Lisa Schenk

So cool! Where did you find this?

Beautiful

@max-dereme central oregon coast!

@lisa-schenk nice

So cool!

Looks like a Calicantherus carlsoni.

wow!

Only true Moolack-heads know how exciting a cone is!

Definitely Pinus. There’s a scale towards the base where there is a clear apophysis and umbo. It looks like the seeds are still inside too. Pinus berglundii Miller is the only cone described so far but I bet there are more. Larry showed me one like this that was more elongated.

You should bring it to a museum, if it is indeed a dolphin skull it might need to have an expert take a good look at it!

@max-dereme Although not incredibly common there are probably at least 3 dolphin skulls that come from the OR Coast. They are relatively common for vert material. UO knows is aware.

@mackenzie-smith oh ok I didn’t know. That’s very cool! Thanks for the info

@max-dereme No problem! Also, I meant to say three skulls a year (not three total). A lot of the material was discovered by Ralph Emlong in the 1980’s and is housed at UCMP and the Smithsonian.

Sure looks like a cone! Peels and/or CT would show what type.

what are peels?

@lisa-schenk Peels are shorthand for celulose acetate peels. It’s a technique in paleobotany that allows us to lift thin layers of cells off a plant allowing us to see the cell structure. CT would be done first because peels partly destroy the specimen.

ah thank you!

Dad knows how to do peels. Of course he knows everything lol

@mackenzie_smith could this be a butternut?

Dang not sure how to tag people here

@gloria-carr You tagged me! 😀 An email notification get’s sent when you @ someone but we are working at trying to get it to be obvious in the app. Juglans bergomensis (the butternut that Steve and I described from the Astoria) has a ribbed shell so it’s not that. It’s hard to interpret if this is a 5 loculole fruit or a weird fracture causing us to see a combination of locuoles and lacunae. There is a smooth butternut from Oligocene rocks near SEATAC called Juglans lacunosa though we are now uncertain of it’s actual relationship within the walnuts due to a possible secondary septum revealed by CT scans. If this is J. lacunosa this would be it’s first occurance in the Miocene and in Oregon.

@mackenzie-smith what should I do with this then, is there someone you recommend I should send it to?

Very cool, thanks

@lisa-schenk You can keep it! Idk how much time Steve has left on the machine here and I also need to crank out more Clarno leaf descriptions. If you want to you can show this to Jim Goedert at the Burke. Friday Harbor now has a CT scan so it’d just be a matter of finding someone who has funding and time on the machine that would be interested. Also, as a side note, you can see the dehiscent suture on the left!

thank you @mackenzie-smith 🙂 it looks like there’s another suture on the right too?

Yes!

Oh wow! Awesome!

That’s so cool! Beautiful! 😍