Month: March 2018

Darwin Day Celebrations 2018

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Maggie here –

The Darwin Day events at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville have been running since 1997 and I was one of the leaders for the 2018 events. Darwin Day is all about celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin, and sharing that information with members of the UT campus as well as the surrounding community in Knoxville. For this year’s celebration we hosted a birthday party in collaboration with a McClung Museum Family Fun Day and had a special keynote lecture by Dr. Nizar Ibrahim.

Darwin and Wallace puppets that are used to advertise our Darwin Day events. These puppets are ~10 feet tall and our very wonderful friends wear them and walk around or even dance in them!

The birthday party had cake (of course!), games, crafts, a scavenger hunt, and a larger-than-life puppet of Charles Darwin. This year, we wanted to make sure that our activities were designed to be able to really teach about evolution. One of the activities was to test out different “finch beaks” to see how easy it was to pick up “food”. Our finch beaks consisted of paper clips, binder clips, and wooden skewers that were used to pick up different objects. For our younger guests this activity concluded with a quick talk about which beak they thought was easier to use and how that might translate to real beaks on birds. For our older guests we were able to bring in the ideas of adaptations, natural selection, and speciation during the wrap up conversation. We were also lucky enough to have one of the McClung Museum docents come in for the birthday party to lead a couple of tours through the Human Origins exhibit. This was the first time that these tours had been led during Darwin’s Birthday party and helped us engage in evolution discussions with our older guests. As with any large scale event, each year is a little different and we continually try to come up with new activities and try to reach new areas of the Knoxville community. While this birthday party was incredibly successful (we had ~260 people come!) we are already looking forward to next year and making the birthday party even more successful!

Leslie Chang Jantz, Curator of Education; Callie Bennet, Asst. Museum Educator; Emily Nield, Earth and Planetary Sciences graduate student all work to pass out cake and snacks to birthday party guests.

The evening lecture with Dr. Ibrahim was a rewarding excursion through the past. He has done significant work reconstructing the ecosystems of the Cretaceous of Morocco. He has primarily worked on uncovering an ancient river system community that was dominated by many types of predatory animals, namely Spinosaurus. There was a special underlying story on a German paleontologist, Ernst Stromer, who originally discovered Spinosaurus, but the specimens were lost during World War II in the bombing of Munich. Dr. Ibrahim was able to find another specimen of Spinosaurus in Morocco -his “needle in the Sahara”. He worked with local fossil hunters as well as a museum in Italy and was able to find more bones that belonged to Spinosaurus. There is not yet a complete skeleton of Spinosaurus.  However, with new technology researchers were able to 3D print the skeleton of Spinosaurus that tours museums today. Dr. Ibrahim’s talk impressed upon the audience that paleontology is hard work, but that collaboration with other scientists and foundations can ease that burden and make discoveries that much more rewarding. He also gave great insight on the challenges that come with doing field work in the Sahara desert and how terrifying it can be when two of your three vehicles break down in the middle of the desert! I think I’ll stick to local field work and museums…

Artists rendition of Spinosaurus in the Cretaceous river system of Morocco. Painting by Davide Bonadonna.

Putting on a large scale event like Darwin Day during the last year of my Master’s degree was very challenging-I often felt that if my days weren’t planned well or if I wasn’t working a month ahead of schedule that I wouldn’t be able to pull off writing my thesis and planning a birthday party and speaker visit! It was incredibly difficult, but doing outreach events like this are what makes science rewarding in my eyes. I have spent several years cultivating my scientific knowledge, but my passion (outside of research!) is doing outreach and talking to the communities that I work and live in about science and sharing my excitement about research with them. Darwin Day at UT changes and morphs every year based on who is leading it, but it continues to grow and continues to reach more people as the focus becomes more centered on reaching the communities surrounding the university. I also have to thank Jen Bauer, Joy Buongiorno, and Audrey Martin, as well as all of the other volunteers, for their help and support with executing this year’s Darwin Day events-these events could not have happened without the help of other amazing scientists who want to share science with the public!

Click here for an interview that discussses the Darwin Day program at UT.

Ranjeev Epa, Invertebrate Paleontologist

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Fig. 1: End to an intense day of fossil collecting

I am an invertebrate paleontologist. My research interests are mainly focused on paleoecological themes, especially investigating biotic interactions (predator-prey relationships, paleoparasitism) and exploring how variations in body morphology (the form of living things) can be used as a proxy to interpret paleoenvironmental attributes. As an example, in snails, shell shapes and ornamentation (ex. spines or other shell modifications) can be influenced by predators (biotic) and/or by abiotic factors, like flow rate or nature of the substrate (the sediment or rock on which the animal lives).

I work primarily on marine invertebrates. My favorites include gastropods (snails), bivalves (clams), elephant tusk snails (which are very cool), sea urchins, and foraminfera. I started my journey in my home country, Sri Lanka, where I worked on Miocene marine fossils of Aruwakkalu in Sri Lanka (Epa et al., 2011). After joining Ohio University for my masters, I studied the late Oligocene freshwater ampullariid snails of Tanzania (Epa et al., 2017 in press). Currently, I am investigating predatory and parasitic interactions within a collection of Plio-Pleistocene marine bivalves from Florida. Here, I look at predatory drill holes (Fig.2C) and trematode (a group of flatworms) parasitic traces (blisters and pits; see Fig.2A and B) to explore taxonomic selectivities (specific animals getting harmed) and to investigate potential relationships between environmental factors and variability in intensity of such biotic interactions.

Fig 2. A – B: Potential traces of trematode parasitism. A. Pits. B. Blisters.
C. Oichnus paraboloides Bromley, 1981, predatory drill hole produced by a naticid gastropod

Bivalves (clams) are not only pretty (Fig.3) but also one of the key contributors in maintaining good ecosystem health, thus acting as keystone species at local geographic scales. In addition, throughout human history, bivalves (mollusks  in general) have been an important component in the food industry and many communities around the world have direct interactions/dependence on their regional mollusc communities (malacofauna).  Thus, community structure and population dynamics of bivalves affect ecosystem health, human health and, to a large extent, economies of coastal communities.

One of the research questions I address in my doctoral research is the effects and factors governing trematode parasitism among bivalves. Parasitism is known to cause detrimental effects on bivalves. However, little work has been done on paleoparasitology compared with other biotic interactions like predation. So, my research will look in to the geological and modern records/trends of trematode parasitism in bivalves to explore factors that influence variation in parasitism. Using these data, I plan to interpret how climate change can influence parasitism among bivalves and add a novel dimension to stress the importance of reducing our footprint on Earth.

Fig 3. Pectens collected from Sri Lanka

There is so much I love about what I am doing. Getting to work with my favorite animals makes me feel that I have the best job in the world. As a scientist, you have the power to communicate important scientific findings to people with different academic backgrounds and to people that hold different societal positions. This is especially important as at present, as our carbon footprint on the blue planet is a serious cause for concern. My advice to young scientists is simple: love what you do and do what you love. ALWAYS try to maintain a balance in life.

Follow Ranjeev’s research profile by clicking here and keep up with his updates on Twitter here.

New echinoderm fossils from Anticosti Island, Quebec

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Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) diploporitan fauna of Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada: implications for evolutionary and biogeographic patterns

Sarah L. Sheffield, William I. Ausich, Colin D. Sumrall

What data [were] used? New fossils found from Anticosti Island in Quebec, Canada.

Methods: New fossils of poorly understood echinoderm (relatives of sea stars) fossils discovered from Upper Ordovician (445-443 million years ago) rocks were analyzed and compared with middle Silurian (434-428 million years ago) to better understand biogeographic and evolutionary trends.

Results: The Holocystites Fauna is a group of poorly-understood diploporitan echinoderms (a term that just means they breathe out of sets of double pores found on their body) that scientists assumed to have only lived in the midcontinent of the United States (e.g., Tennessee, Iowa, Indiana, etc.) during a very specific time within the Silurian. New fossil species Holocystites salmoensis, however, tells us that they actually also lived during the Late Ordovician of Canada, which extends their known range nearly 10-15 million years!

This fossil of Holocystites salmoensis represents a very important new datapoint that helps scientists understand poorly known echinoderm transitions from the Late Ordovician to the Silurian. A. The mouth area of Holocystites salmoensis. B. a close up of the diplopore respiratory structures. C. A line drawing of the mouth area of Holocystites salmoensis. D-E. Other fossils of Holocystites salmoensis and (F) an unidentified diploporitan found in the same deposit (Sheffield et al., 2017).

Why is this study important? So at first glance, this paper might not seem so important-it’s just one new fossil of a relatively rare group of echinoderms. What is so important about this is the time in which these fossils were found. Rocks from the Upper Ordovician, during which this fossil was found, are very rare because the ocean levels were very low. Earth was in an ice age, so a lot of ocean water was taken up in glacial ice. When sea levels are low, fewer rocks are preserved; therefore, fossil data from low sea levels are rare. Evolutionary transitions of fossils from the Ordovician through the Silurian aren’t well understood. Now that we’ve found evidence of Ordovician Holocystites, we can infer a lot more about when and how these organisms evolved.

The big picture: Crucial information about how life on Earth evolved is often hard to find from times like the Late Ordovician. Actively searching for rocks during these times and identiying fossils from within them can tell us a lot about how past life responded to mass climate change (like ice ages and significant warming periods). It can also tell us a lot about how organisms expanded and shrunk their biogeographic range. Even one new fossil, like the one identified in this paper, can change a lot about what we think we knew!

Citation: Sheffield, S.L., Ausich, W.I., Sumrall, C.D., 2017. Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) diploporitan fauna of Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada: implications for evolutionary and biogeographic patterns: Journal of Canadian Earth Sciences, v. 55, p. 1-7, doi: 10.1139/cjes-2017-0160

On when you don’t uncover a clear answer

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Sarah here –

Last summer, I went to southern Indiana to do some fieldwork with my undergraduate research student, the wonderful and intelligent Sarah Johnson (who has since graduated and gotten an excellent job working at an environmental consulting firm in Texas). We went there to collect data to answer a really intriguing question that, I am very sorry to report here, we still do not have an answer to. This post is about fieldwork, undergraduate research, and even more importantly, the importance of reporting the experiments and the field expeditions that just didn’t work out.

I work on a group of unusual extinct echinoderms, the diploporitans (you can read more about them here). One of the many weird things about this group of echinoderms is that no one can find fossil evidence of them as juveniles- we only find them as adults. All living echinoderms have a free-swimming larval stage- meaning, even the echinoderms that don’t move much as adults (like crinoids) are quite mobile as juveniles! For other groups of fossil echinoderms (like blastoids), there are plenty of examples of very small juveniles that likely moved the way that modern ones do-as larvae. However, there’s no known fossil evidence for this in the diploporitans.

This is a specimen of an adult diploporitan, found near Napoleon, Indiana. We spent a lot of time this past summer looking for juveniles, but unfortunately, didn’t find any.

So my student, Sarah, and I went to the one place in the United States that we would expect to find juveniles, if there are any to be found- Napoleon, Indiana. The reason that we would expect to find juveniles is that there are a very large number of preserved adults there-which makes it more likely that smaller ones would also be there (too small to see with your eyes). Sarah and I searched the outcrop for hours looking for the areas that had the highest density of fossils, collected about 50 lbs worth of sediment, and drove back to Knoxville, TN.

Sarah and Russell Godkin, my other undergraduate research student, then spent the rest of the summer sifting through the seemingly endless buckets of sediment that we brought back-they used microscopes and analyzed the smallest sediment grains for all fossils. They pulled out thousands of tiny corals, brachiopods, and pieces of crinoids. However, after countless hours, they didn’t find a single diploporitan juvenile-not. a. one.

Obviously, we were all quite disappointed-we really wanted to find these fossils (and Sarah and Russell were really tired of looking into microscopes-but I digress). There’s an important lesson in here, though- the LACK of an answer is just as important. The lack of an answer can help us develop new hypotheses as to why we can’t find these juveniles and it can help other scientists better understand related questions about echinoderms and fossil preservation. So-never fear, the hunt to figure out what juvenile diploporitans looked like is still on!

Dragons and Dinosaurs at the Museum!

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Adriane here-

A few weeks ago, the local group I volunteer with, Jurassic Roadshow, participated in an outreach event at the Springfield Museums in Springfield, Massachusetts. Every year, the museum chooses a theme and builds educational events and activities around the theme, which lasts an entire week. This year’s theme was Dinosaurs and Dragons, as the museum was showcasing its fossil collections (including dinosaurs) and the collection of art featuring dragons.

The Archaeopteryx toy used along with the dinosaurs vs. dragons activity to highlight the differences between dragons (mythical creatures) and dinosaurs (extinct animals). Photo by Sarah Doyle.

When I volunteer with Jurassic Roadshow, I usually set up about two tables full of fossils from the major geologic eras so people can see the different groups of organisms that lived during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. But this outreach event was different: I was tasked with creating a display and/or activity that incorporated both dinosaurs AND dragons! I’m no mythical creature expert, so I was a bit perplexed as to what I could do to tie into the museum’s theme.

Solveig and I talking to the public about the dinosaur trackways preserved in Massachusetts. Photo by Sarah Doyle.

Inspiration struck when I visited a local toy store (paleontologists LOVE toy stores, especially one with lots of dinosaur figurines) and found Tyrannosaurus rex, Archaeopteryx, and dragon toys. I bought one of each and took them back to my lab. Next, I found a mythical dragon skeleton drawing online, along with scientific drawings of T. rex and Archaeopteryx skeletons (check out the awesome paleo art by Scott Hartman) and positioned them next to one another on a small poster. Then, I wrote down observations and features of the dragon skeleton, and did the same with the dinosaurs. I printed these onto cards so that kids could label the correct features on each organism. This way, they could see the major differences between dragons and dinosaurs and begin thinking about how we identify and name the animals we find in the fossil record, and why we interpret dinosaur fossils as dinosaurs, and not dragons.

Gini Traub assisting kids with breaking rocks. Photo by Sarah Doyle.

The day of the event, I took my student, Solveig, with me to the museum. We set up our table with a few representative Paleozoic and Cenozoic fossils, then made a larger display of Mesozoic fossils with the dinosaur vs. dragon activity. In addition, I also took an articulated (complete and together) pigeon skeleton and eagle skull with me to show the public the transition from dinosaurs (T. rex) to more bird-like dinosaurs (Archaeopteryx) to modern birds.  As if this weren’t enough, we also took ~150 oyster fossils and ~20 ammonite fossils from the Cretaceous (~90 million years old) to give away to kids.

Professor Steve Winters from Holyoke Community College assisting young scientists with their microscopes! Photo by Sarah Doyle.

The biggest hit of the day at our table was the dinosaur and dragon toys. Younger kids automatically picked up the T. rex and engaged it in an epic battle with the dragon (one enthusiastic patron informed me the dragon I bought was a European dragon). We made certain that every kid (and adults!) left our table with an oyster or ammonite fossil. Several families engaged with the dinosaur vs. dragon activity, and most kids found it fun to point out the differences between mythical and real creatures.

Getting a close look at modern bugs, bird skeletons, and corals. I used modern organisms to talk about how these animals are threatened today by climate change. Photo by Sarah Doyle.

Other Jurassic Roadshow volunteers who attended the event also had tables with activities for visitors related to the geology and paleontology of western Massachusetts. A professor from Holyoke Community College brought along several mineral specimens and microscopes so people could look at them under high magnification. Other members brought representative rocks from around the valley, hammers, googles, and hand lenses so kids could break the rocks and look at the minerals under the lenses (this was also a huge hit, pun intended). Another volunteer had two tables full of fish fossils from the Triassic-aged lake that once covered parts of western Massachusetts. One table included dinosaur-themed crafts for kids to make and take home!

As usual, the day ended with all of the Jurassic Roadshow team content and happy to have shared our love of geology with others. Although these outreach events do take time, I love participating in them, as it’s a way to connect with the public, practice and sharpen my science communication skills, and be visible to other youngsters who may, one day, decide to become a scientist.

Bridget Wade, Micropaleontologist

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Professor Bridget Wade

What is your favorite part about being a scientist, and how did you get interested in science?

The best part of my job is my interactions with students. I feel very fortunate to have a group of masters and doctoral students working in the lab on various projects that focus of climate change, evolution and improving the geological time scale. Many of the students are international and have different research backgrounds, and thus I get to learn about different cultures as well as benefit from unique insights that they have to science. I also really enjoy how every day is different, and I get to look down the microscope at extraordinary fossil plankton from millions of years ago.

Science wasn’t my first choice – I originally applied to university to study English Literature, but my grades weren’t good enough! So this was a big turning point, but in retrospect I’m really glad that I couldn’t take that path. These days I spend much of my time reading and writing, so perhaps these worlds are not so far apart.

How does your research contribute to the understanding of evolution and climate change?

I use microscopic marine plankton and their chemistry to determine how the oceans have changed over the last 50 million years. I’m particularly interested in how life responds to climatic change and what drives a species to extinction.

What are your proxies, and how do you obtain your data?

Scanning electron microscope images of planktonic foraminifera from the about 14 million years ago (middle Miocene). Image from Fox and Wade (2013).

The microscopic fossils I work on are called planktonic foraminifera. These are about the size of a grain of sand. Their shells are made of calcium carbonate and over time the shells of dead foraminifera accumulate in marine sediments and yield a long fossil record, which we can use to gain information on oceans and climate of the past. I use cores obtained through the International Ocean Discovery Program. Core samples taken from the ocean floor can help form a picture of climate changes which took place millions of years ago. I use the foraminifera to examine changes in evolution and extinction rates and mechanisms in different time intervals, and use their chemistry, such as oxygen and carbon isotopes to reconstruct changes in marine temperatures, track glacial/interglacial cycles, and productivity through time.

What advice do you have for young, aspiring scientists?

Find your passion, focus on the aspects that you enjoy the most and have fun!

Scouring the Mississippian of Alabama

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Cam here-

I spend my time working on lectures, reading books, or annotating scientific papers. But, every once in a while, I get to collect fossils and do field work. I haven’t been out in the field since June of 2017. On January 13th and 14th of this year, I spent the weekend collecting fossils from Franklin County and Huntsville, Alabama. These areas around the state consists of limestones that date back during Mississippian period (Lower Carboniferous) ~355-325 million years old. These limestones formed in deep waters where at the time the geography of North Alabama was very different.

Stratigraphic chart in the area we were collecting in.

In these ancient shallows seas was a large diversity of sea life consisting of brachiopods, rugose corals, crinoids, blastoids, bryozoans, trilobites, and even a few early sharks. Now, their remains makeup the Lower Bangor Limestone Formation and the Lower/Upper Monteagle Limestone Formation of North Alabama. On January 13th the crew headed out to collect fossils from the Lower Bangor Limestone Formation. On our way the site, fossil collector Asa and I decided pull over at a local rock outcrop to save time. The outcrop is part of the Hartselle Formation which consists of fossiliferous and oolithic sandstones. Stratigraphically, the Hartselle Formation is right underneath the Bangor Limestone Formation. So, in other words, we were getting close to our main collecting site.

Debbie and Asa looking for fossils in the Lower Bangor Limestone Formation.

As we pulled up to the lakeshore, we began to pack up our tools and scout around to look for fossils. Limestones slabs were waiting for us to examine and chip away with our rock hammers. At the first site we found many fossils including a few crinoid calyces, trilobite fragments, Archimedes bryozoans, trace fossils, and one small shark tooth. Asa found a beautifully preserved echinoid and edrioasteroid. After the crew was done collecting at site one, we packed up and began to travel to site two of the Lower Bangor Limestone Formation. We pulled up to to the lakeshore once again. This time the men and women split up to look for fossils. Nathan, Asa, and Dylan scouted around to look for fossils.

Asa and I inspecting the Lower Monteagle Limestone Formation Site 1

It wasn’t until about 5 minutes later that I noticed that the the loose sediment on the ground contained a plethora of fossils that the lake water sifted back and forth over time. I spent a lot of my time lying on the ground picking up crinoid stems, ossicles, blastoid thecae (bodies), brachiopods, and even a few echinoid (sea urchin) fragments. After day one was over for fossil hunting, we began to day 2 of fossil collecting. On January 14th, Asa, Jess, and I went to fossil collect in the Upper/Lower portions of the Monteagle Limestone Formation. At location one we stopped by a small outcropping of limestone. We began looking up and down to look for fossils.

Upper Monteagle Limestone Formation Site 2

I found a good number of blastoids and great pieces of crinoidal limestone. After we collected material from site one, we began to travel to site two. Site two was much better for finding fossils. Asa and I began to inspect the very top of the rock outcrops. Fossiliferous sediment was then collected to sift through and use for educational purposes. I began to look for fossils from the bottom of the outcrop and collected crinoid stems and a large amounts of Pentremites, a common blastoid from the Mississippian. Just as we began to leave, Asa found a tooth from a Carboniferous aged cartilaginous fish called Chomatodus. The trip was a very successful one. We all spent the weekend and collecting fossils and enjoying each other’s company.

 

The echinoid Archaeocidaris hemispinifera that was found by Asa.
Four Asteriacites (star fish resting traces fossils) found by Jess.
Petaldus tooth. Found by Jess.
Blastoid (Pentremites sp.) that I found
Chomatodus sp. tooth

Fossil Club Meetings

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Kyle here –

Science has a rather odd role in society. Its achievements form the very foundations of modern civilization, yet, to many, science might as well be magic, obscure and inexplicable. Popular culture tends to make scientists seem like haughty priests in an ivory tower, keepers of arcane knowledge, augurs of great portents, and babblers of dead languages and incomprehensible jargon.

Time Scavengers hopes to change that impression by showing that scientists are ordinary people and science is not as unfamiliar or unapproachable as it might initially seem. While some disciplines may have sizeable barriers to entry—think molecular biology or high energy particle physics—others are far more accessible, particularly ornithology (as “bird watching”), astronomy (as “stargazing”), and, of course, geology and paleontology (as “fossil collecting”). Indeed, these fields are indebted to hundreds of years of contributions by experienced naturalists who were amateurs in name only.

For what is an amateur but someone who takes up their passion solely for its own sake? Paleontology is often known as a “gateway drug” for science, and with good reason: it’s hard not to be entranced by immense dinosaur skeletons at a museum, or fossil shark teeth glistening on a beach, or an ancient coral reef eroding out of a neighborhood construction site. Fossils spark the imagination. Wherever there are fossils, there are people inspired to collect them.

Dry Dredgers prospecting the fossil-rich blue shales of the Upper Ordovician Kope Formation, southeast of Alexandria, Kentucky.

And wherever there are fossil collectors, chances are there is also a local fossil club. Cincinnati is one such place. Built on the banks of the Ohio River and surrounded by 450 million year old shales and limestones packed with a wealth of fossils, the city has a strong tradition of amateur paleontology. Curious locals have been collecting brachiopods, bryozoans, trilobites, cephalopods, and other Ordovician fossils from Cincinnatian outcrops since the 1800s. Many published their findings and became nationally and internationally recognized geologists.

This legacy of citizen science lives on today in the form of the Dry Dredgers. Founded in 1942, the Dry Dredgers are the oldest fossil club in the United States, having recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of their founding in April of 2017. The club was formed in close collaboration with the geology department of the University of Cincinnati, a relationship that continues to this day.

Piles of MAPS Digest, an amateur paleontological publication put out by the Mid-America Paleontology Society.

Like most other amateur paleontology societies, the Dry Dredgers has regular field trips and meetings. The latter are held on the campus of the University of Cincinnati monthly during the school year, usually on the evening of the last Friday of the month. Free and open to the public, the meetings typically follow a consistent structure.

First, a Beginners Class convenes before the main meeting, providing basic paleontological instruction to new members and children. The more experienced members also frequently show up early to socialize with their friends. Light food and drink is usually available. Collectors share their recent finds, try to identify unusual specimens, and tell a few tall tales. The desks are always piled with fossils and fossil literature, open for all to see.

At the designated time, the club President calls the meeting to order. They then proceed to introductions, where new members and visitors tell who they are, where they’re from, and what made them decide to attend the meeting. After this rigorous interrogation, the President begins the night’s entertainment with the door prize raffle, a random giveaway of small fossils, minerals, books, and other geological paraphernalia.

A snapshot from the September 2017 Dry Dredgers meeting.

Then the main program commences: a lecture by a graduate student, professor, distinguished amateur, or other interesting character. The talks are usually an hour or so in length, focusing on a particular aspect of the speaker’s research or experience. Some are travelogues, slideshows of faraway mountain ranges and mouth-watering fossil deposits. Others focus on a particular fossil or group of fossils—trilobites and echinoderms are persistent favorites. And yet others can be quite technical, delving into PhD-level research on paleoecology and taphonomy. Whatever the topic, the audience invariably grills the speaker with a host of questions at the end of the lecture.

Nautiloid expert John Catalani speaks at the September 2017 Dry Dredgers meeting, discussing the spectacularly preserved mollusk fauna of the Mifflin Member of the Platteville Formation, an Upper Ordovician rock unit exposed in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Following the lecture, the meeting wraps up with additional business. Any professional paleontologists in attendance give a report of what they are doing: papers published, students graduated, classes taught, conventions attended, and the like. Upcoming events and other miscellaneous things are announced. Then the meeting is gaveled to an end.

Some hardy members stay long after the meeting proper, socializing late into the night. Fossils are shared, bragged about, and identified. Any remaining refreshments are consumed. Plans are made for future excursions. The last people typically trickle out around 11:00 PM, tired but satisfied.

A slab of limestone containing well-preserved mollusks from the Mifflin Member of the Platteville Formation, from a locality in northwestern Illinois. A showcase specimen brought by John Catalani to the September 2017 Dry Dredgers meeting.

For more on the Dry Dredgers, visit their website at www.drydredgers.org. The site offers a feast of paleontological information as well as plenty of photos of fossils, field trips, and meetings.

Unfortunately, chances are that you may not live near Cincinnati. However, many other fossil clubs are scattered across the United States, from North Carolina to Texas to California and almost every state in between. The FOSSIL Project has compiled a list (click here) of dozens of such organizations. Chances are, there’s one near you!

A pair of upside down cheirurid trilobites, another beautiful specimen from the Mifflin brought by John Catalani to the September 2017 Dry Dredgers meeting.

Departmental museum liaison

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Jen here –

For the past two years I have been the department coordinator or liaison to our local natural history museum. The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture has a variety of exhibits from Human Origins to Ancient Egypt. One of the exhibits on their main floor includes a geology gallery that explores the rocks, fossils, and environments of Tennessee through time.

The coordinator position is voluntary and aims to get undergraduate and graduate students involved in running tours in the geology exhibit. Local private, public, and homeschool groups can sign up to be given tours of specific galleries in the museum. The curator of education will email me when groups sign up and I request volunteers through the department. Our department has a core group of volunteers that are very dedicated to helping out at the museum.

The exhibit tours are relatively simple and we have tailored lessons to go with various age groups. For example, I led a tour last week of 4th graders from a private school. The tour begins by discussing plate tectonics and what the different plate movements are and what natural disasters can occur at these boundaries. We watch an animation on the movements over the last 750 million years and focus on the changes that occur to Tennessee. We talk about how fossils can help us better understand locations of specific plates in the past.

Jen leading a tour with local Knoxville 4th graders.
Then we get to talk about different types of fossils and fossil formation. I pass around a few samples, usually a mold of very old snails, petrified wood, and several examples of teeth. We talk about shape, how the fossils formed, and what information we can get from the fossils. Then we move through the gallery and explore how Tennessee has changed through time. For much of the Ice Age with lots of large hairy animals.

Many schools are unable to go on many field trips and in some cases this is the classes first trip outside of the classroom. Each tour is very different but helps us tailor our science communication skills to a variety of age ranges. It is difficult to pass up opportunities to explore deep time with young students that get very excited to talk about the past and ancient life.