Saturday, May 31, 2014

Meanwhile, inside...

Today was the first chance I've had in a while to work in the prep lab again. That gave me a chance to fix the woodchuck's tooth. A little glue, a little time in a sand box, and, well, we'll see how it sets up tomorrow morning. But it looked fine. Do you see what I meant about the overgrown tooth? It's pretty impressive that without chewing on something he lived long enough for it to get that long.
 I also finally found where the bone is in the field jacket I've been working on. At least now I can show people where the bone is instead of just pointing at a bit of rock covered in plaster. I still can't tell for the life of me what kind of bone it is because its just a really wide, flat surface. The problem with finding bone is that it is really, really tempting to get excited about it and start following the bone back into the stone, rather than excavating it and keeping the surface of the rock flat (which lets you see what you are doing and helps you avoid breaking anything you may not otherwise see.)


The fun part about being in the lab is that you hear people talking about the exhibits, and sometimes people ask you about the exhibits near you instead of what you're working on. Like today, a guy asked me how deep the sea would have been when a shallow sea covered part of Nebraska during the Mesozoic. Um... well, luckily, Rick was standing right behind me at the time and I was able to redirect the question to him. Apparently based on the plankton we can tell that the ocean over Nebraska was maybe 300-400 feetdeep. Continental seas aren't nearly as deep because the plates that continents rest on aren't as dense as oceanic plates, and the less dense plates don't sink into the mantle as much as the denser ones, leaving less space for the water. He had a hard time wrapping his mind around such large animals being in water that shallow, but if you think about it, large animals in the modern day come into shallow water during migration, feeding, and mating. And then when the occasional one gets lost.

I also got asked if we had any dog leashes that could be loaned out. Um... no... I was already shocked that we let animals in the Rhino Barn, but I also can't imagine taking my dog anywhere without having a leash. Maybe laws are different in NC. Sure. We'll go with that. Maybe here it is perfectly normal to ask the girl cleaning the fossils with the slightly southern accent these questions instead of the lady at the front desk when you first walk in who knows the area and takes the admissions. Sure.

...and maybe not, because Rick said that was an odd question and the first one like it he's heard when I told him.

Again, as discussed yesterday... Why do the oddities always happen when I'm around?

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJune 1, 2014 at 4:09 AM

    Fate, my dear, simple fate. ��

    Mary

    ReplyDelete

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My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.