Saturday, March 2, 2013

Eurypterid and Mastodon Fossils at ISM

I am a big fan of museums which is why I have spent hundreds of hours volunteering at my local one. One of my favorite museums is the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana USA. They have a great number of exhibits showing off fossils found around the state of Indiana. In addition, they are publishing videos of fossils they have in their collection.

This first video is of a Silurian period Eurypterid found in a quarry in Kokomo, Indiana. If the display box is showing a different video, here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=UUg23t7QR8PYx5N3WX2M2eMg&v=ewev2B5-01I



The next video shows the assembly of the 13,000 year old Fred the mastodon fossil for an exhibit entitled Indiana's Ice Age Giants: The Mystery of Mammoths and Mastodons. It opens in November 2013. If the display box is showing a different video, here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUg23t7QR8PYx5N3WX2M2eMg&v=ulUBrHPIPPM&feature=player_embedded




This video shows the Bothwell dig in 2005 that uncovered seven mastodonts, part of giant beaver, and vertebrate of stag moose. The dig was near Hebron, Indiana. See video at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKJ3CYRvF28
 
This video shows a 2008 fossil dig in an Indiana corn field.

2 comments:

Tony Edger said...

These are great videos. I particularly liked the one on the Eurypterid fossil -- never underestimate the impact of a volunteer! The video that immediately followed that one highlighted quilt preservation at the museum -- almost as fascinating as the Eurypterid story.
Thanks.

Michael Popp said...

Hi Tony,
I think there might be some issues with the embedded videos. They sometimes show other videos from the museum that are not related to fossils. I put the direct links near the video windows to guide the viewer to the correct video if this occurs.
Thanks for the comment.