20th Anniversary of the Montana Dinosaur Trail

I was happy to see some new paleontology videos appearing on YouTube by Emily Graslie where she visits The Montana Dinosaur Trail. Emily made a name for herself as Chicago's Field Museum's Chief Curiosity Correspondent making videos under the The Brain Scoop name. She followed up with the excellent video series in 2019 called the Prehistoric Road Trip and shown on PBS stations.

The first video takes us to Ekalaka, Montana. A place where the Carter County Museum is located. It was founded in 1936 and was first county museum in the state. It houses fossils found by ranchers and farmers in the area. They have a mounted Edmontosaurus (Lambe, 1917) dinosaur.

Her second video takes us to Makoshika State Park at Glendive, Montana. It is home to at least 10 different dinosaur species found in the Hell Creek Formation of the late Cretaceous Period. Some dinosaur fossils found there are of Edmontosaurus (Lambe, 1917), Ankylosauria (Osborn, 1923), Tyrannosaurus rex (Osborn, 1905), and Triceratops (Marsh, 1889). One geological feature that can be seen in the landscape is the KPG boundary. They have a nice collection of aquatic fossils (turtles, gar scales, crocodile pieces, clams, Mosasaur, Elasmosaur). Another highlight is an exhibit of the 1990s excavation of one of the best preserved Thescelosaurus (Gilmore, 1913) fossils found.

She ends the video at Fort Peck Dam where you can find a restaurant that serves cheesy fried pickles.

For the third video, it highlights the Frontier Gateway Museum (201 State Street, Glendive, Montana). They have a mounted Struthiomimus (Osborn, 1917) dinosaur named Margie. Also Hadrosaurus (Leidy, 1858) fossils are on display. After leaving this museum she visits the Phillips County Museum at Malta, Montana. This museum houses a Brachylophosaurus (Sternberg, 1953) fossil named Elvis. They have a display of Montana agates.

I remember visiting the state as a child with my family and my uncle's family. My aunt was buying moss agate jewelry and I still have a few polished pieces from that trip. The museum also has a meteorite display in which Emile comments "I wonder if the dinosaurs feel a little weird about the meteorites being so close." :)  Another unique display is that of different types of barbed wire from the late 1800s.

Her last video is of a visit to the Great Plain Dinosaur Museum in Malta, Montana. The museum has ammonite fossils from the Western Interior Seaway (77 million years ago) that covered part of modern day Montana. Also found out the museum is display case showing shark teeth fossil from around the United States and fish fossils from the Green River Formation of Wyoming.

I am always looking for natural history museums to visit and now have some new locations to add to my list to visit. Please check out these informative videos about paleontology sites to visit in Montana.

Carl Brett Fossil Videos

Today's entry is to highlight a number of fossil YouTube videos featuring the University of Cincinnati geology professor Dr. Carlton Brett. These videos were created by Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) of Ithaca, New York, USA. This first video focuses on Devonian Period bivalves from central New York and in particular Actinopteria and Plethomytilus.

  

The 2nd video covers Devonian Period brachiopod fossils with a focus on Spinocyrtia and Tullypothyridina.

  

Dr. Brett continues his fossil exploration of a central New York site highlighting Devonian Period bryozoan fossils like the Leptotrypella.

 The fourth video covers Devonian Period trilobite fossils like the Phacops (Eldredgeops) rana.

  

The fifth video covers the rugose (horn) corals like the Heliophyllum halli.

 This last video shows tabulate coral finds like Favosites.

   

 

Fossils in the Media

 

Recently, while watching YouTube I saw two videos that were fossil related.

The first is a movie trailer for the film Ammonite starring Kate Winslet as Mary Anning, Saoirse Ronan as Charlotte Murchison, Fiona Shaw as Elizabeth Philpot and James McArdle as Roderick Murchison. I am not sure what to make of this movie. While excited a movie is being made of the famous fossil hunter Mary Anning I wonder if they focused too much on speculation about her private life and not on her contributions to the field of fossils. If you want to sell tickets, the film's writer, director, and producers probably took the path to achieve this. I will watch none the less just out of curiosity.

UPDATE (January 2021): I was able to watch the movie using Amazon.com and found the movie to be good but not historically accurate. It is probably not everyone's cup of tea but if you like stories from this time period or location it might be for you. The story centers on Mary Annings relationship with  Charlotte Murchinson. Referring to a book entitled Jurassic Mary: Mary Anning and the Primeval Monsters by Patricia Pierce (2015) [obtained at London's Natural History Museum's gift shop]. What I liked about the movie was Mary looking for fossils and prepping them. It also shows the bluntness of living in the early 1800s in England. They filmed on location in the winter of 2019 at Lyme Regis. One can see the challenging conditions in which to collect fossils in. The color tone of the movie is dark and dreary.

The main problem with the story is the real timeline is all a mess. It shows an older Mary (maybe in her 40s) interacting with a 20 something year old Charlotte. In reality, Charlotte (1788-1869) was 11 years older than Mary (1799-1847). Also Mary's interaction with Elizabeth Philpot in the movie puzzling as she appears estranged but in book it tells how they collected fossils together. It also documents that the Philpot sisters were known for a healing salve they made for the local community.

The movie credits lists geology consultants as David Tucker and Paddy Howe, geologist as Phil Stephenson. It thanks David Tucker of Lyme Regis Museum, David Roche Geoconsulting, and the Residents and Businesses of Lyme Regis, Dorset. It shows as filmed on location in Dorset, Kent, Surrey and London, United Kingdom.

According to the Jurassic Mary book, Charlotte visited Lyme Regis in 1825 with her husband and then stayed for 2 weeks to hunt fossils. The couple later invited Mary to stay with them in London in 1829. Mary visited London in 1829 (not sure the year is definitive) but it appears she did not stay with them. So when Mary met Charlotte she would have been 26 years old and Charlotte 37 years old. It would appear there would not be any romantic connection between the two of them. 

On a side note, Roderick Murchison (1792-1871) was Charlotte's husband and known for first describing the Silurian geologic time period. He also named the Permian Period after Perm, Russia in 1841. Also a new book about Ms. Anning has been published. The Dovecote Press has released THE FOSSIL WOMAN A Life of Mary Anning by Tom Sharpe October 2020.

Earlier this week I was watching clips from the December 5, 2020 Saturday Night Live (SNL). They usually open with political satire. Near the end of the skit they brought on cast members Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney. When the character played by Pete Davidson was asked what was his current job was, he responded "I am curious about fossils." I am not sure what to make of this as a joke.

YouTube Links if movie viewer does not work in your browser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnDhlrs3XVM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34-JCkVuKJ8

Early Paleontology & The Crystal Park

 

YouTube is a great place to learn new things and one channel I look for videos to inform me is call The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered. They published a video on October 9, 2020 called The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs and Early Paleontology.

The video covers the origins of paleontology in Europe. He then covers dinosaur (and other ancient creatures) exhibits at The Crystal Park (moved from the 1851 The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations) at Bromley, London, England in 1854.The park still exists today though parts are in disrepair. A group called the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs exists to help protect and restore this piece of history.

University College London produces a series called Lunch Hour Lectures. They hosted Professor Joe Cain in June 2013 discussing the park and it's dinosaurs models. Video link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPhm4Lw538U&feature=emb_logo

Image at beginning of post taken from Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park by Samuel Phillips (1814-1854) 4th Ed. Illustrated by Philip Henry Delamotte(1821-1889), published by Bradbury and Evans, London 1855. The sculptures on the island were created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807-1894).

Louisville Waterway Protection Tunnel Borer Journey Completed

 

Back on September 9, 2019 I wrote about Louisville Metro Sewer District (MSD) Waterway Protection Tunnel project and its exhibit that I helped contribute to at the Kentucky Science Center. Well, the boring machine (aka Bumblebee) has completed it journey of about 4 miles under the city. It breached the wall of its extraction hole on September 30, 2020 near Lexington Road and Grinstead Drive. The journey took about 20 months and removed more than 625,000 tons of material. 

Congratulations to MSD, Black & Veatch Construction, and J.F. Shea Contruction, Inc. for getting to this important milestone in the tunnel project. The full project should be completed sometime in 2021.

See the WHAS 11 news story at this YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBXMc257UlQ or see it on the viewer window below.

MSD released a video of the event on YouTube as well at this page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvgHSKm4rUA&feature=emb_logo or look at viewer below.

Darwin's Fossil Sand Dollar at Harvard

 

After watching more videos from the The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) YouTube channel. I found another interesting one to highlight. It was created 2019 for the Specimen Spotlight Wednesday presentation May 25-31 meeting. The presenter was Jessica D. Cundiff of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Echinarachnius juliensis (Desor, 1847) was collected in Port St. Julien, Patagonia, Argentina during the HMS Beagle voyage (1831-1836) by Charles Darwin in 1834. Darwin sent the echinoid to Swiss biologist Louis Agassiz who also started the MCZ in 1859..  Described by Pierre Jean Édouard Desor in France Geological Society Bulletin vol. 4, number 2, pp. 287-288 in 1847. It appears this fossil is from the Neogene Period (aka Late Tertiary).

Learn the more about this story by watching the video in the player below or go to the YouTube link.

Link to video is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhOOU3eqyG8

Images used for this post:

Portrait of Charles Darwin by George Richmond (1809-1896) water-colour from 1840. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Darwin_by_G._Richmond.jpg

Image of Louis Agassiz circa 1870 from Schweizerischer Beobachter,14/2011, p. 36This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean_Louis_Agassiz_1870.jpg

Image of Pierre Jean Édouard Desor from 1863. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pierre_Jean_%C3%89douard_Desor.jpg

Ammonites opalus nomen oblitum Fossil Video

 

Today while researching a fossil I found, I came across a video from the The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC). It was created June 12, 2020 for the Specimen Spotlight Friday presentation. The video was entitled "What's in a Name? David Dale Owens' Ammonites opalus nomen oblitum" by Paul S. Meyer of the The Field Museum. Since I recently returned from a visit to that museum and earlier in the year I was at New Harmony, Indiana USA where David Dale Owen lived I thought this would be a good topic to blog about.

Above is an enhanced image of the original illustration from Table VIII Figure 6 of the Ammonites opalus described in Illustrations to the Geological Report of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota by David Dale Owen Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1852. It is described as from the Cretaceous Formation of Nebraska Great Bend of the Missouri River, associated with Inoceramus Cripsii. Below is pattern on the shell.

Paul talks about the type specimen at The Field Museum (FMNH UC 6377) which is now called Rhaeboceras halli. John Evans a forward guide for the Owens survey expedition collected this specimen in 1849 which Owen described in 1852. The link to this video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7yCm4ue_I

The Equatorial Minnesota blog was helpful in researching this posting.
https://equatorialminnesota.blogspot.com/2017/04/david-dale-owen-first-mn-geological-survey.html

A scan of David Dale Owen's survey report can be found at: https://archive.org/details/reportageologic00owengoog

AMNH Video Tour of Trilobite Collection

 

On Friday, July 24, 2020 the American Museum of Natural History streamed live a presentation by Melanie Hopkins Associate Curator in the Division of Paleontology and PhD student Ernesto Vargas-Parra. They hosted a brief virtual tour of part of the museum's trilobite collection on the fifth floor. 

At around 1:45, it looks like they start off with a famous locality for Cambrian trilobites from Utah. Around 8:20 in the video, a Silurian Trimerus trilobite fossil shows up maybe from New York's Rochester Shale. The next plate has quite a few trilobites mixed with brachiopods with maybe some being Calymene. At 9:40 a cluster of Silurian Dalmanites trilobite fossils followed by a box with three more Trimerus and ending with one large Trimerus. What looks like an Estonian graptolite fossil shows up at the 12:20 mark in the video. It looks somewhat odd to me being white as all the graptolite fossils I tend to find are black. By the time the video is at 18 minute mark, I think they are looking at Moroccan trilobite fossils.

I visited the museum in July 2018 and I do not recall very many trilobite fossils being no display so this video was a great way to see the collection area that few members of the public get to see. When I was there, I found a display case in the lower level with some wonderful display grade specimens. See picture above. I have documented most of the fossils seen in the case in previous postings on this blog.

If the video player does not display in your browser, here is the direct YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x4xI9KupaY Recently, every Friday at 1 PM EST they present another museum video, hopefully we will get to see some more of the fossil collection.

Damselfly Fossil

The Field Museum of Chicago has an amazing exhibit of insect fossils. The one pictured above was found in 1988 at the Green River Formation of Fossil Lake (Lincoln County), Wyoming, USA. The image is of a damselfly fossil called Zygoptera sp. (Selys, 1854). It existed in the Eocene Epoch about 54.8 to 33.7 million years ago. Damselflies started appearing in the fossil record of the Permian Period.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PE 51414.

Learn more from the museum's Brain Scoop You Tube channel featuring Emily Graslie explaining more about this special research fossil site.

Fossils from Waterway Protection Tunnel Project - Louisville, Kentucky

The Kentucky Science Center has an interactive display for the Metro Sewer District (MSD) Waterway Protection Tunnel project. This project is a 4 mile (6.43 km) tunnel 200 feet (60.96 m) under the city to store up to 55 million gallons (208 million liters) of storm runoff water. It will take at least 3 years to complete.

As of this writing, the tunnel was 15% dug. I found the display really well done and resourceful way to divert storm water from the sewer system instead of using basins. The future will show us how well this system will work. I encourage you if in the Louisville area to visit the Kentucky Science Center as see this exhibit. Look out the windows on either side of it as it has some views riverfront and a MSD sewer line project.

Included in the exhibit are 3 core samples from the test drillings. If you look close you can see different fossils in them (horn coral and colonial coral).

I was contacted months ago by the Cubero media company that created this display. They asked for permission to use some images from this blog site in the display. It was nice to see me given credit on one of the screens.

Below are examples of a few of the images used.

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2009/07/recent-finds-corals-and-brachiopods.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2010/06/stromatoporoids.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2012/12/lichenalia-concentrica-bryozoan-fossil.html

Below are embedded videos describing the MSD project:


Learn more about  this MSD project at their web site:
http://www.louisvillemsd.org/tunnel

Links to videos above if they did not embed properly in web page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CHHpB5xek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLWF2T-klAU

Learn more about the Kentucky Science Center (aka Louisville Science Center) at their web site:
 https://kysciencecenter.org/

Louisville Insider did a story about the opening of this exhibit:
https://insiderlouisville.com/government/infrastructure/science-center-exhibit-showcases-new-waterway-protection-tunnel/

The Trouble With Trilobites Video

PBS Digital Studios has helped produce a new web series about Earth science called Eons. Their first episode is about trilobites (not tribbles and science fiction). The video on YouTube last about 7 minutes.
If the embedded link does work below, here is a direct YouTube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aji2VnQFUCs

Fossil Meteorite Video

An interesting video produced by The Field Museum of Chicago, Illinois, USA is on YouTube about Fossil Meteorites. These objects fell to Earth and landed in an ancient sea. Over time like organic fossils there composition changed as the original material was replaced with minerals. The meteorite shown in this video was L chondrite and the chromite composition was measured to identify it.

They dated it by looking at cosmogenic nuclides. As the material traveled through space it was impacted by cosmic rays. This interaction caused the composition to change. By measuring the amounts of certain elements, the approximate age can be determined of the specimen.

The video states the meteorite was found in the Ordovician layer of a quarry in Sweden. I wonder if meteorites that fell during that period can be found in the Louisville area? Maybe the ocean dissolved the material before it could fossilize. It gives me something else to keep an eye at for when looking for Ordovician fossils.

 Learn more at their web site:
https://www.fieldmuseum.org/science/blog/fossil-meteorites-arrive-field-museum

Origins of Life Video

I watched a promo video from the U.K.'s Natural History Museum in London for David Attenborough's First Life. They have some great Cambrian creature animations in this. After searching around YouTube a bit I found that they belonged to a 2010 Atlantic Productions documentary called First Life. Found on YouTube here:

Animated Ammonite

Still playing the Jurassic World game on my phones. The ludia company has opened up the the aquatic park which has creatures I actually started playing the game for in the first place to see. Very nice animations and this post shows some of the images of the ammonite. It is odd that most of the creatures on land or in the air have genus names but they when with a very generic name ammonite for this creature.

Here is an embed of a short 2 minute animation of this creature on YouTube.

AMNH The Tiniest Fossils Video

Episode 6 has been released for April 2015 and it is entitled The Tiniest Fossils. These fossils have such intricate geometric patterns packaged in such a small shell. Essential for early fuel exploration and now researched as possible indicators for climate change. This video highlights some of the research work being done at the museum on these types of fossils. I especially liked the part showing the creation of 3D computer models and the creating them with a 3D printer. Image above is of a microscopic type fossil found Indiana of the Carboniferous period foraminifera Endothyra baileyi.




The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) located in New York city has created a monthly series of videos highlighting some of the 33 million specimens and artifacts held in their collection. Paleontological specimens make up 17.3% of the collection. Invertebrate fossils are a large part of the collection with approximately 4.5 million specimens. In 2014, they received the Mapes collection from Ohio University composed of more than 500,000 marine fossils. So the museum has a lot of material to pull from for creating videos.

Last picture is of a modern foraminifera found in the waters around the island of Guam. It is the Peneroplis plantus.

Six Ways to Prepare a Coelacanth Video

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) located in New York city has created a monthly series of videos highlighting some of the 33 million specimens and artifacts held in their collection. Paleontological specimens make up 17.3% of the collection. Invertebrate fossils are a large part of the collection with approximately 4.5 million specimens. In 2014, they received the Mapes collection from Ohio University composed of more than 500,000 marine fossils. So the museum has a lot of material to pull from for creating videos.

The series is called Shelf Life. The videos they have been creating so far are top notch!

Episode 3 has been released for January 2015 and it is entitled Six Ways to Prepare a Coelacanth. This animal was thought to be extinct but one was caught December 22, 1938. A curator in South Africa Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer obtained it from the fisherman. She then contacted a research at Rhodes University who spent 14 years waiting for another one to be caught. Learn more by watching their video link to in the posting.



If the embedded video is not showing up on your browser is the the direct YouTube link.

The Coelacanth tail fossil picture at the beginning of this post was taken at Cincinnati Museum Center in August 2013. This Triassic Period fossil was found in Favret Formation of Pershing County, Nevada, USA.

YouTube has another video (A Fish Lost in Time: the Coelacanth) showing a lot of clips of live Coelacanths in the deep. I wonder if the bright lights of those divers are blinding those fish. They live in a dark environment and then BAM this super bright light right in the eye. That would seem pretty painful unless they are almost blind from living in a dark environment already or have some mechanism for shielding from rapid light intensity changes.


The AMNH has produced some other great videos available to watch on the Internet. Their most popular one of this writing is The Known Universe with over 13 million views on YouTube. It really puts our place in the Universe in perspective. It can be viewed at this YouTube link.



Learn more:
http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2013/10/coelacanth-fossil-fish.html

Using a Quadcopter as Geological Scout

For Christmas I received a Syma X11 Hornet quadcopter to learn how to fly. The videos make it look easier to fly than it is. Looking around YouTube for flying tutorials I came across a video of a Phantom quadcopter survey of a large flooded quarry. It has some nice images of submerged vehicles and tools in the water. Hopefully the embedded video in this posting can be seen at the end of this posting. If not, here is the link to it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvj4Tnsv0t0

If I can be able to fly this small drone with some skill I can move up to one with a camera so that one day I can use it to survey for fossils.

Fossil Preparation Videos of Crinoids and Trilobites

Here are two YouTube videos showing trilobite preparation lab back in 2005. That is an amazing plate they quarried so many crinoids and the other plate showing so many intact trilobites and a starfish. The location is Erfoud, Morocco. The trilobites shown in the video are Selenopeltis bucci, Asaphus, Onnia and Bornstrella.

The second shows more of the lab. They have quite a fossil inventory there!



Videos from YouTube user ajmiller82 and their web site is http://www.ancientearthtradingco.com/

Le Brea Tar Pit Fossils

This video produced by Voice of America highlights the Le Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles, California. The pits have produced over 5.5 million fossils over the last 100 years. The fossils found there date to the Pleistocene.

Learn more about the Page Museum at the Le Brea Tar Pits at their web site: http://www.tarpits.org/

Moroccan Trilobite Preparation Videos

Here are two YouTube videos showing trilobite preparation back in 2005. It is neat to see this work as there are so many Moroccan fossils on the market. We see the finished product here in America but these videos show how some of the material is prepared. The first video shows a Koneprusia brutoni Devonian trilobite from Oufaten, Alnif, Morocco being prepared through sand abrasion cleaning. That is one spiny trilobite!

The second shows a young man preparing a Devonian Phacops rana trilobite with a hammer and nail.



Videos from YouTube user ajmiller82 and their web site is http://www.ancientearthtradingco.com/