norte Island.

Image above: Recent pahoehoe lava flow and rivulets of frozen lava flowing down the face at Vincente Roca Point

Jon recorded his views on the unique geology and amazing animals he encountered in an entertaining blog on the website of the European Geoscience Union (EGU), which may be found here.

 The Galápagos Islands may become a GeoCultura destination in the near future!

Among Jon’s responsibilities, when not on vacation, is working to protect Alberta’s fossil heritage.

Image above: Isolated Hadrosaur vertebra recovered from the uppermost Dinosaur Park Formation, Campanian, Alberta 

Jon explains this role, provides a few tips on how to find fossils and muses on why some areas are so much better than others at preserving the record of ancient life in another blog on the same EGU site, which may be found here.

Image above: Jon's daughter looking for fossils in the Badlands, Alberta

Jon’s upcoming seven-day tour, The Rockies and the Badlands: Geology and Dinosaurs in Canada, explores the wildly contrasting landscapes of southern Alberta, from the Rocky Mountains in the west, to the Badlands in the east. It begins and ends in Calgary and runs from 23-29 July, 2023.