Upcoming Paleontological Society of Washington meeting:

Darwin's Geological Perspective and the Origin of The Origin of Species

Richard Bambach
Professor Emeritus of Paleontology, Virginia Tech
Research Associate, Department of Paleobiology,
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave.
Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted
to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.
Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5:00 p.m. to join us for dinner at "Elephant and Castle." Latecomers can meet directly at the restaurant at the NW corner of 12th & Penn. Ave., NW

In honor of the 150^th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species (published November 24, 1859), Bambach will talk about how Charles Darwin's geological experience especially his following Lyell's approach to geology, influenced his early development of his theory of descent with variation. Bambach got interested in Darwin's geological connections when he realized that the only professional title Darwin ever used in publications was "Secretary to the Geological Society". While Darwin's geological work has recently been well studied (an excellent book by Sandra Herbert, Charles Darwin, Geologist was published by Cornell Univ. Press in 2005) the connections between Darwin's geological perspective and his early work developing his theory in the late 1830s and early 1840s have not been directly publicized yet by anyone. Geologists and paleontologists can take pride in the roll geology played in Darwin's development of his ideas.

Bambach is Professor Emeritus of Paleontology at Virginia Tech and is currently a Research Associate in the Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History and also an Associate of the Harvard Herbaria, Harvard University. He has a B. A. in biological sciences from Johns Hopkins and a Ph. D. from Yale in geology. He has been awarded the R. C. Moore Medal (for Excellence in Paleontology) by the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) and the Paleontological Society Medal from the Paleontological Society.

Labels: evolution, geology, meetings, psw

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Maryland in the Miocene: Paleoenvironmental History of the Calvert Cliffs
Susan Kidwell, Williams Rainey Harper Professor of Geology
Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago

Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009
7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History (10th St. and Constitution Ave. in NW Washington, DC)

Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5:00 p.m. if you wish to join the PSW members for dinner at the "Elephant and Castle," NW corner of 12th & Penna. Ave., NW

Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.

Labels: dc, fossils, maryland, meetings, miocene, psw, smithsonian

I saw Ray Stanford, an enthusiastic amateur paleontologist, speak last month at a meeting of the Paleontological Society of Washington.

It was my first PSW meeting, and I got a warm welcome from PSW president and University of Maryland paleontologist Tom Holtz, who gave a specific shout-out to NOVA Geoblog, encouraging the ~30 attendees to check it out. (If you're arriving as a consequnce of that endorsement, welcome!) Four of my Honors students joined me for the talk. Just getting to go behind the scenes at the Smithsonian is a treat in itself. From the Easter Island moai in the Constitution Avenue lobby of the museum, we were escorted through labyrinthine passageways to the Cooper Room. Our route brought us past immense fossil collections, cossetted away in row after row of cabinets. It was enticing, and made me resolve to arrange a special tour there sometime for the Honors students.

The point of the talk was Stanford's immense collection of fossil dinosaur tracks (and at least one apparent mammal track which is quite large: raccoon-sized at least, with apparent dinosaur skin impressions right next to it). It used to be thought that Maryland only had Triassic/Jurassic fossil tracks, from the Newark Supergroup rift valleys that opened up during the breakup of Pangea / opening of the Atlantic Ocean. Stanford has made a real scientific breakthrough by demonstrating that there are early Cretaceous-aged tracks in the area too.

None of his Cretaceous-aged tracks are collected in situ. Instead, he finds them all as "float" (weathered-out loose blocks) in streams draining exposures of (what I infer to be) the Patuxent Formation. (He didn't specifically mention source formations that I heard during the talk.)

He's found a ton of stuff! Actually,if I'm being literal, he's found tonS of stuff! And he stores it all in his living room! He recently had the foundations of his house reinforced because he has so much STUFF. Hundreds of tracks, and other fossils, too. Whoa! This guy does not play by the same rules as most folks.

There were a lot of coprolites mentioned, including:

• a 98-pound coprolite (!)
• a coprolite with a dinosaur footprint in it
• a dinosaur footprint with a coprolite in it

He also shared what he claimed were skin textures preserved in tracks. Some were self-evident, and I readily accepted them as valid. However, others weren't visible to the naked eye, and he only "demonstrated" them with Photoshopped images wherein the contrast dial was turned up to 11 -- I think this "technique" generated patterns that resembled skin impressions, but when I looked at the fossil itself, they were nowhere to be seen. I am dubious about this particular claim.

The talk gave me lots to think about, but not so much about dinosaur lifestyles or anatomy so much as the role of amateurs in science. Here's a guy with boundless enthusiasm, and he's finding stuff that the books literally said didn't exist. His efforts have resulting in expanding Maryland's Mesozoic paleontological record into the Cretaceous, and he's found all sorts of stuff that's super-duper interesting, like that mammal track.

Stanford was profiled last year in Geotimes magazine, before it switched its name to EARTH. Discovery News also ran a story about his findings. Interestingly, when Googling his name for this blog post, I also came across some other wacky stuff he's involved in, including UFO's. This definitely jibes with the lack of scientific rigor that I perceived in his presentation. (Quote from the interviewer: "In the 1970s, Stanford was the moving force behind the Association for the Understanding of Man (AUM) and Project Starlight. The former an attempt to decipher the UFO enigma by psychic means, the latter using advanced scientific instruments.")

So, having learned this, what do I make of his paleontological data? The best I can come up with is to trust my own eyes and view his claims open-mindedly but with the traditional scientific filter of skepticism. I accept the coprolite data; I found it self-evidently convincing. The skin-texture data? Not so much. The UFO stuff? Don't get me started...

Labels: coastal plain, cretaceous, culpeper basin, fossils, maryland, meetings, mesozoic, museums, psw, science and society, smithsonian

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Confessions of a Dinosaur Hunter
by Richard Thompson
American Institute of Physics / AAAS Congressional Science Fellow

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History 10th St. & Constitution Ave.

Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5p.m. if you wish to join us for dinner, at the "Elephant and Castle," NW corner of 12th & Penna. Ave., NW

Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.

Last Meeting of the Season: See you in September!

Labels: dinosaurs, fossils, meetings, psw, smithsonian

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Maryland's Lower Cretaceous Vertebrate Tracks and Trackways
by Ray Stanford, Maryland Track Project

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave. Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5:00 p.m. if you wish to join us for dinner, at the Elephant and Castle, NW corner of 12th & Penna. Ave., NW

Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted
to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.
Remaining Date for 2008-2009 Season: May 20

Labels: cretaceous, fossils, maryland, psw, smithsonian

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Institutional Memories: The Paleo Art of National Geographic and the Smithsonian Institution
by Angela Botzer (National Geographic) and Mary Parrish (Scientific Illustrator, Dept. of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution)

Paleo art has been an important part of the dissemination of the science of paleontology for two important Washington, DC institutions and their audiences for more than 150 years. The presenters will detail fascinating histories of paleo art via the material housed in the collections of their respective organizations.

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009
7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave. Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5:00 p.m. if you wish to join some fun paleontologists for dinner, at the "Elephant and Castle," NW corner of 12th & Penna. Ave., NW. Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.

Remaining Dates for 2008-2009 Season: March 18, April 15, May 13

Labels: art, dc, fossils, meetings, psw, smithsonian

Note - this event is cancelled due to the lousy weather today.

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Movers & Shakers in 20th Century Paleontology: Role of the Smithsonian Community
Tom Dutro, U.S. Geological Survey (retired) and Research Associate, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave. Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5:00 p.m. if you wish to join us for dinner, at the Elephant and Castle, NW corner of 12th & Penna. Ave., NW

Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.

Remaining Dates for 2008-2009 Season: Feb. 18, March 18, April 15, May 13

Labels: meetings, psw

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Climatic Cooling and Body Size Evolution in Deep-sea Ostracodes
by Gene Hunt
Curator of Ostracoda, Department of Paleobiology
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

7:00 p.m., in the Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave.
Meet in the Constitution Avenue lobby at 5:00 p.m. if you wish to join dinner at the "Elephant and Castle," NW corner of 12th & Penna. Ave., NW

Non-Smithsonian visitors will be escorted
to the Cooper Room at 6:30 and 6:55 p.m.

Labels: meetings, psw, smithsonian

Labels: ediacaran, fossils, psw

Labels: fossils, mammals, meetings, oceans, psw, smithsonian