The local nicknames acknowledge the remoteness of life far from the one and only town of Stanley. Everything else in the islands is either a farm or a settlement, where people raise sheep and make their living off the land as best they can. We'll spend 12 days here mostly looking for the Philomel Formation, a layer of rock where John believes Pucapampella might be found. A small, brilliant red plane ferried us to the island, across Falkland Sound. The airplane is one of several operated by the government that people use to travel both between and within the islands.
Roads are few and far between and the seas in the South Atlantic are rough.
The planes typically land on open fields. Emma has made the trip between Stanley and her West Falkland home many times. She spent years of schooling in the United Kingdom, where she completed high school, university and her master's work in petroleum geology. Now, at 28, she works in Stanley, and she expects to remain here. Something about the islands calls to her.