FOSSIL theme session at Northeast / North-Central GSA in Pittsburgh

The FOSSIL Project hosted a successful theme session on March 19 at the 2017 Northeast / North-Central joint Geological Society of America regional meeting in Pittsburgh, PA.

We had a full day session featuring 16 talks and 3 poster presentations (10 of which were talks by amateur/avocational paleontologists!).  To read respective abstracts, click through each title on the webpages below:

Several talks throughout the day, including Lee Cone’s on the relationships between amateur, professional, and commercial paleontologists, drew large crowds.  New friendships and partnerships were established thanks to this meeting, and we look forward to further collaboration with groups such as the Bighorn Basin Paleontological Institute and the Minnesota-based Hill Annex Paleontology Project.

Prior to the meeting, the Delaware Valley Paleontological Society and FossilGuy (Jayson Kowinsky) led the group on a great field trip.  In the morning, we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History with curator Dr. Matt Lamanna.  Dr. Lamanna gave us a detailed look at the vertebrate prep lab, explained the fascinating historical significance of ‘Dippy’ the Diplodocus, and showed us the extensive vertebrate collections rooms (aptly called the “Big Bone Room” for dinosaur material and the “Little Bone Room” for mammal material).  In the afternoon, we traveled to a road cut near Ambridge, PA, where there is an outcrop of the Pennsylvanian aged Glenshaw Formation.  Despite the muddy conditions and occasional rain or sleet, we collected many carbonized plant specimens, such as Calamites stems and Pecopteris fern leaves.  A great time was had by all!

If you have photos you’d like to add to gallery (see below) contact webmaster Eleanor Gardner.

 

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