Sunday, April 19, 2015

Most Recent Field Trip: Paleobotany Overnight to Pulaski

Our student team (minus myself)
The past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy, between finishing up my semester, getting ready for this summer's adventure, and working at my local museum. In addition, I got to attend a Paleontology conference recently and learn more about fossil prep. As I said, life has been a little crazy and I'll slowly be working on updates.
We collected so much that we only took the
best pieces.The rest was left at the site.
This weekend, my paleobotany class under Dr. Mickle took a trip up to Pulaski, Virginia. The specimens that we found were absolutely gorgeous, and we found so many that we had to pick and choose the best ones to bring back home.
We also made friends with a family that lives up there who agreed to let our classes return to their property in future years to collect, and the sheer amount of Lycopsida eroding out of the hill was actually sort of ridiculous. These were tree-like, but also similar to ferns in a way. They would have grown taller and taller, losing leaves as they grew up and rotting out at the base. The stumps grew in layers in such a way that sometimes stump casts are found, where as its also relatively common to find the layers themselves, with different sized leaf scars from different layers.
Dr. Gensel at our new site with a piece of lycopsida. Almost like Christmas!
This is Dr. Gensel from UNC-CH. I suppose NCSU and UNC can be friends in terms of science! She came along for the ride, because she knows where the sites and a lot about the material. She proved to be a wonderful professor, and was eager to help us dig and pick our Dr. Mickle as we do. Though there were times that we wondered if the two of them would have to barter and fight over who got material for research and teaching, learning from both of them added even more to the experience.
Although a lot of the material was so beautiful, as it dried some of it vanished from the rock. I still brought home a couple of pieces of this to try some new methods I learned at the recent conference with lighting to see if there is anyway to see if there is anything left that the naked eye can't see alone.

Not only beautiful, but also connected and associated pieces!
I got excited at one point. I am constantly being teased by Dr. Mickle about changing from vertebrate paleontology to paleobotany. At one point, he found something that he thought may be an insect head, and I leaped over a pile rock exclaiming, "Animal!" That's one way to wake me up! Unfortunately, it was just unidentifiable plant material. Still, it was worth checking. Always on the lookout for animals and traces of past ecology! Plant traces we found included Genselia, Cartiopterinium, Rhodiopterianium, and possibly Racopterus. Beautiful :)





Cast of lycopsida with a leaf inside

































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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.