Hungry Mother State Park

The last month has been pretty intense, with an exhibit opening, getting our Petridish fundraising page launched, and various administrative duties. I needed to get away for a few days, so Tim and I headed off for a couple of nights at Hungry Mother State Park, near Marion, Virginia; no cell service, no internet, just peace and quiet! Of course, that didn’t mean there was no geology.

New Carmel Church funding drive

If you’ve been following this blog over the last few years, you’ve discovered that running an excavation is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. Unfortunately, it’s also an expensive one. Staff and volunteers have to be housed and fed, we have to buy plaster, burlap, gas for vehicles, replacement tools, and a host of other supplies, and it adds up in a hurry. In the 20 years we’ve been digging at Carmel Church, practically all of our funding has come either from grants or direct donations from the public. In order to raise funds to pay for this summer’s planned dig, we’ve partnered with Petridish.org to formalize what we’ve been doing piecemeal for years: crowdfunding Carmel Church excavations.

Southeastern GSA-Day 2

Today was the final day of the GSA Southeastern Section meeting. It was a full day for paleontology, with talks scheduled in both the morning and afternoon sessions.

Southeastern GSA-Day 1

Today marked the first full day of the Southeastern GSA meeting.I was in the first poster session, presenting the research that I’ve been doing with Nancy Moncrief on prophyria in eastern fox squirrels.

Southeastern GSA-Welcome reception

This evening was the welcome reception for the annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Geological Society of America (SE-GSA), which is being held this year in Asheville, North Carolina. The reception included 50 posters of undergraduate research projects.

“Rocks to Racing” exhibit

Earlier this week I mentioned in my Twitter feed that I’ve been working 20-hour days. In fact, last night was the first time in almost 2 weeks I’ve gotten to bed before 3:00 am. The reason was that we were trying to complete a new exhibit, “Rocks to Racing”. There’s always a rush for the exhibits department to complete everything before an opening, but this one was hard on me because I was building several display models. The really tough one was a life-size model of the Ordovician nautiloid Cameroceras, which I only completed a few hours before the opening reception. The photo above doesn’t really do justice to its size…

In memoriam: Frank Whitmore

I learned last night that paleontologist Frank C. Whitmore, Jr. passed away on Sunday at the age of 96. He was the last surviving charter member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, having attended at the inaugural meeting as a graduate student in 1940. More than any other person, Frank was responsible for my interest in marine mammals.