Nordlingen, Germany
May 7-13, 2011

Description

More info and a virtual tour of the Ries Crater can be found here.

Photos

	Medium Large	One of the buildings of our hotel and conference center
	Medium Large	Shots from around town || || \/
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	Medium Large	The St. George church, which is made mostly of suevite
	Medium Large	Sample of suevite in the church museum
	Medium Large	Close up of one of the suevite walls of the church
	Medium Large	Shots and panorama from the top of the church, which was by far the tallest thing around. You can see the walls of the town, and the hills in the distance are the crater rim. || || \/
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	Medium Large	One of the guard towers around the town wall
	Medium Large	There were a lot of pigs like this one around the town. According to the story, in 1440 some of the guards of the town were bribed to leave a gate unlocked so that outsiders could invade. A woman spotted a pig rubbing up against the gate and pushing it open and alerted the authorities. The guards later confessed in court to what they did, and were executed. So the Nordlingers like their pigs...
	Medium Large	Shots from a walk around the town wall. The church is prominent in the center here || || \/
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	Medium Large	Nordlingen from a distance, on our way to one of the geology stops on our first day of field trips
	Medium Large	Stop 1: Riegelburg, a large mega-block of limestone that was moved and tilted during the impact. It also has some small caves in which a number of skulls were found buried. || || \/
	Medium Large	Old Roman ruins, I believe
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	Medium Large	Stop 2: Altenburg quarry, which is where the suevite for the St. George church was mined. It was off-limits to us because of goat-breeding season. More info here. || || \/
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	Medium Large	Stop 3: Otting quarry, which was fairly overgrown and no longer active, but we collected some of our own samples there. It's also where Shoemaker and Cho first discovered shocked quartz in the suevite, a clear sign of an impact event. More info here. || || \/
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	Medium Large	A church where we stopped at the end of the day. I can't remember where it was or what it was called, but it was conveniently located next to a Biergarten, which I think was the main point of the stop! || || \/
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	Medium Large	Yes, this is a skeleton chilling out in a glass case. You don't really see that in US churches
	Medium Large	Heading back into town...
	Medium Large	The Ries Crater Museum (located on a street named after Shoemaker) || || \/
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	Medium Large	Another pig
	Medium Large	Oddly deformed building next to the hotel || || \/
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	Medium Large	A joker saying "Now there are two of us"
	Medium Large	A tour of the St. George church || || \/
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	Medium Large	Not exactly sure what this sign means...
	Medium Large	More shots of the town guard towers || || \/
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	Medium Large	Another day of field trips! Stop 1: Wengenhausen, a crystalline mega-block in which some shatter cones from the impact event have been found, although we didn't find any. More info here. || || \/
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	Medium Large	Stop 2: Aumuhle quarry, where the suevite overlays another type of impact rock called the bunte breccia. While the suevite formed from highly-shocked material near the impact point, much of which was launched into the atmosphere in the impact plume, the bunte breccia consists of material like shales and limestones that were less-shocked but still moved and jumbled together by the impact. We collected some of our own samples of these rocks. More info here. || || \/
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	Medium Large	The Gundelsheim quarry, located outside the crater, where bunte breccia that was ejected from the crater overlays some of the pre-existing limestone. More info here. || || \/
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	Medium Large	We had our official science team dinner in a castle! The upcoming Tucson meeting has a lot to live up to... || || \/
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