So at the end of March I was lucky enough to be invited as a teaching assistant on the second year physical geography fieldtrip to Morocco! Here are a couple of pictures:

Overlooking the Northern Piedmont of the Atlas Mountains

Team Tagine at our first stop in Ait Ourir

The Atlas Mountains

Sketching the Geological Deformation in the Skoura Basin

The 12-day field visit to Morocco consisted of an introduction to the local geology near the Northern Piedmont of the Atlas Mountains before travelling south over the mountain range to the Oasis of Skoura, where we conducted fieldwork for 5 days. Here the students focused on their group led projects which composed of mapping, assessing and quantifying the Quaternary deformation of the Southern Piedmont of the Atlas Mountains. Following the fieldwork in Skoura, we travelled to the Dades Gorges which were magnificient! Here we completed a 10km hike through the gorges which allowed for fantastic views. On the final day before flying back to Newcastle we completed a cross sections from Ait Ben Haddou, a UNESCO site we were lucky enough to visit, to Telouet where we saw the maharaja’s summer kasbah.

The fieldtrip was a great success with myself and the students experiencing a side of Moroccan culture which most tourists will never get to experience. I now need to get back on track with my own MPhil project. Its very easy to get so tangled up in teaching that you suddenly realise your own research is getting left behind!!