Geology Fieldwork in Estonia, July 2007
Mark A. Wilson (Wooster Faculty)
Andrew Milligan (Senior Geology Major at Wooster)

We traveled to Estonia in the summer of 2007 to do fieldwork in the Ordovician with Olev Vinn and Mare Isakar from the University of Tartu. It was part of Andrew's Senior Independent Study research and Mark's general Ordovician studies. This was Mark's second visit to Estonia (see the images from his Baltics 2006 trip) and Andrew's first. Andrew's specific topic is the pattern of encrustation on the Middle Ordovician cystoid Echinosphaerites and what it can tell us about sclerobiont communities at that time and place, calcite sea diagenesis, and the life habits of this odd hosting echinoderm. The best cystoids for this work come out of the kukersite oil shale of northern Estonia.

This webpage is the medium with which we initially sort out our many field photographs, so you will see a run or two below of rather dull images of fossils in boxes and the like. This is also our way of showing the public our geological adventures. The images are currently sorted by days:

July 23 : We flew from Cleveland to Tallinn, Estonia, by way of Detroit and Brussels, arriving in Tallinn in the early afternoon. We first met Olev and then visited the new geological collections at the University in Tallinn, finally driving in the early evening to a small cottage we rented in the woods of northern Estonia.

July 24 : Most of this day was spent in the oil shale quarries of northeastern Estonia. You will see here the large excavations of the active kukersite mines as well as details of the Ordovician limestone and shale beds within them. Note the beautiful trace fossils preserved on the soles of the thin carbonate units.

July 25 : This busy day began in a very large limestone quarry in northern Estonia. One scene from this quarry shows a large erratic boulder which had dropped to the quarry floor as the bedrock was mined around it. (Olev Vinn is there for scale!) We then drove south by way of Mustvee on Lake Peipus to the university city of Tartu, where we spent the evening.

July 26 : We began the day in the geological museum at the University of Tartu looking at (and photographing) specimens of Echinosphaerites in their collections. We next drove to the western coast of the Estonian mainland and took a ferry to the beautiful small island of Muhu. There we spent the night in Olev's summer cottage near the center of the island.

July 27 : Early in the morning we visited the ancient Muhu Stronghold site and then traveled across the causeway to the large island of Saaremaa. We saw much here, both touristic and geological. The first category includes the Kuressaare Castle and a Soviet war memorial, and the latter some spectacular rocky beaches and fossiliferous Silurian limestones. We stayed the night in a hotel in Kuressaare.

July 28 : We took the ferry back to the Estonian mainland and Tallinn. After returning the rental car, Olev went home and we spent the afternoon and evening in Tallinn.

July 29 : Since our flight from Tallinn to Dublin did not leave until 10:30 p.m., we had a lot of time in Tallinn on this day. We climbed every church tower and studied every museum, so you'll see a lot of aerial views of the city, and close-ups of many cannon!

We spent a few days in Ireland before returning home.