Monthly Archives: February 2010

Diplodocid ilium

Posted on February 25, 2010 by altondooley

It’s funny how fossil preparation works sometimes. You can have two fragments that you’ve tried to fit together over and over without success, and suddenly they just fit. That’s what happened with the diplodocid left ilium (hip) shown above. This bone … Continue reading →

Posted in Wyoming Excavations | Tagged | 5 Comments

Boxley comes through again

Posted on February 18, 2010 by altondooley

Photo by Mel Cartwright/VMNH Charles Craddock from Boxley Materials delivered another great plant fossil to VMNH yesterday morning. The new specimen is a four-foot long plant trunk from Boxley’s quarry in Beckley, West Virginia. I think all the fossil plant material at the Beckley … Continue reading →

Posted in Boxley-Beckley, Paleobotany | 3 Comments

From the collections room (Xiphodolamia)

Posted on February 16, 2010 by altondooley

While our shark tooth collection at VMNH is dominated by Carmel Church specimens, we do have some from other localities. I recently came across this tooth mixed in with invertebrate remains from the Pamunkey River in Hanover County, Virginia. 

Posted in From the Collections Room | Leave a comment

“Picasso” progress

Posted on February 14, 2010 by altondooley

On Friday I did a bit of prep work on “Picasso”, the whale we collected from Carmel Church in 2005 and began preparing last year. Picasso’s skull, to use a technical term, is “a big ‘ole mess”; it’s badly crushed … Continue reading →

Posted in "Picasso", Carmel Church mysticetes, Carmel Church Quarry, Chesapeake Group | Tagged | 6 Comments

Carmel Church fish weirdness

Posted on February 10, 2010 by altondooley

This is more of the fallout from our Dino Day rush of prep work on Carmel Church specimens. For some years we’ve been finding small numbers of bony fish vertebrae like the one shown above.

Posted in Carmel Church Osteichthyans, Carmel Church Quarry, Chesapeake Group | 4 Comments

New Carmel Church tooth

Posted on February 4, 2010 by altondooley

During Dino Day, I had a small army of volunteers prepping various materials in the lab, including the bagged material from last August’s Carmel Church excavation. During the course of the day they managed to get through several bags of material, … Continue reading →

Posted in Carmel Church odontocetes, Carmel Church Quarry, Chesapeake Group | Tagged | 5 Comments

More plants

Posted on February 2, 2010 by altondooley

With a book chapter, Dino Day and an exhibit opening behind me, hopefully things will settle down a bit and I can actually work with some fossils; I was beginning to wonder if that was still part of my job!

Posted in Boxley-Beckley, Paleobotany | 1 Comment