LaPaz Home Learning

This is one diverse place! Sandy beaches, rocky shorelines, mountains, forests, floodplains, tundra and marshes all within a few minutes drive.

One of the many beautiful beaches we explored is the aptly named fossil beach.

It is flanked on both sides by those tall cliffs, which, as they erode, drop deposits of fossilized ancient seabed onto the beach below. We were able to break open the soft shale and find lots of fossilized shells and such.

You have to watch out because those large rocks you can see sticking out will dislodge and fall without warning! I wouldn’t want to be caught below that!

One common flower along the sandy dunes are these lovely shooting stars (Dodecatheon pulchellum):

They look like flowers turned inside out like a broken umbrella.

And along sunny roadsides are salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) flowers which will soon be lovely salmon-colored fruit to gather and eat or make jam!

The flowers actually range in tone from this pale pink to a rich magenta color. I am not sure yet what causes the variation in color, be it soil or sunlight or just genetic variation. More research necessary! Perhaps I will have it figured out by berry picking time!

Tomorrow: tidepooling in Chiniak Bay!