Catania and Coldigioco, Italy
June 30 - July 13, 2006

Description

After the conference, I took a trip up to Coldigioco, Italy, where my aunt and uncle own a house. It was my third trip there. I did some more exploring around the area, and I got a tour of the geology of the area, including many impact-related sedimentary sequences such as the K/T boundary, from Alessandro Montanari, who lives in Coldigioco and runs the Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco. Here's the web page from my last trip to Coldigioco in 2005, which has more info about the town and the area.

Photos

	Medium Large	Watching Italy beat Ukraine 3:0 in the World Cup quarterfinal match the night I arrived in Catania. The game was shown on a big screen in a square in downtown Catania. I saw the semifinal and final matches as well on this trip, with Italy winning the Cup.
	Medium Large	My hotel in Catania, 'Hotel Nettuno'
	Medium Large	Views of the coast near the hotel. Not much sand, lots of volcanic basalt || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	I took a day trip up Mt. Etna. One of the first things I saw on the road up was this house, which at one point probably had a great view. The driver seemed to be telling me that this only happened 10-20 years ago || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Views from the cable car that took us about halfway to the top || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Map at the visitor center where the cable car ended, showing the features around the summit and the route up there. The rest of the trip was by 4WD bus. The following are a bunch of shots taken on the way to the top and while exploring around up there. It was unfortunately very windy, so they wouldn't let us hike to the actual summit || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Exploring Catania || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	The main church in the center of town
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	The elephant is one of the symbols of the city of Catania || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Pictures of the inside of the church || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Neat painting inside the church commemorating Etna's 1669 eruption
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Rosario Brunetto (another conference participant) took several of us on a tour of the University of Catania, where he was a student || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	How I got from the Rome airport to Coldigioco. The rest of the pictures here are from around Coldigioco.
	Medium Large	I took a trip to the Grotte di Frasassi, which is a big cave near Coldigioco. It's a wet (i.e. still growing) cave, like Karchner Caverns near Tucson, which is listed as one of its 'sister caves.' Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the cave, so I don't have any pictures of the inside of it to post. These are just from the parking lot, visitor center, and the gorge leading to the cave. || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Sandro's grappa distillery || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Attempts at night photography around Coldigioco || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Shots from the drive from Coldigioco to nearby Apiro || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Shots from Apiro to Cingoli || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Monte San Vicino, near Coldigioco
	Medium Large	Sandro at the Frontale K/T boundary outcrop
	Medium Large	Zoophycos ~10 cm below the boundary
	Medium Large	Planolite just below the boundary
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Larger swath of the Frontale K/T outcrop. It is faulted such that most of it is fairly high up, but part in the preceding photos is conveniently located just by the roadside, to the right of this image
	Medium Large	View of the Adriatic coast south of Ancona, near the Massignano Eocene/Oligocene outcrop, which is shown in the next few pictures || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	The knife and pen mark the location of an iridium spike, in addition to shocked quartz and other evidence of extraterrestrial impact, about 35 million years ago, a few Myr before the Eocene/Oligocene boundary.
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	The Fonte d'Olio K/T outcrop in Monte Conero
	Medium Large	The K/T in the Fornaci Quarry. It may actually be hidden by the trees in this image...
	Medium Large	...but is visible here at Fornaci East || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	One of the ~20 shots I took of the moon managed to come out OK
	Medium Large	Shots from the town of Tolentino, near Coldigioco. There's a bunch of pictures of nice fresco paintings at the Basilica di San Nicola || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Macerata || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large