Brian's Friday Field Foto clearly shows sheep's interest in Paleogene geology. Some years ago I learned that cattle (at least in Northern Thailand) are also quite curious about the earth sciences – hydrogeology in this case.
We have built some shallow temporary “wells” for shallow groundwater observation. My colleague is measuring water level here, closely supervised by the local cattle.
The well is not really visible here. In the beginning, we let the well pipes protrude almost one meter from the ground for better visibility. This proved to be especially popular with the cows for scratching their hides, until the pipes broke… So the next generation welltops were level with the ground.
Cow (left) and me pumping out water for pH and conductivity measurements. (At that time, our foot-valve pump wasn't available, so we experimented with this suction “pump” for water containers.)
Comment 1
Very curious! Maybe they can be trained to do hydrogeology.
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