- Collecting Season Again Canceled
I must admit that I anticipated this news, but it was confirmed yesterday when I received a note
from Candace Holliday -- Aurora will not be open to collectors this Fall!
Over the next few months, this website will continue its evolution to focus upon various shark faunas of North America, particularly those of the East Coast. The Nanjemoy page is coming along well, and with my AES presentation complete, I'll have the time to complete this section.
- Fossil Fair & Auction. Got a note from Candace Holliday and I thought
I'd Pass on her comments. " ...we did wonderful on the auction for the museum, raised
$ 2779.00. I'd like to thank all the people that donated items for the auction and also
those who were here and bought the items -- especially Dr. Jay Goldberg and Cabbey
Pierce for putting the Auction together. I'd also like to thank all the Clubs that had
displays, the Smithsonian, NC Museum, and the special people that gave lectures."
Candace went on to note that a Fall season is still anticipated.
- I've heard of no one suffering fatal withdrawl reactions, but it's strange not to
spend evenings at the Lemon Tree or to eat at the Golden Corral. Not only did I find myself collecting the
Devonian of Pennsylvania a couple weeks back, but Eric and Mellissa were doing the same. Bill
Heim seems to be spending a lot of time in South Carolina, where I hear, the lines at mines are
going around the corner. Rumor even has it, that Becky and John Everette have been seen collecting
the Eocene of Virginia. I spent some time in North Carolina and Virginia last weekend, save one
memorable T-storm, the collecting and visit was very good.
The old Muddy Creek Webpage is now gone. Mike Folmer and myself (with the help of others such as Steve Cunningham and David Ward) are assembling a Eocene of Virginia. It will be many months before it's complete, but it contains enough information to be worth linking-in.
- Web Browsing. Here are a number of ABCNEWS.COM items from the last
month or so -- some are worth the visit.
- Where Dinosaurs Were Born, Eggs and Other Surprises in Drying Desert Surface.
- Clues to Plant-Eating Dinos, New Finds Reveal Mysteries of Titanosaurs.
- Archaeopteris, First Tree of the Forests, 370 Million Years Ago.
- 2.5 million year old skull, New Human Ancestor?
- Continent-Splitting, Eruption May Have Opened Ocean, Caused Extinctions.
- Armored Dinos, Uncovered.
- Largest Meat-Eater Skeleton?, New Dinosaur Find in Patagonia.
- Stiff-Necked Dinosaurs: Sauropod Eating Habits, Closer to Cows Than Giraffes.
- The Archaeopteryx Flap.
- Dinos Walked Like Birds, with animation that didn't work for me.
- Alternative Activities. With The Mine closed, it afforded me (and I'm sure many others) the opportunity to collect other sites. A couple weeks back, I hit Eocene, Paleocene and Oligocene exposures of the Mid-Atlantic, finding some very good material. I would suspect that many of us will benefit from the closure. Some of the material from this trip is already appearing in the genus pages, (Serratolamna leriche, Striatolamia spp, new Squatina & Ginglymostoma images, etc.) and will continue to do so for months to come.
- Web Browsing. John Schack wrote in to point out some very good internet sites he'd
come across. I followed the links and added some to my permanent bookmarks. He wrote:
"The first site is Dinosaurs in Alabama
and is very interesting comparing East Coast Upper Cretaceous Dinosaurs to the more common Western variety.
The second site deals with a bolide that impacted the
Chesapeake Bay
during the late Eocene. The third site is a listing of 74
virtual geological sites sites."
"Finally there is nothing like a good book on a cold night. The following three sites are excellent for locating old Geology or Paleontology books. For example, Julia Gardner's classic 1948 Mollusca from Miocene and Lower Pliocene of Virginia and North Carolina, 310 pages, 38 plates, 74 fossil localities is still available from the USGS (as PP 199 for $8.50 plus P&H.)" Try: the Advanced Book Exchange, BookFinder.Com and USGS publications."
- Cyber Reading Well, if you want to call down a little reading material, The Society of Humanist Philosophers offers The Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of the Species and the Descent of Man.
- Breaking Stories ABCNEWS.COM had a few interesting items this last month. Ice Age Fossils Unearthed, Mapping Dinosaur Egg Sites in Patagonia , Dinosaurs On Isle of Wight and Oldest Reptile? Creature Helps Fill Gap in Fossil Record. Also check out Gary Platt's Amber homepage, appears to be a good site if you like fossil tree drip.
- New Items & Recommendations. Well, we have two items here. First is a link to this year's field camp schedule
of the South Dakota School of Mines. For those unfamiliar, these are college credit field courses which
provide a basis for serious amatuer collecting. I attended nearly 10 years ago, and members of the NJPS
and DVPS are present at the Cretaceous Marine camp every year. Up in the Northeast, we normally contact
David Parris [609-292-6330] of the NJ State Museum for Cretaceous Marine details. For other courses, use
the contact on the SDSM&T page. The other, I came across a nice paleo-website, Les fossiles,
put together by Denis Hsiung in Belgium - downloads pretty well and is worth a visit.
- Downloadable Publications. It's taken time, but serious publications are starting to appear
on the web. Last time I mentioned DinoWeb, and this report, three PDF files. Roberta Dann brought
to my attention that the Pennsylvania Geological Survey had made Fossil Collecting in Pennsylvania
available. It takes up 11 MB and spans 8 files, so the publication is cheaper if you can track down a copy.
The University of Kansas Natural History Museum has made available the out-of-print publication
The Compleat Cladist: A Primer of Phylogenetic Procedures by E.O. Wiley, D.
Siegel-Causey, D.R. Brooks, and V.A. Funk. Lastly, Kim Green dropped me a note to say that the
Delaware Geological Society has made available the Pollack Farm Fossil Site as
a downloadable .PDF only (3.2 MB). Bob Purdy wrote the paper on the Miocene shark teeth.
- Share the Leads. If you come accross a good site or publication, drop me a line. Most of the "good stuff" is buried and hard to find.
- New Webpage
Merle Graffam has been collecting Cretaceous deposits near his home in Utah for some time and has accumulated many ptychodid teeth from this Tropic Shale exposure. He shares his experience and observations in a new ELASMO.COM webpage. - Web Links
Jim Kirkland responded to a PALEONET query I placed, and when doing so, pointed me a WebPaper
on the DinosaurWeb site. If you haven't visited, it's very good. I've included links to two papers on the site
Brooks B. Britt, Theropods of the Dry Mesa Quarry [Morrison Formation, Late Jurassic] With Emphasis on the Osteology of Torvosaurus tanneri and
James Kirkland et.al. Lower to Middle Cretaceous Dinosaur Faunas of the Central Colorado Plateau: A Key to Understanding 35 Million Years of Tectonis, Sedimentology, Evolution and Biography
A few good news items were carried by ABCNEWS.COM. A new Saber-toothed Cat from Florida, some coverage of the Chinese Feathered Dinosaur exhibit at the Yale-Peabody (I had the chance to stop by and it was well worth the time), an Early Fish from China and a Chemical Signature as a Fossil.
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