April Meeting
Wednesday, April 15th, 2026
At Building #3 Auditorium, Seneca Resources
"The Lost Reefs of the Gobi: From Devonian Reefs to Mass Extinction in the Mongolian Desert"
Presented by:
D. Randy Blood
DRB Geological Consulting, DRB Mudstone Research Laboratory
The Gobi Desert is not the first-place geologists think of when hunting Devonian reefs —but maybe it should be. Over 15 years ago, members of the Devonian Anoxia, Geochemistry, Geochronology, and Extinction Research (DAGGER) Group, began expeditions to explore, document, and analyze the Devonian stratigraphy of Mongolia. Most recently, the Lost Reefs of the Gobi Expedition set out in July of 2025 to explore three possible Devonian outcrops, each posing its own distinct puzzle. At Borteeg, the question was how shallow reef communities respond to recurrent volcanism —how much can an ecosystem take? At Khavtgai, we wanted to know whether a Devonian reef was even present, and if so, whether it was nucleating directly on seafloor basalt. And at Bornoi, we were chasing one of the Devonian’s great biotic crises: the HangenbergExtinction Event —if it's recorded here at all.
This talk is about what happens when hypothesis meets reality in the field —how interpretations shift day by day as new exposures reveal new problems, and how the tectonically complex landscape of the area has both hidden and preserved what we came to find. It is also, inevitably, about everything that can go wrong between the outcrops.
In addition to the geological questions, we also dealt with questions such as, “Are we going to drive 150 miles across a desert with no roads?”, “How long does it take a herd of sheep and camels to get out of the way?”, “Do we have enough fuel to get back to civilization?”, and my favorite “How many scorpions were in your tent today?
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