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Updates from the Virginia Museum of Natural History's Paleontology Department.
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VMNH Paleontology Blog

English - Paleontology, Geology, Science
http://vmnhpaleontology.wordpress.com/
VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1d ago

Virginia Academy of Science 2012 meeting

The Virginia Academy of Natural Science has been meeting at Norfolk State University this week, and Thursday morning was the Natural History and Biodiversity section (Nancy Moncrief and I presented a poster on our squirrel research in this section). There … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1W ago

Fossil turtle soup

Sea turtle bones are relatively common discoveries at Carmel Church. More specifically, we commonly find fragments of the the carapace (upper shell), almost all of which belong to a small, extinct turtle called Syllomus. While we’ve probably found over 100 … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 2W ago

Carmel Church preparation progress

Things have started to pick up in the lab a bit. Besides the addition of Ray, volunteer Kathy Fell has also been expanding her preparation abilities. She’s been working on the baleen whale dentary (lower jaw) we recovered in our … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 3W ago

Petridish update

We’re just over a third of the way through our Petridish crowdfunding campaign, with 38 days still to go. Unfortunately we’re a little behind pace, with pledges so far for $701 (our goal is $4000). So if you can spare … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 4W ago

Sauropod dorsal vertebra

Volunteer Jim Slezak has been preparing some of our Morrison Formation dinosaur material over the last several years. He recently completed another specimen for us, the small sauropod vertebra shown above.  The image above is more or less a dorsal … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1M ago

Reinforcements arrive

With the size of them VMNH paleontology collections, I’ve gradually fallen further and further behind in specimen preparation and cataloging. Hopefully we can now start to address that backlog. Today was the first day of work for our new research … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1M ago

Twelve hours of prep work

One of the issues with collecting at Carmel Church is that, once exposed to air, the fossils weather at a spectacular rate. Within days gypsum will start to grow on the surface, and over the next few months the bones … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1M ago

Hungry Mother State Park

The last month has been pretty intense, with an exhibit opening, getting our Petridish fundraising page launched, and various administrative duties. I needed to get away for a few days, so Tim and I headed off for a couple of … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1M ago

New Carmel Church funding drive

If you’ve been following this blog over the last few years, you’ve discovered that running an excavation is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. Unfortunately, it’s also an expensive one. Staff and volunteers have to be housed and fed, we have to … Continue reading →
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VMNH Paleontology Blog · 1M ago

Southeastern GSA-Day 2

Today was the final day of the GSA Southeastern Section meeting. It was a full day for paleontology, with talks scheduled in both the morning and afternoon sessions. David Schwimmer, William Frazier, and William Montane reported on fossil-rich silicious concretions … Continue reading →
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