Galveston trip - the Aquarium at Moody Gardens

   One of the first things I ever learned in geology was James Hutton's ' The Uniformitarian Principle' Which is 'The present is the key to the past'.  Ever since then I've always kept that in mind and try to observe as many present day processes as possible to gain insight as to what maybe happening to a formation that I may be observing at a later time.
   When I was studying geology, one of the fields that fascinated me was paleontology.  I couldn't get enough of it ever since I found my first fossil (which will be in a later blog).  Since most of the stuff a student of paleontology looks at comes from oceans because that is were the fossils are best preserved, it just stood to reason I should go to the oceans and observe things.  Unfortunately that is not always possible so the next best thing is going to aquariums.  Needless to say I love going to aquariums and observing things in them.
    Galveston is a great place to visit because not only do you get to see things in the ocean they also have a great aquarium at Moody Gardens. I was able to go in late June for about a week. When we got there we noticed three large pyramids, one teal color, one clear and one reddish.  Checking in we were given a map of the area and realized that the three pyramids were the aquarium, the Rainforest exhibit and the discovery place where they were having a special exhibit called Dino-Alive.
  
Now hears what Moody Gardens looks like looking from our hotel window.

Moody Gardens, Galveston TX

Here's the map that they gave us when we checked in.  I couldn't wait to see some of the stuff.  I've stayed at this place before but it was right after Hurricane Ike came through in 2008 and most of the stuff wasn't opened because of the damage it had sustained from the hurricane. It was nice to now have everything opened again.

Map of the Moody Gardens, Galveston Tx

 The first day we got there it was raining so visiting the beach was postponed to another day.  I was just glad there was other things to do in the area. Since the aquarium was the closest to the hotel it was the first to visit for us.

This was the view from our hotel window of just the Aquarium.

 And here is how it looked as we were approaching it.  I thought this was a neat picture.
I could hardly wait to see what was inside.

One of the first things that caught my attention was this Nautilus.

Modern day Nautilus at the Moody Gardens Aquarium, Galveston TX (6-22-2011)

 Nautiloids have always had a special place in my heart for two reasons.  When I first got into grad school my adviser was a paleontologist who specialized in cephalopods, especially ammonites.  Needless to say I learned a lot about ammonites and nautiloids through him.
    The second reason is more personal, but is worth telling the story anyway.  My husband and I met through a mutual friend that happened to be my insurance agent also.  At first we were just friends that hanged out together, since I had a different boyfriend at the time.  One day I had to go by my insurance agent place of business to get my insurance card for my car.  I timed it so that it was right at closing time and my friend and I could go get a drink after she was done working along with a couple of others from her work.  We stopped by his cubicle to see if he wanted to join the group also since they worked together.  At that point I had known him for about a month or so and thought he was a very nice guy but hadn't really done much with him. He wanted to join us but had to finish up a couple of things before he could go.  So we stood waiting for him, and I started to look around. On his office bookshelf he had a Nautilus shell.  That really caught  my eye and I asked him how he got it since they are rare.  He said he wasn't sure how he got it, it probably came from his brother who was a gemologist.  Those words really perked my ears and it gave us something to talk about as we where out drinking. I couldn't get over how he seemed so interested in what I told him. (Here's the Nautilus shell that caught my attention).

 Nautilus shell

   To make a long story short, about a year later we were married.  He remembered how I liked nautiloids so much and one of the first gifts he ever gave me was this ammonoid.  He thought it was a nautiloid at the time.  I told him he was close since they were both in the Cephalopod family. (Not knowing where this came from, my best guess as to what it is: definitely an ammonoid; probably- Dipoloceras (Oxytropidoceras)?and probably from the Cretaceous time.  I based this on its elaborate suture pattern, loosing of the coil, and the shape of the shell.)

     How could I not love a guy who gives me presents like this?  He definitely knew the key to my heart.
     So ever since then I've really love Nautiloids.  They are not that common and you don't see to many of them in aquariums so when I saw the one above I was fascinated with watching it.  They always amaze me the way they moved around.  Unfortunately this guy wasn't very mobile the day we were watching him and my son couldn't understand why I was so fascinated with this creature and why I wasn't bored watching him.  He wanted to move on to other more exciting stuff like....
 The Penguins.  I tried to take some pictures but they just were too fast, and we were not allowed to use the flash in the place.   Needless to say most of the pictures I took just did not turn out really well. (I'm going to included them anyway since the reason I have this blog is for me to journal my stuff anyway).

 

 The place was big and there were a lot of display cases so after awhile we moved on to other things.  I was amazed at what I could get photos of without the flash and what I couldn't. I was all in the way they had the lighting set up for the exhibit. Like I said some of these are not the best but everything was fun to observe. 

 

 I even liked getting this picture of the a seals skeleton, (at least with the seal I could use the flash and get a good image).

Seal skeleton @ Moody Gardens Aquarium

 As we walked though the place we came upon this big tank.  Needless to say when you first enter it you just automatically say WOW!  There is such a sense of awe and wonder as your mind processes what it is seeing and you start to walk into it. Needless to say its an awe inspiring place to witness.

The Aquarium at Moody Gardens, Galveston TX

 Seeing the sharks swim over your head and around you is truly awesome.

Shark swimming over head at the Moody Gardens Aquarium

 I just wished they would have been still long enough to get a really good photo of one, or have the lighting so that you can get a good shot without using a flash.  These are the best I could get.  And this is after watch them for a long time hoping they would come close enough to the glass barrier where you could get the shot and I took a lot of them only to delete them because they didn't turn out.  I guess they know better because the day we were there they mostly swam in the center of the tank and the pictures just wouldn't take because they blended in so well with the murky water.

This was my sons favorite one.  He really liked seeing the sharks teeth.

 They were still fun to watch anyway and I was glad we could observe them the way we did.  This area we spent a lot of time, because there was so much to see in the aquarium and it just wasn't the sharks we were looking at.

 Then we went on to other areas.  My son like this one the most because you could put your hand in the water and touch the things in the tank.  He liked touching the star fish because they would move when you touched them. 

 One of the things I always like looking at is the Sea horses.  I was amazed that I could get such a good picture of one since they were moving around so much in the tank.

 I especially liked this little ones that were hiding in the sea grass.I thought it interesting how they would hold onto the grass with their tails.

 

 This tank I liked  because it was so colorful.  My son wanted a picture of it since I was suppose to be a clown fish.  Ever since he saw Saving Nemo - he's loved clown fish. 

And finally the last picture is of coral.  I wanted that because when I studied geology, it seemed coral was one of the few things I could readily find and identify in rocks. Coral tells a lot about the depositional environment when you find it. (Matt over at GeoSphere does a lot better job explaining the significance of crazy coral )
  I always loved how the coral could come in so many different shapes and colors. 

 

Now that I'm done with this one its on to the Rainforest.

PS - I should have written this back in June when I first got the pictures and such but I wanted to do things in sequential order and I ran into problems with downloading things from the trip to Galveston.