The Prep Lounge

WPA Fossil Preparation 1939-1941

2011-12-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

The last time our nation was being crushed by a crippling global economic depression, we did our darndest to paleontology our way out of trouble. That's right. The state of Texas was crawling with armies of fossil prospectors, preparators, mount makers, and researchers, all collecting, quite literally, tons of fossils. Sadly, WWII came along too soon, and therefore we don't have the historical precedent to show that employing paleontologists is the solution to our national woes. Even though it clearly is.

Anyway, the program was administered by the Works Progress Administration and directed by Dr. E.H. Sellards of the Bureau of Economic Geology. You can read more about the amazing work these folks did here, and here, and about continuing research on this material here. The specimens were brought to Austin for preparation and curation, and have mostly ended up in our collections. A number of these are on display at the TMM, some are exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History, and some at the Smithsonian. I've been working through VPL archives for documents and specimens to exhibit to showcase the history of some of this work, and in doing so have come across a large number of great photographs of the preparation process. I can't help but hear Tom Waits singing Alice when I look at these pictures.

[Note: Bloggers photo editing capabilities still suck, so these aren't organized coherently or even artistically, or even actually centered reliably. What is this, 2004?]


Original caption: Scene in Preparator's Laboratory

Preparator reconstructing Glyptodon carapace

Preparation of the Onion Creek Mosasaur. This skeleton is still on display at the Texas Memorial Museum.

Another view of the preparation lab. The mosasaur skull is visible on the left.

The lab was in part of the University called "Little Campus". Great lighting.

Onion Creek Mosasaur skull.

Rhinoceros skull undergoing preparation.

Onion Creek Mosasaur lower jaws. I find this picture somewhat haunting.

Professor Emeritus Ernest Lundelius recalls visiting this lab as an undergraduate in the early 40s.

Preparators working on Texas mastadon bones.

Historic fossil goo... er, glue recipes

2011-12-11T21:32:00.001-08:00

From The American Journal of Pharmacy, May 1875 p. 225

William D. Turnbull 1922-2011

2011-10-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Sad news. One of my favorite days during my time in Chicago was spent packed into the cab of the Geology Department pickup with Bill Turnbull and Bill Simpson driving to Rainer Zangerl's home several hours south in Indiana. I helped Simpson pack specimens and documents from Zangerl's basement while he and Turnbull caught up on the front porch and shared iced tea (both had started at the Field Museum at about the same time). It was a sweaty, dusty, silverfish-filled day, but also filled with great stories and time spent with Bill, and I remember it fondly.

Reposted email from Pete Makovicky, FMNH Geology Department Chair--

It is with great sadness that the Geology Department marks the passing of Curator
Emeritus William D. Turnbull. Bill passed away Wednesday following a short illness.
Born in 1922 in Milwaukee, Bill attended the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
and graduated in 1942. After serving in the Army during WWII, Bill joined the Field
Museum as a fossil vertebrate preparator in 1946. Bill earned his Ph.D. degree in
Paleozoology from the University of Chicago while working at the museum, and
ascended to the post of Assistant Curator of Fossil Mammals in 1956. He was promoted
to Associate Curator in 1963, and again to Curator in 1973. He also held lecturer status
at the University of Chicago and University of Indiana at South Bend, and was a
research associate at the University Texas at Austin and the Western Australian
Museum. He served the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology as Vice-President from
1975-1976 and as President from 1976-1977. Bill retired in 1987, but continued to come
to work daily as long as weather and health permitted.
Bill was an avid field paleontologist and his collecting efforts ranged widely in the
US from the South to the western states, as well as farther afield in Australia. He made
significant contributions to the Museum’s collections, and his collections of Eocene
mammals from the Washakie Basin are spectacular. Several of Bill’s most spectacular
finds are on display in Evolving Planet, including the mosasaur Globidens, the turtle
Naomichelys, and the aïstopod amphibian Pseudophlegethontia turnbullorum named in
honor of Bill and his first wife, Priscilla. Bill’s scholarly publications ranged widely,
covering topics such as jaw mechanics of archaic Mesozoic mammals, descriptions of
marsupial and rodent faunas of the Australian late Neogene, to Pleistocene mammals
of the Midwest. Bill was working on manuscripts on the remarkable Eocene finds he had
made in the Washakie Basin in Wyoming, the mammalian fauna from the Madura Cave
in Western Australia, and on the history of the department, when he fell ill.
During his long tenure at the Museum, Bill interacted with generations of
scientists, ranging from Elmer Riggs, the first vertebrate paleontologist in the Museum’s
history, to the current cohort of curators. He collaborated with colleagues from across
the globe. He will be remembered as a dedicated professional, a wonderful citizen
to the department and the institution, and as a warm and caring family man. His
legacy lives on in innumerable ways, including in the many specimens and scholarly
contributions with which he enriched our exhibits and science, and in the memories we
all have of his life as a Museum scientist.
Bill is survived by his wife Hedy, his stepdaughter Eve Band and her husband
Steve and their two daughters; his granddaughter Lindsey Goodwin; his stepson Harry
Brotman and his two daughters; his brother Alan Turnbull, sister Jane Przedpelski, and
their spouses and children. Condolences can be sent to:

Hedy Turnbull
Montgomery Place
5550 S. South Shore Drive, Apt. 514
Chicago, IL 60637
--
Peter J. Makovicky
Associate Curator and Chair
Dept. of Geology
Field Museum of Natural History
1400 S Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60605
Ph: (312) 665 7633
Fax: (312) 665 7641

Small scale molding and casting at UT

2011-10-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

Vacuum pump and chamber on handy cart

The day has arrived where I have assembled and tested a fantastic system for making itty-bitty casts with which I am extraordinarily happy. After my exciting and implosive night back in June, the start of this fiscal year has allowed me to procure a new vacuum chamber, finally completing the apparatus for making beautiful bubble-free minute molds and casts. There are a number of publications detailing protocol and equipment for achieving these (e.g. Reser, 1981; Davies, 2010; Reser, 2011; and Cavin, 2011), our process most closely follows that refined by Reser (2011). Equipment includes a Welch Duo-seal 1402 vacuum pump, a Smooth-On branded five gallon vacuum chamber, a digital scale, and a 2.5 gallon pressure pot.

Test specimens were molded with Polytek Platsil 73-25 RTV silicone rubber, and cast using Smooth-On Smooth Cast 300 pigmented with Polytek Polycolor Brown (approx 1 drop per 100g). Specimens were clayed-up in standard fashion, including imprinting the specimen number into the sulfur-free clay. Silicone was de-aired in the vacuum chamber, and a very thin coat was painted onto the surface of the specimens. A light stream of air (~15psi) was passed across the silicone to spread and pop any air bubbles that might remain, and the remainder of the rubber was poured to cover the specimen completely.

Digital scale, pressure pot, and two in-progress molds

Upon demolding 24 hours later, the silicone molds contained no visible surficial air bubbles, even at 50x magnification. Casts were produced by painting in a thin coat of Smooth Cast 300, making sure that there were no trapped bubbles, quickly pouring the rest of the resin, and then the mold was pressurized to 40psi for 15 minutes. At this point, the resin was completely cured and demolded. Pressure cast examples showed no air bubbles at all in the final cast, while those that were merely painted and poured contained some bubbles at or just below the surface. Once the molds are made, the entire process of casting one specimen, including setup and cleanup, takes no longer than 30 minutes.

All of these specimens were scanned at UTCT, and we plan to CT scan these casts also. Our next step will be to compare the fidelity, ease of production and handling, and final costs associated with methods of digital imaging and printing vs. conventional casting. A paper is soon to follow. Subsequent blog posts will detail the procurement and assembly of this casting system.

This is what I call one helluva bubble-free cast- TMM 41672-233 (cast) Click the image for full resolution.

References

From Kirk and Williams, 2011. TMM 41672-233 (actual specimen). Scale= 2mm

Cavin, J. 2011. Vacuum molding and casting for bubble-free fossil replicas. Proceedings of the 4th Fossil Preparation & Collections Symposium. Brigham Young University Geology Studies Volume 49(B):24-28

Davies, K., Cifelli, R., Davis, B. and Gordon, C. 2010. A simple microvertebrate molding and casting technique: A 20-year retrospective. Programs and abstracts from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings, October, 2010.

Kirk, E.C., and Williams, B. 2011. "New adapiform primate of Old World affinities from the Devil’s Graveyard Formation of Texas". Journal of Human Evolution

Reser, P. 1981. Precision casting of small fossils: An update. Curator, 24:157-180.

Reser, P. 2011. Cost effective assembly and operation of equipment to make excellent casts. Proceedings of the 4th Fossil Preparation & Collections Symposium. Brigham Young University Geology Studies Volume 49(B):6

The research nature of museums

2011-10-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

I was asked a question not too long ago about what kind of labs a museum could need and why, and I was pleased enough with my explanation that I thought I'd put it here. The question was a reminder that most people see museums very differently from those of us who work in them on a regular basis.

When I'm visiting museums I often forget that they have exhibits, for me museum trips are typically behind-the-scenes and I rarely make it into galleries for any appreciable amount of time. Most big museums are research institutions whose primary duties are the care and storage of historical or art objects. Many of them are associated with universities, like the Texas Memorial Museum (UT) which has public exhibits, and specimen collections are spread out through several buildings across campus. Others, like the University of California Museum of Paleontology (Berkeley) have limited exhibit space and exist predominantly for research and educational purposes. Curators in large private museums are often faculty members or otherwise associated with local universities and advise graduate students (e.g. American Museum/Columbia University, The Field Museum/University of Chicago), using the museum resources to train scientists. In most museums, the exhibited specimens represent only 1-2% of the institutional holdings. UT, for example, has hundreds of thousands of vertebrate fossils in our collections, and 20,000 recent animal skeletons. All of these objects require varying levels of work to make them available for study or display, to prevent deterioration, or to repair damage, and that takes place in a wide variety of labs and workshops. So, an art museum will have conservation labs dedicated to cleaning and restoration of paintings, or analysis equipment for determining authenticity of artifacts. A natural history museum will have labs dedicated to CT scanning fossils or mummies, labs for fixing and pinning insects and plants, or slicing up and analyzing meteorites to figure out how old the solar system is. Researchers from all over the world come to visit these collections and sometimes borrow these kinds of objects, so collections managers act as a sort of reference librarian to keep track of, care for, and make available the specimens. These resources are the foundation for how we understand past cultures and the natural world, and the public exhibits are intended to give visitors a window into the knowledge we've gained as a result of that research.

I'm sorry, I'm kind of tied up at the moment....

2011-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Two teflon tape supports, tightly wrapped close to the spine, and loosely midway down the ribshaft.

This afternoon while re-adhering a broken rib to the exhibited mount of Homotherium serum, I was frustrated in my attempts to hold the rib steadily in place while the Paraloid B-72 set. This is a familiar problem for preparators, often we can set a specimen in a sandbox and balance one broken bit on top of the other using gravity as a clamp. Irregularly shaped specimens, or mounted skeletons, as in this case, can create a real challenge to securely reattaching broken elements. Every time I invariably moved, the join would slip and prevent a good fit. Here, gravity was instead working against me, as it sometimes does. Watching this inelegant dance, TMM exhibit designer John Maisano went back to his shop to find a solution; string, or wire maybe, something to replace me in the equation. What he came back with, in a stroke of genius, was a roll of teflon plumbers tape.

He wrapped the tape around the rib and handed the roll to me. I promptly dropped it (gravity again!), and had no choice but to stand there with gluey rib in hand watching it unroll itself down the landform. After John rolled it back up and handed it to me again with a stern warning, I started wrapping the tape around the two halves of the facing rib, clamping them together. Wrapping around the vertebrae provided more support, and loosely wrapping the broken rib to one of its neighbors controlled droop in that plane as well. This method was superior to using adhesive tape or string, which would have been very difficult to remove had they been glued in place. It is far gentler and easier to work than wire would have been, especially considering how delicate these poorly mineralized bones are. A method that will change the way I work, for sure. Thanks, John, for the idea!

Now we just have to get those arms back on!

Tube wringer

2011-10-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

When you absolutely, positively, have to get those last few drops of Paraloid B-72 out of your Koob Tube. Or oil paint. Or toothpaste. The Tube Wringer-

Oh, dear Marsh pick,

2011-07-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

SVP logo, feat. Marsh pick

How happily I smash rocks with thee....

Today, a member of the preplist asked for photos with scale for use in recreating that ubiquitous paleontology icon, the Marsh pick. In the VPL prep lab archives I've come across a letter from Wann Langston to someone at the AMNH (or maybe it was a response, anyway, correspondence of some sort from somebody to somebody) from the 60s or 70s discussing the multitude of pick heads boxed in the basement with a price of $7 plus postage for anyone wanting one. Damn that those days are behind us! As soon as I find that letter again I'll post it here.

What is a Marsh pick, some might ask? Well, youngster, before the rise of the Estwing Rock Hammer, the Marsh pick was "the universal field tools of vertebrate paleontologists," as described by Ned Colbert in "A Fossil Hunter's Notebook"(1980, p. 131). His wife, artist Margaret Colbert, incorporated it into the design for the cover art of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology News Bulletin, and it was later adopted by the SVP as the organization's official logo, which can now be found on all sorts of nifty SVP swag (proceeds of which go to support the Society.) I've compiled what information I have at hand here in this post, and would be highly interested in hearing from anyone who can add to the fact or lore associated with this instrument.

The first printed reference I have seen relating to our story comes thanks to blogger Michael Ryan, who contributed the following bit of paleo history to the internet in 2006 (there were blogs way back in 2006? Holy crow!) Beyond this, I do not know much about the genesis of the famous whacking tool.

Popular Science August, 1932, From Palaeoblog

I have been told that this is not the earliest example of such a tool, and that it was devised by O.C. Marsh himself, and it is certainly possible that Brown modified the design in such a way as to improve it. Additions like the U-shaped spring clip might be what led him to claim inventor status, and that Brown's dinosaur pick only later became synonymous with Marsh's. But, like I said, I don't know. It is exceedingly difficult to tell from historical photos whether pictured picks are the ones we are discussing or standard large railroad picks. There is a photo in Dingus and Norell (2010, Fig. 23) of Brown in the Red Deer River in 1912 that looks Marsh picky. Chime in if you can prove the case one way or the other.

The next Marsh pick sighting of which I am aware is courtesy Charles Camp, in Methods in Paleontology (1937). After discussing how it should only cost $10 a day to hire a team of horses and a "Fresno" scraper (a plow) to clear overburden, Charlie gets into the nitty-gritty of pick selection. His unapologetic opinion follows as such:

Tools for excavating include: shovels, large railroad picks, small "drift" picks, paleontological or "Marsh" picks (fig. 4c), which, by the way, are more expensive and scarcely better than a good, light "drift" pick (fig. 4a). A crowbar is sometimes handy.

Ouch. But something changed the minds of a generation of paleontologists in the 43 years between Camp's thoughts and Colbert's observation. Although, I don't use one in the field very often either, my long-handled Estwing rock hammer has served me well for >10 years. [A brief aside: I can't stand those Estwing Geo/Paleo Picks. I just find them to be sized all wrong. Too short to be useful as a two-handed earth mover, too long (only slightly, though, if you're 6' plus) to be used accurately as a one-handed rock hammer. Also, the weight is all wrong. It fills a middle niche that doesn't really exist, in my opinion. To move serious rock, you need mass X acceleration, a strong point, and the leverage of a long handle for both a decent swing and prying power once the tool tip is embedded in your target. Target, I said, not the fossil. I suspect that if you think the Paleo Pick is for you, a few lessons on the proper mechanics of a good 3lb pickax might change your mind. Oh! And the padded handle! You cannot slide your hand along the length of haft as you swing, which results in even more and less efficient labor! And the stupid handle is round! You've got to squeeze it tighter to keep it from rotating, which leads to even more fatigue! Somebody's gonna hurt themselves with one of these.] Ok, that wasn't brief, and we haven't even addressed the original request, pictures and measurements of the tool! From here on out, I'll let the pictures do the talking, with details in the photo captions. Like I said, I want to hear more if you've got sources!

[You can click on the pictures here for full size images]

Two examples of Marsh picks, with my Estwing 22oz long handled rock hammer for reference. The stainless steel pick on the left was recreated as part of a commemorative run for the 2007 Austin SVP meeting. This design was replicated from Ned Colbert's personal Marsh pick (the very same SVP logo model) now owned by his grandson, Matt Colbert. A commemorative coin was incorporated into the side with the Austin meeting logo embossed on it, and picks were made in both stainless and tool steel. This version is most similar to the Barnum Brown designed model, complete with U-shaped spring clip to hold the head in place without damage to the ash handle. The pick on the right was described to me by Tim Rowe as being a representative of the "Carnegie strike" of a slightly different pattern. This is distinguished most easily by the inclusion of the somewhat sharp shoulders where the spikes meet the eye. This tool is covered in paint and rust, and has been battered and reground, but I suspect it was cast rather than forged, and those shoulders are there to add strength to the transition between spike and eye. This may be why overall dimensions are a bit greater. The Colbert pick was made with both 22" and 36" handles, and the "Carnegie" pick has a 21.5" handle.

"Carnegie" Pick: 15.25" OAL, 1.625" max height Colbert pick: 13.25" OAL, 1.625"max height


"Carnegie" pick: 1.25" at widest part of eye, .4375" most of length of spike before both point and blade. Colbert pick: 1.25" at eye, .3125" width of spike

Let's go tubing!

2011-07-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

Watch interviews with Petrified Forest National Park preparators Matt Smith and Kenneth Bader on YouTube (or right here on this very page) to learn more about the life of a fossil once it has been collected.

Cat Scratch Fever!

2011-07-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

Taking advantage of the summer A/C maintenance related closure of the Texas Memorial Museum, we've taken the opportunity to pull some specimens from exhibit for study, conservation, and, in the case of the subject of this post, mold making. One of the stars of the TMM exhibits, a 1 and 1/4 size Homotherium serum bronze sculpture adorns the front steps of the Museum. Pretty wicked, eh? A large number of specimens of this animal were collected 60 years ago from Friesenhan cave by TMM paleontologists, you can read more about the finds at the Museum's webpage. Our collections hold what I understand to be the only complete skulls and skeletons of these lion-sized animals, including a couple of kittens!

Homotherium serum at the TMM, image courtesy Wikimedia Commons Skb8721

We've begun re-preparation and conservation of some of the holotype material, including the forelimbs from this mount, as well as molding and casting the specimens. We anticipate having a complete composite skeleton available in a few months time.

Sterling Nesbitt examining casts in progress

Left manus before conservation. Covered in chicken wire and dental cement.

Same hand after removing the accumulated crud, consolidating and repairing the bone, and correcting the articulation of the phalanges.

Elements laid up in clay for molding. RAWR.

Head and neck, sans atlas. What's that you ask? Oh, that! Yes, that skull is actually bronze. No, it really doesn't really get much more awesome than that. We made these bronze skulls for the Mammoths and Mastodons traveling exhibit developed by the Field Museum of Natural History.

Ridin' dirty

2011-07-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

Now, witness the waterpower of this fully plumbed and operational polishing station. All right, all right, so maybe it's actually much closer to White and Nerdy. But, Sterling and I did get our hands very dirty getting this set up. Part one of Operation: Histology Lab was plumbing in a sink and Buehler Ecomet 3 Grinder/Polisher. The sink came from surplus, the grinder from my genius lab equipment supplier. Even though this room used to be a bathroom, there was no drain easily accessible. Fortunately, the sink in the prep lab is adjacent to the doorway to this space, and the hot water heater and plumbing are mounted inside this room. So, it was relatively straightforward to tie into both by punching a small hole in the wall and linking to the drainpipe for the prep lab sink. This also allowed us to clean 20 or 30 years worth of crap that had fallen behind the sink, including several complete stacks of paper towels that made for some awesome ant-farm-like rodent nests.

Yeah, this is more like what the mess in that closet looked like when we started, but this is after I already removed the flammable cabinet, a big bookshelf full of junk n' stuff, another smaller bookshelf full of the same, and another of the 48"w metal cabinets. Did I mention this room is 8'x13'?

Sterling cleans up the nastiness that remained after he cut out the back panel of the sink in the prep lab.

We took turns chiseling a hole through the wall for the drain to pass through, and I removed those faucets and tied into the hot and cold water to supply the sink and Ecomet.

Above the blue tape is where I cut the existing sink drain and tied in the new drain from the left, with the tee.

Trimming the existing drain pipe.

The Ecomet is plumbed on the supply side from the former eyewash mount with a ball valve here. There is also a valve under the sink, where we transition from the half inch pipe to 3/8 copper flex line and a compression fitting. I could probably do away with all of this for a cleaner behind the wall solution, but this looks kinda cool. Some day I'll make up my mind. On the return, the Ecomet bowl drains through a 1" ID vinyl hose into a tee I installed just above the P-trap under the histo lab sink. A pretty elegant solution, if I do say so myself.

Now I have to pee.

Plans for a histology lab

2011-07-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, let's pretend I wrote this post a few months ago, when I actually started working on this project; you'll see an amazing and rapid progression over the next couple of days as I post the steps of the process that have been ongoing for a while now.

The goal of this project is to turn this cluttered (really, it was about 1500% worse than this photo at one point) storage closet and former VPL unisex bathroom into most of a histo lab. Over the past few months I've been accumulating equipment and cleaning all the junk out of this 13'x8' room with the intention of cutting a doorway in the far wall where that flammable cabinet sits in the photo. My goal was to connect this room to the office on the other side of the wall, creating a 26'x8' space, effectively a "clean room" on one side and a "filthy room" on the other. This is the design evident in the 3D rendering that I created in Google's SketchUp program. Which is an amazing program, and needs its very own post expounding upon that amazingness. I'll get to it one of these days.
So, several of our graduate students have been involving histological analysis in their research, and had been doing some of that work in the thin-section lab on the main campus in the Geology Department. Due to circumstances that I'm not aware of, our access to that space was revoked, and I was asked to find a place for the materials that we had already bought, which at that point was mostly the Buehler Isomet 1000 trim saw, some resin, and a minifridge. Since I'm a firm believer in one stop shopping (convinced that I can do almost everything cheaper and more accurately myself), coupled with the goal of having our students exposed to the widest array of tools and techniques possible, I drafted an initial design for the lab. Future posts will detail the process of getting from the above photo to the below image. It has been lotsa fun so far!

The whole proposed lab, we aren't cutting a doorway in the wall now, though

Detail of histo lab

Molding class: Day 2

2011-07-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

Molding class day 2 happened and it was also a great success. Most of the original group returned and some new people who couldn't make the first one attended also. Felt like I couldn't just leave that hanging.

Molding class: Day 1

2011-06-18T22:50:00.000-07:00


The group in the classroom mounting the specimens in clay.

Yesterday saw the completion of the first day of a fairly informal molding class held at VPL. It was organized and mostly conducted by Dr. Sterling Nesbitt, with a little bit of help from me. The class was made up of a mix of volunteers and staff from both VPL and our neighbors NPL (the Non-vertebrate Paleontology Lab), undergraduates and UT VP grad students. The day started in the classroom with a safety briefing, followed by an introduction to different types of molds, an explanation of what we were molding and why, and conversation about ensuring that one has permission to make a mold before proceeding. Then Sterling gave a brief overview of the methods that he has been using to create molds for his research program, using pre-completed examples of the distinct steps in the process. The students next selected specimens and jumped into the process, first laying several bones up in clay, then applying Aeromarine AM 128 RTV silicone. Clay work was done in the classroom for the table space, and then rubber was poured in the prep lab. Due to a previous mishap with our vacuum chamber, the rubber was not evacuated before pouring, but a small amount was poured slowly and brushed over the surface of the bones. Then, a light amount of compressed air was directed at the bone surface to spread out and thin the rubber, the stretching and popping many air bubbles. The first halves of the molds were allowed to cure overnight, and next Friday the group will return to pour side two.

Weighing and mixing silicone

This served as a pretty good test of the lab design, which is geared towards teaching medium sized groups of students paleo lab methods in a hands-on fashion. The classroom has two large tables and space for about a dozen comfortably, a projector, and blackboard, and is directly adjacent to the prep lab. The lab space is currently divided up into two rooms, the large main prep area, and small work space with a fume hood and separate sink for acid work and casting and molding. Two more lab spaces are currently under renovation from an office and storeroom, becoming a histology lab and rock saw/air abrasive lab. I feel that the setup worked out pretty well, it has been functioning as a research preparation lab quite effectively for two years, with a large number of undergraduate volunteers and grad students having been trained one-on-one already.

[Edited 6/19] To spell Sterling's last name correctly, def Nesbitt, not Nestbitt. Sorry dude!

Painting and pouring silicone

This headline says it all...

2011-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Panhandle man cleaning foot sets house on fire... from the Sun Sentinel. Ok look, I lived in Florida for a year, and I'm not going to say that it is a state chock full of rock surgeons, but COME ON!

KA-BOOOOM!!!!!!

2011-06-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Speaking of lab safety.... I spent the evening soldering up a copper connection between my Welch Duo-seal 1402 vacuum pump and the cheap Nalgene bell jar that was on the shelf when I got here. Now, I figured an old plastic vacuum chamber (circa 1989) might not be up to the task of withstanding the forces, so I took precautions. Namely, I was wearing PPE and had my camera handy. As the gauge drew nearer and nearer to 30inHg I grew more and more incredulous that I really did such a great soldering job in the first place and that seals weren't crumbling at all and the bell jar seemed to be holding up to the constantly increasing stresses while the tension in the room grew palpable, somewhat squishy though oddly unyielding, and as it passed 29inHg and crept ever closer, yes improbably still closer to thBAM!!!!!e baseplate imploded with a thunderous crack and blasted shards of brittle plastic far and wide (and into my noggin' and torso), and catapulted the bell jar through a series of somersaults in the opposite direction. I immediately pulled the plug on the pump, took some photos of the mess, and then flipped the camera around to see myself smiling through the face shield I was not-accidentally wearing. Damn good thing this test wasn't conducted with a pot of resin in it, eh? That wasn't an accident either, by Jove! So now, as the hour has drawn late, I plan to stop on my way home at the local tavern for an oat soda.

[Edit 6/16] A friend on Facebook asks Q: What makes the baseplate so shitty?
A:The baseplate isn't inherently shitty, just made of plastic. And plastic doesn't last worth a damn, even though we think it exceptionally clever to build everything out of plastic these days. This baseplate was probably 20 years old, and if I'd peeled up the stuck down gaskets I would have seen some crazing that wasn't visible from the bottom. I'm guessing that this is a result of not just age, but also resin fumes. Contrary to "The Graduate", plastics are not the future. They are a temporary present.

Shame on me for not taking a Before picture. This is, uh, After.

Why is it that only old guys wink any more? I think we should recapture the non-flirtatious wink.

Whoops!

Death at Yale

2011-06-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

Back in April, a Yale undergraduate was killed in a physics workshop when her hair was caught in a lathe and strangled her. I go on and on about lab safety on this blog, in my lab, and in talks and lectures because the consequences of negligence are very real. The Paleo Portal Health and Safety webpage was developed in part from the safety section of our lab manual, and incorporated many other lab's practices. Her accident could have been avoided by following at least three of our safety rules at VPL. First, no one but myself and our museum exhibits designer are allowed to use large power tools, including but not limited to: the bench grinder, drill press, electric miter saw, metal chop saw, Skil circular saw, and welding equipment. This by itself would have almost completely eliminated the risk of a student being hurt. Second, and obviously, all long hair, jewelry, loose clothing, etc, is required to be securely bound and out of risk for being caught in tools. Third, no one is allowed to work with any of these tools alone.

The major limiting factor in the effectiveness of these policies is enforcement. When physical access to the area can not be prevented for what ever practical reasons, tools can and should be disabled through lock out systems to guarantee that only authorized personnel can activate them. I'm very disappointed with the reaction of some members of the educational community interviewed from other institutions in the Wall Street Journal article linked above. Particularly the voices from one of my former employers, the University of Chicago. According to the WSJ article, physics professor Stephan Meyer "echoed concerns over eliminating one of the most fruitful work periods for undergraduates. 'I don't do anything during the day because I'm talking to people,' he said. 'Work happens at night and that's when research happens." Another UChicago faculty member agrees, again from the article-

"One really worries that a story like this gets the press all over it and all of a sudden undergraduates can't use the shop in the evening hours which is the only time they can really devote to the work because they're busy with courses during the day," said University of Chicago physics professor Mark Oreglia. Unfettered access to lab equipment "is something that the undergraduates really benefit from," he said. He recalled spending long hours at the machines as a student, toiling by himself on projects into the night."

My response to him? Too fucking bad. When he is in the role of explaining to a dead students parents, university lawyers, and the media why his laboratory policy was not one of "Safety First", his opinion might be changed. Working late at night, while exhausted, and under pressure is THE TIME when someone is most likely to make mistakes and cut corners. Add youth into the equation and the students are probably safer drinking and driving at 2:30am on a weekend. To defend such practices is irresponsible (I'd say grossly negligent), idiotic, and devoid of an understanding of how the real world works. This is a fundamental problem in academic culture, the real heart of the issue, safety accountability in research labs. This Nature News article discuss this in detail, and I suggest should be required reading as part of any lab orientation.

Other people do this...

2011-06-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

I just finally got around to finishing the process not too many months ago. Labeling secondary containers thoroughly, that is. I've talked about properly labeling and storing chemicals here, here, and here, and while I don't think this will be my last post about this topic that I take pretty damn seriously, I might have said enough to last us all awhile. Unless of course, you still aren't storing and labeling your chemicals properly, then I need to keep bitching. Tomorrow's post will be about why this topic makes me so bitchy. At any rate, here we are, with today's topic, the big reveal!!! In addition to the color-coding system that I've expanded from the Sanders lab at Michigan, I've added a printed label to clearly explain what the material is, adopted from at least the Yale Peabody Museum and probably others. Why this redundancy? Well, Marilyn Fox left a bottle of Paraloid B-72 in my truck in the Chinle last year because she didn't want to take it on a plane, wisely, and looking at its neatly typed informative label had been making me feel guilty all year (yes, that means it has been in my cup holder in the center console since this time last year.) But you want the real recap? So, color-coding creates instant recognition that these are all distinct materials, just because they are all clear liquids they should not be assumed to have the same properties or chemical structures. Secondly, this system makes it easier for new folks in the lab to remember what kind of materials they were using, kinda like flash cards. Third, the electrical tape used for labeling is very resistant to mild spills of solvent, unlike the Sharpie marker that all the bottles were initially marked with. For a period of time (until I got to it), the colored tape was used as a back-up to the Sharpie. Since handwriting is so inconsistent, and the marker was so frequently and inevitably smeared and not rewritten, and also usually incompletely labeled, I switched over to printed labels completely covered over with packing tape, a procedure which is also resistant to normal amounts of solvent spill. The label also provides a safety option for any colorblind lab workers. After all of this, I think it is highly unlikely that Environmental Health and Safety will have a problem with our storage and labeling. I'm just glad they never found last week's coffee can of kerosene.

Yes, yes, I know. This image is shit for resolution, but you get the idea.

Ultimate field vehicle...

2011-06-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

Found it! Now I just need to find a million dollars...

Introducing the Unicat Luxury Expedition line of vehicles. I'm just gonna say holy shit!, and let you check out the interiors for yourselves. I'm in love.....

Field trailers

2011-06-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do a post on field vehicles for some time now, but since I'm recently looking into options for field trailers, I'm going with this quick one. I'm toying with the idea of cleaning up and modifying a 13' Casita travel trailer for use in the field. Now, I've never really felt the need for one of these before, but this one is sitting out in the VPL parking lot and could use some attention, and I could use a project. I admit that I like the looks of these and these, but still, my needs are such: a sleeping bag and backpack. My 2.5lb tent if I'm feeling like I need something decadent. It can scale up from there in comfort too, but those are the basics. I had all of my clothing, gear, a few days worth of food, and somebody else's gear for two weeks in New Zealand comfortably tucked in my 85L pack with room to spare. Before I get too carried away here, I think backcountry gear breakdowns will be a different post. I'm really quite content with bare bones camping, and have always remained very comfortable in the process. These days, if I'm near my vehicle, I just push some crap off to one side and throw my sleeping bag in the back of my truck, or when that is full, sleep upright in the drivers seat. After 11 years of field work and 25 years of camping, 2010 marked the first time I had slept on a Thermarest, or any ground pad, for that matter. I must say, I do like it, but what I'm getting at with all of this is that I have a hard time justifying a need for a camper trailer for any sort of camping, let alone field work. But I want to try, because I like to build stuff, I thrive on projects, and I want to find a way to put an LCD monitor and microscope, air compressor, and dust collector in it. I may have to take out the head and replace it with a trenching tool with a roll of TP jammed onto it. I would be very interested to hear opinions from anyone with experience with such thing (trailers at remote field locations, not toilet paper and shovels.)
[Edit 6/12: Just thought this was a nice video]

Hazardous waste disposal

2011-06-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

Shocked to find kerosene stored in a coffee can.

Spent part of today cleaning out the last of the flammable cabinets and preparing another collection for our Environmental Health and Safety staff. To my dismay, I found several glass jars full of gasoline that had been missed on the first pass through the cabinet. I knew there were about 5 gas cans full of unleaded in this cabinet, along with two full propane cylinders, and wow-ee, we found a coffee can half full of kerosene! Yes, that marker actually kind of says kerosene on the lid. This helps to explain why the cabinet smelled so damn bad.

In keeping with UT and lab policy for Hazardous Chemical Waste disposal, I decanted the compatible fuels into a 20L Nalgene carboy that was tagged with an EHS Waste Disposal label with my name, UTID number, lab contact, building and room number, and full chemical description. You'll notice from the photos that this was done wearing PPE and working in the vent hood. All of the gas was discolored, varying from straw, to red, to brown, and had probably been bad for 10 years or more. The kerosene coffee can had begun to rust through and was leaking a bit. After draining the containers, they were left in the fume hood to vent for a while, and then closed up and replaced in the flammable cabinet. The next step in the process is filling out the Request for Chemical Disposal and faxing it over to EHS and scheduling a day for pick up. It has taken an interminably long time to get through all of this material, I've made several attempts at it over the last two years, and have sent off about 350 containers of expired, redundant, or dangerous materials for proper disposal (no, we don't pour it down the sink!) This last pickup should be the last for quite some time.

I'm melting... I'm melting. What a world, what a world...

Freeing these bottles and buckets from the bottom of the box was a bugger

This bottle of Starbond cyanoacrylate adhesive makes a succinct case for buying materials in only the quantities that you can use before they expire/self destruct. The resin has eaten through the bottom of the bottle, and the cyanoacrylate was blooming all over the surface, and smelled horrible. While initially it may seem more cost effective to buy materials in quantity, they often expire well before they can be entirely used up. Finding this bottle on the back of a shelf drives home the potential hazards of improper storage, another bottle had already leaked in a cardboard box being prepared for EHS retrieval and adhered the rest of the containers in the box to the bottom.

4th FPCS Proceedings PDF available

2011-06-09T09:15:00.001-07:00

(I've successfully made two days of posts in a row! This is a promising start!)
Many thanks to Arvid Aase at Fossil Butte National Monument for both hosting the wildly successful 2011 Fossil Preparation and Collections and editing, along with Tyra Olstad, the Proceedings, which are now available for free download! This handy reference includes all of the abstracts from the meeting, a couple of extended abstracts, and four papers on paleo methods. Thanks again to Tyra, Arvid, and everyone who contributed!

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 4th FOSSIL PREPARATION & COLLECTIONS SYMPOSIUM, APRIL 2011
                                                  BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
                                                            GEOLOGY STUDIES
                                                              Volume 49(B), 2011

                             ABSTRACTS for WORKSHOPS and ORAL PRESENTATIONS
                                                              * also an article
* Now what did the paleontologist find? Adjustable exhibits for a changing world.
Arvid K. Aase........................................................................................................................................ 1
An infinitely-adjustable work stage for precision preparation of microfossils under high magnification.
Gregory W. Brown............................................................................................................................... 1
Exercising judgment in the paleontology laboratory.
Matthew A. Brown............................................................................................................................... 2
* Vacuum molding and casting for bubble free fossil replicas.
Jennifer L. Cavin................................................................................................................................... 2
* Acid preparation of the gill skeleton of fossil fishes.
Robert L. Evander................................................................................................................................ 3
* Continued Improvements in the use of archival materials for the padded plaster jacket.
William Keyser, Peter Kroehler, and Steven Jabo............................................................................. 3
Testing the effectiveness of two commonly used consolidants in palaeontological preparation.
Jim McCababe and Rhian Russel............................................................................................................. 6
Cost effective assembly and operation of equipment to make excellent casts.
Peter Reser........................................................................................................................................... 6
Putting a fine point on it...advanced pin vise preparation techniques: materials and methods.
Connie Van Beek............................................................................................................................. 7–10
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
Soft tissue preparation in mosasaurs from the Smoky Hill Chalk.
Anthony E. Maltese......................................................................................................................... 4–5
Cut and punch: Use of a center-punch to isolate and remove small specimens from hard sediments.
William R. Wahl................................................................................................................................ 11
ARTICLES
Now what did the paleontologist find? Adjustable exhibits for a changing world.
Arvid K. Aase.......................................................................................................................................12
Vacuum molding and casting for bubble free fossil replicas.
Jennifer L. Cavin..................................................................................................................................24
Acid preparation of the gill skeleton of fossil fishes.
Robert L. Evander...............................................................................................................................29
Continued improvements in the use of archival materials for the padded plaster jacket.
William Keyser, Peter Kroehler, and Steven Jabo............................................................................33

I'm coming back, plus Jack Horner

2011-06-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

All right, after a more or less sixth month absence I've finally succumbed to the pressure to reinvigorate this blog. The very last thing I've got time for. I just turned 30 last week, so I'm renewing some resolutions, eating better, working out more regularly, trying to get at least 6 hours of sleep a night, maintaining an abandoned web log... In order to make sure this happens, I'm going to promise to commit to at least 7 solid days of blog posts. This first one is a softball, as I'm coasting on the name recognition of both Horner and the fabulous TED Talks series.... however, this was brought to my attention by one of my rare, non-paleo friends, for the first time she brought a paleo news item to my attention that I hadn't already known about 10 years earlier!

I include this because it is an interesting talk, but also because of the MOBILE Molecular Paleontology Field Station at 8:44!!! How has this awesome thing escaped my radar?

HELL YEAH!!!!

2011-04-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

What could rouse this sleeping blog from the depths of busyness slumber? Nothing less than a Nazi Dinosaur 1st person shooter! Hopefully work will ease up sometime soon and allow for a post with actual content....

Know your labs....

2010-12-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

Effective communication is key...

2010-12-06T01:27:00.000-08:00

to good lab management. This note says it all.

"Because it is a pain in the ass to sort through 15,000 samples, twice, to find the six tubes that should have been left in my rack in the first place!"

Opensource Solvent Gels in paleo

2010-12-01T05:30:00.000-08:00

[Stupid, stupid, open access is what I meant, not open source. That's what happens with late night blog posting.]

I'd like to thank Randy Irmis for forwarding this paper to me last week, recently published in Palaeontologia Electronica. The technique described is a very interesting addition to the paleontology toolbox, and I look forward to experimenting with these materials soon. This is also an excellent example of a well-written methods paper, that clearly examines considerations for using these materials and also serves as a great example for preparators who might be looking for inspiration to publish their own take on techniques or tools (and a recommendation to look towards PE as a publishing venue). I'd be very interested to hear results if anyone else has used solvent gels or gives it a shot after reading!

When you peruse this paper, take special note of the attention paid to worker and specimen safety concerns. One part I particularly like is discussion about using judgment to determine whether or not attempts at reversing a treatment will cause more damage than it will undo. Also take a look at Figure 4.5 highlighting airscribe damage to the tooth surface.

Williams, Vincent S, Doyle, Adrian M., 2010. Cleaning Fossil Tooth Surfaces fro Microwear Analysis: Use of Solvent Gels to Remove
Resistant Consolidant. Palaeontologia Electronica Vol. 13, Issue 3; 2T:12p;
http://palaeo-electronica.org/2010_3/247/index.html

ABSTRACT
Fine-scale surface texture analysis of teeth has become increasingly useful for
anthropologists and palaeontologists to infer diet and jaw mechanics in fossil animals.
We describe a fast, non-abrasive and residue free method for the removal of resistant
consolidant from fossil teeth. The method utilises solvent gels, and its use is a significant
improvement over previous techniques, particularly where microwear analysis is
to be performed. The method adapts techniques originally developed by art conservators
for the removal of varnish from oil paintings without damaging the oil paint
beneath. A combination of Carbopol (a water soluble acrylic polymer) and Ethomeen
(a polyoxyethylene cocoamine detergent) allows solvents such as acetone and ethanol
to be suspended in a gel for application to consolidant coated tooth surfaces. Key
advantages are that dissolved consolidant is lifted away from the tooth surface into the
solvent gel and a high degree of control is possible such that small discrete areas can
be cleaned of consolidant. Because the solvents are held within a gel, cleaning of the
tooth surface can be performed without the need for a fume hood.

Sorry I had to leave this behind

2010-11-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

While preparing a talk for a visit to Berkeley next week, I came across this image of Mr. Stabby, my favorite Mighty Jack airscribe that I had to leave behind at the Field Museum when I left. He is seen here as painted right before he parachuted into the French hedgerow country in 1944 (we were preparing a lot of gars in those days). I miss you Stabby!

Tweezer-tip tip

2010-11-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

With apologies for the blurry iPhone photo, here is a nifty little trick that makes handling microfossils infinitely easier. Dipping your tweezer tips once or twice in liquid latex creates a cushioned bulb that allows you to handle small specimens that might be likely to break under the sometimes hard to gauge pressure applied with the tweezers. It also prevents JP Cavigelli's "watermelon-seed-effect," where a little bit of pressure and slipping sends the specimen flying across the room.

Speaking of field jackets....

2010-11-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

The gold standard in field jacket opening tools has long been the Stryker Cast Cutting saw, a medical tool designed to open plaster or fiberglass casts on broken bones, and has also been know to crack a calvarium or two. The advantage of this tool is that the blade oscillates through a very narrow range of motion, thereby limiting the amount of cutting possible per contact with a given surface (i.e. won't damage soft tissues easily). Since it doesn't make a full rotation, it is easier to control, safer, and throws slightly less dust than a circular saw. While generally long lived, the downside of these great tools is that they can cost several grand when bought new. Used they sell for about $500, but it is very hard to judge the condition of a potentially abused saw like this. I've seen several "As Seen On TV" infomercials advertising similar products (like the Fein Multimaster, which I've always wanted one of), and those generally run around $200 as well.

On a trip to Home Depot last week, I came across two $99 varieties of the Stryker-type oscillating tool. This blog has done an apparently thorough job of reviewing the full gamut of available tools, I haven't read most of them, and am just reporting on my experience so far with one of them. Home Depot had both the Rigid JobMax and the Dremel MultiMax available. After walking around with the Rigid for awhile, I put it down and bought the Dremel, for two primary reasons. The Dremel is corded while the Rigid tool is battery powered, one hassle that I'd rather not deal with is batteries running down mid-job. The second reason was very practical, the Dremel display had a whole rack full of replacement blades (for ~$10) while the Rigid did not. So far, I've been very happy with the Dremel Multimax, I'm about halfway through opening a large field jacket, and the tool has been a trooper. The function is very similar to that of the Stryker, feels much lighter and easier to handle over a long use, and doesn't seem to overheat nearly as rapidly as the Stryker does. The M-PACT cast cutting saw that was in the lab when I arrived (and which looked virtually unused) burned up the first time I used it on a large jacket. We'll see how the Dremel holds up over time and I'll report back then, but for now I'm pleased.

Or you could just follow the directions

2010-10-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

For a field of study purporting to be a science, it is amazing how much of paleontology remains blissfully unaware of how its methods actually work. As a prime example I submit: The Mixing of Plaster.

My ire was raised again on this topic while unpacking some field jackets collected earlier this summer by another field crew. Instead of gleaming white plaster, or at least mudcaked but well-set plaster, we found fuzzy green and brown, soft, powdery, damp field jackets. There was so much moisture in the incompletely cured jackets that they had molded. I've dealt with so many floppy, improperly cured jackets over the years that I just don't think I can take it anymore.

This topic will follow the model of the SVPOW folks and their MYDD campaign. Thus I say, Follow The Damn Directions (FTDD)! [Sidebar: This commentary will eventually be followed by posts, talks, and papers of expanded theme, Publish Your Damn Preparation Methods (PYDPM)]

Despite the fact that almost every paleontologist who has ever lived has at some point in their lives mixed plaster, even the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology website says this:
"Is there a proper way to mix plaster?
A2: The Simple Answer:
Slowly pour plaster into 1-2 inches of water until little islands of plaster form. Let sit as is for 1-2 minutes before mixing, mix to a creamy smooth consistency. After mixing is complete you’re good to go."

Let's take this opportunity to throw any (quite actually widespread and sometimes militant) fairytale notions of island building right out the window. Now, I don't mean to imply that the collective experience of so many field workers should be enough for this to not be a hotly debated topic. I mean to explicitly state that the setting of plaster is a chemical reaction, governed by the properties of the reactants with very predictable results. Manufacturers ALWAYS have recommended mix ratios on the packaging that will yield the optimal results. The shotgun approach answer is akin to dealing with the question "What glue should I use on fossils." First of all, the formulation of plaster that you buy at Home Depot is very likely quite different from the material that comes from Ace Hardware. Take a look at the number of plasters and gypsum cement available from United States Gypsum alone. Almost every one of them requires a different ratio of powder to water. Some of these ratios vary by as much as 45%. Plaster is a generic term that is absolutely meaningless in a technical discussion about how it works, again, just like "glue". First of all, identify the compound that you are talking about, the functional differences between USG Moulding Plaster and Hydrocal White Gypsum Cement are night and day. There are some excellent instructions for mixing provided at their website, but I'll quote as an introduction this:

"Successful mixing of industrial plasters requires strict adherence to specific standards and procedures. The improvements in plaster formulations made in recent years have resulted in more uniform products, but to obtain the full benefit of these improved products, shop procedures must be standardized."

When I was first instructed in the ways of plaster, I was told "This is just like cooking, keep adding ingredients till it tastes right." Which incidentally also ignores the chemical foundations of cooking. Especially while jacketing, I have often seen workers mix a batch, decide that it is too thin, and then keep adding powder to the mixture until it is deemed "thick enough" to bandage. This is almost always wrong. The whole purpose of making a field jacket is to create a rigid enclosure that will protect the fossils riding inside for not only the trip back to the museum, but also the subsequent days or decades until the block is finally opened. I have opened many field jackets from the first 50 years of the 20th Century where the bones were as well protected and intact as the day they were collected. I've opened many from the last 15 years where the ill-fitting, sometimes aluminum-foil-lined, soft and floppy jackets have allowed the contents to shift around and grind the enclosed bones against one another until rubble remained.

First identifying the material you are using, become familiar with how it actually works, then understand how you can manipulate the properties of the material to suit your needs. Don't cut corners or guess. Measuring quantities is not difficult. Even for field work. I like to carry plaster in large Ziploc baggies. Depending on the material, I know how many liters of water it takes to properly set that volume of powder, and can accurately (and even more easily) get the results I'm looking for every time. I can't imagine a situation where a technician in a DNA sequencing lab would prepare a gel by adding a pinch of agarose, a teaspoon of buffer solution, then put it on the stove for a while till it looks right. This is science. Follow The Damn Directions.

Well behaved old dinosaur, free to good home

2010-10-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Field Museum of Natural History is one of my favorite places in the world (just behind the entire city of Paris). I worked there as a preparator for seven years, starting the week I turned 18, working on the Tyrannosaurus rex Sue. I spent much of my childhood visiting the museum (back before it cost over $100 for a family of four to visit), I even ditched the first day of my sophomore year of high school and took the train downtown with a friend to visit the museum.

So obviously last month I was quite disappointed when I saw that Chris Norris posted ~~this Sun-Times article~~(thanks Sun-Times for maintaining your excellent journalistic standards with your wonderful archives, here is another story covering it) announcing the elimination of 50 more positions at the museum.

Around 70 staff positions were eliminated in late 2008/early 2009, which put the museum below "World War II staffing levels", this next round is going to hurt something fierce. Incidentally, there are now 9 vice presidents, which I think is highly likely 9 times the number of VP's from WWII days. The poor institution has been suffering from cripplingly incompetent management for about a decade now, and with about $2 million tied up in executive level salaries, I kinda don't think laying off housekeeping staff and forcing retirements of curators and collections managers will prove to be a sustainable solution. Now that two million is a drop in the bucket of the $180 million in debt that the institution is currently saddled with, but the museum has been digging this hole since the dozers first broke ground on the new Collections Resource Center under the southeast terrace. Of course this project was a critical step in addressing long term storage needs, but the decision to carry through with the construction as planned, after tourism tanked with 9/11, after the state came through with only 20 of the 40 million that they committed to (despite giving the Chicago Bears $420 million of the $660 million it took to renovate-or destroy, if you ask the Historic Register folks who delisted it- their stadium), and after they realized that the Soldier Field construction was going to virtually eliminate parking and turn the museum into a ghost town for several years.

So, with all of that, I'm not surprised that 5 years after I started looking for a job with a future, all museum employees received the following email:

"Dear Colleagues: As you are aware, we had been planning to roll-out an Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) and a Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP). The details of the programs have been distributed to those individuals who are eligible. The ERIP notifications were delivered to individuals throughout the day today. The VSIP notifications were sent from me via email this morning. If you have any questions regarding eligibility, please contact your manager, or the HR office... "

Even though I'm not surprised, I'm very, very disappointed. Maybe the museum should start selling off collections again. After all, a museum that doesn't have the professional staff to care for the collections they do have would be better serving the objects by making sure they find a place that can adequately house, conserve, and curate them. Like the neglected dog tied to the tree in the back yard, the specimens will have a miserable shadow of a life until they wither and die a second death, abandoned and uncared for, a fate which would shortly follow for the rest of the grand old institution.

Live from Pittsburgh!

2010-10-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well over a year ago I wrote this post about the need for storing chemicals properly (safely, in the appropriate containers and well labeled) in the fossil preparation laboratory. Today's post covers some of the material I could just barely fit into my SVP talk in a truly fantastic preparation session yesterday.

When I arrived at VPL I went on a chemical rampage, replacing all of the secondary containers with Nalgene, and ensuring that all were labeled with complete information about the contents. I'll cite again here the NIOSH/CDC chemistry laboratory guidelines, rule one of which is "Never use food containers for chemical storage" in the section Proper Use of Chemical Storage Containers. My initial labeling consisted of writing on the bottle directly with a Sharpie marker, a system which has a flaw in that all of our solvent based resins will rapidly smear the writing when spilled or dripped. To address this I adopted the method in use by Bill Sander's at the University of Michigan, and others, whereby all bottles are identified by colored electrical tape according to an in-house lab specific color coding scheme. This system is posted on signs throughout the lab, and the redundancy of labeling in writing and marking with tape has thus far eliminated the problem that we had previously encountered where the University Environmental Health and Safety office would cite us for the bottle with a label that was smeary and hard to read. Another tremendous benefit to this system is that it reinforces the fact that the adhesives and consolidants in use are distinct chemicals. Users of adhesives in many paleo labs will blanketly refer to any clear liquid as "Butvar", "B-72", "PVA", "Vinac", etc, etc... typically based on the material that they were first introduced to. As can be seen from the VPL color coding key, we have two types of "Butvar" in active use in the laboratory, Butvar B-76 and Butvar B-98. These two compounds have very different practical uses and should not be considered interchangeable. A distinct and obvious system like color coding promotes recognition of these different materials.

[It is noted that there is a mistake in the color key, Acryloid B-72 is not labeled as being Green, the color that corresponds to it in lab labeling]

Everbody thinks I'm weird for wearing rubber boots...

2010-09-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

But this is why we don't store things on the floor. Almost every job that I've had in museums ends up at some point spending a late night mopping up water in the collections. The first two pics are upstairs, where the water was coming in through the walls. Great. This was a few weeks back after the weather system from Tropical Storm Hermine passed through. The basement, no surprise, was worse. Cardboard, paper, and field jackets should always be blocked up off of the floor, on pallets, or preferably shelving. Not only does this keep everything dry during the occasional flood, but also eliminates nesting places for rodents and other pests, and makes the whole place easier to clean.

A seemingly normal latex mold... BUT WAIT!!!

2010-09-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

It has not gone unnoticed that this blog has not been updated for over a month, so I figured I'd jump back into it with a real doozy. As I was evaluating the mold and cast collection down in the basement, Dr. Wann Langston advised me to keep a lookout for a, well, a historically interesting mold. I found it today, while looking for something else. From one angle, it looks like an ordinary, but very old, latex mold of an oreodont skull in a block of matrix. Which it is, mostly. But sometimes it looks like a hot water bottle, though from most angles, it looks like a leathery old, uh, leather purse. And why? Because it has (look close, on the right side!) a ZIPPER! Casting material was poured in from the pour spout on the top, and when the plaster set, the mold was unzipped, allowing the cast to be pulled free of the mold. Wowee.

I mean, holy crow, have you ever seen the likes? I sure haven't. This mold was made by (the very clever indeed) Jim Quinn, when he was Jack Wilson's first grad student here at UT. Quinn finished his Ph.D. in 1954, well after Langston recalls meeting him in 1933 at the Field Museum (where he was a preparator), and even after he published this paper in Fieldiana. I wouldn't be too keen on trying to get one more cast out of this mold, but I'm definitely going to look for some already existing ones in the cabinets downstairs.

Summer reading...

2010-08-15T18:37:00.000-07:00

All right, in keeping with a recent theme among paleo bloggers I'll hop on this bandwagon too (I hear they have a keg). Like everybody else, I finished Paul Brinkman's book "The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush" about a month ago, and enjoyed it very much. I'll quote below my excellent Amazon review just to save myself the typing:

"Like a time machine:
An exhaustively researched history of a formative time in Vertebrate Paleontology. Beyond being an entertaining record of the successes and frustrations of these early workers in the field, this book serves as an excellent resource for both modern paleontologists and the interested public to understand how the discipline was shaped. From discovery to display, we learn how a surplus of scientific curiosity, the tenacity to brave threatening weather and landscape, skill in the field, and an extraordinary amount of luck must combine to haul these beasts back by wagon and rail to the laboratories of the nation's great museums where they are brought back to life. A quote from Yale paleontologist Richard Swann Lull sums it up, 'The old-time expeditions were staged in the real West, at a time when lack of means of transportation... together with the very intimate contact every fossil hunter must have with his physical surroundings- with fatigue, heat and cold, hunger and thirst- made the search for the prehistoric a real adventure suited to red-blooded men.'
Having worked at several of the institutions and field areas featured within, and with senior generations of paleontologists who knew personally the major characters, this book has provided me with fascinating context and closer ties to the genesis of paleo as we know it today."

I'll say further that one of the things that I appreciate about this book is the fact that Paul has spent much of his museum career working in what are often called "support staff" positions; from field hand, to the prep lab, and collections. This brings a different perspective to the reporting of events, and allows the historian and the reader to understand with a greater depth the motivations behind many of the decisions made.

Another new book on my reading list was "Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus rex" by Lowell Dingus and Mark Norell. Reading parts of this book while in the field in Wyoming this summer was great, I knew comparatively little about this iconic figure in paleontology before I began the book, and to realize to what extent I have walked in his footsteps, both in the field and through museums, is pretty exciting, as well as humbling. To have the scale of his collecting summarized in this way was great.

I am now wrapping up the excellent biography of the geologist/cartographer William Smith, The Map That Changed The World. While I have always had a strong interest in history in general, and specifically history of science, I'm finding as I age that understanding events that shaped the field as we know it now is ever more important to understanding today and the future. This is certainly a "Duh" comment, and of course a point that I've always understood intellectually, however reading these books this summer has helped to shape some of my own future goals in ways that I hadn't quite expected, specifically the first two.

Now not all of my reading this summer has been work related, I've also finished Haruki Murakami's short memoir "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" and "Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World", and the posthumously published Phillip K. Dick non-scifi novel "Humpty Dumpty in Oakland." The second book is by Berkeley geographer Trevor Paglin, and while the dust jacket makes it out to be something of a high octane romp through clandestine sites (thinking bouncing around the deserts in a Land Rover in aviator glasses, and a photographer's vest), the book is actually much better than that. From the perspective of a geographer, this book serves as more of a history of secrecy in the American government, specifically the military industrial complex, targeting with disbelief the concept of officially disavowing the existence of things that are clearly right there (i.e. satellites, air bases, prisons).

7000 of anything is a lot,

2010-08-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

even if it is just phonograph needles. These were manufactured at some point before 1954 when Pfanstiehl Chemical Corporation changed their name to Pfansteihl Laboratories. Why do I look these things up? Apparently I don't have enough to do. I'm looking for a volunteer to count them all and see how many needles have been used in the past 56 years. I'm guessing about 30.

[Edited to answer a very good question, this was supposed to be part of the original post]

Q:Were these used as blanks to make needle styli for mechanical prep?
A:Yes, in fact, in the old days before drill bits or carbide were cheap enough or readily accessible enough, phonograph needles were used as a stylus to pick grains of rock from specimens. In lieu of the handy pin vises we use today, these styli would be pounded into a dowel rod, much like many inexpensive dissecting probes are constructed today.

Thanks to Dr. Wann Langston Jr. for comments on the historical background.

I love it when a plan comes together....

2010-07-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

Many months ago I launched a project to remodel a small section of the lab known locally as the "Plaster Room". This slightly larger than closet sized subdivision of the lab space started life as a dark room, then became a general purpose/storage/yes, plaster room with a large restaurant type sink and sediment trap. Speaking of sediment traps, its probably about time to muck that thing out. But I digress.

My plan was to install a ~~fume hood~~ sorry, VENT hood that I rescued from the surplus warehouse way back in the fall (er, end of summer/ almost A COMPLETE FREAKING YEAR AGO!!!!!) My estimate request was submitted in early January, the work order in early April, and by the end of July it has finally come to pass. I suppose it could be worse. The original estimate came in at $6500 for installation, including a 20% contingency. Now that we are calling it a ~~fume hood~~ vent hood, hopefully the final cost will be down considerably. I eagerly await review of the itemized budget.

(Continued below the fold...)

After making a few tweaks to the original plan, namely ~~coincidentally luckily having enough room to place the fume hood vent hood in line with the new counter instead of perpendicular to it against the window~~ brilliantly planning all of the dimensions with 1/8" clearance on all sides, the cabinets are in, the hood is in and functioning, acid is finally properly stored (and segregated by compatibility!), and very soon an eyewash will be installed in the sink directly opposite the hood. After many months of frustration, I am finally almost through with this room!

P.S. I just noticed that the original sales pitch sketch was created on October 27 of last year, and the project was completed today, the 27 of July, a full nine months later! Spooky.

Taking a microscope in the field

2010-07-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

"What the What?!!" you might be saying in response to the title of this post, but, no, really, I mean it.

And since I'm just back from 7 weeks in the field, a funeral, a little bit of personal travel, and trying to fit laundry in somewhere, a field related post seems to appropriate.

Inspired by the Wild Heerbrugg Field Cover for the M5 and M11 microscopes, of which I can't find a single decent picture online, I put together a package to bring a newer, less complicated, but still decent Wild M3 stereo microscpe into less than lab conditions. Now, that could be a classroom, a fossil ID day, or a remote field site. At the recommendation of my friend Mike, and scope guy at Natural History Studio, I picked the M3 based on its minimum number of moving parts, ability to seal it up against dirt and debris, and small size. While many different microscopes could be used, the choice of a Wild is a no-brainer, they are simply the best. Instead of the nifty hood, I opted for a slightly more protective and far larger Pelican hard case. The sacrifice of space allows room for all sorts of accessories and tools, including attachments like the photoport pictured at left, as well as airscribes, illumination, pinvises, etc. Since the two layers of foam lining allow the container to be customized as needed, the liners can even exchanged and outfitted for different projects.

For instance, one set could be cut out for the scope, photoport, camera, adapters, and maybe even a computer or netbook for microphotography during collections visits. Another option would be to add a lightweight and quiet air compressor to your kit, coil up some hose, scribes, and a regulator and stow those in the Pelican case for a self contained portable microprep workstation.

For some time I pondered the best way to light a scope in the middle of nowhere without a large power source, and after staring at a spare ringlight in the bottom of one of my crap drawers for a while, the idea to use a flashlight hit me. I went to the hardware store and picked up a 100 lumen LED flashlight that runs on 4 AA batteries. The light at the focal plane can be focused by positioning the lightsource at a proper distance from the end of the fiber optic cable. To do this I drilled out a dowel rod to function as an adapter between the two, which creates a somewhat bright field in the case of intense ambient light (sunlight/interior), and sufficient lighting during dim conditions. This setup proved invaluable this field season during a period of limited time available for ID and cataloging before the trip back home.

She's Built!

2010-05-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

and We Built Her!

Is what the tagline on our official Sue Crew t-shirts said. Today is the ten year anniversary of Sue the T. rex's unveiling at the Field Museum. A whole lot of hoopla was involved in every aspect of this critter, and rather than get into any sentimental recollections about the great crew or the exciting project, I'll let Chris Brochu do the talking...

"In a sense, working with FMNH PR2081 has been a good example of what Sagan (1997) called "the marriage of skepticism and wonder." This animal may have died alone of old age, with not a scratch on him or her, but this was a 41 foot long bipedal carnivorous dinosaur. It had foot-long teeth, olfactory bulbs the size of grapefruit, and the capacity to balance an enormous head and massive tail on only two legs. Such an animal needs no embelishment."

Brochu, C.R. 2003. Osteology of Tyrannosaurus rex: insights from a nearly complete skeleton and high-resolution computed tomographic analysis of the skull. Memoirs of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. 7: 1–138.

Computed Tomography In The Time Of Fossil Preparation

2010-04-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

[The readership should expect a significant improvement in this post over recent ones, which have received complaints. Granted, those complaints come from bloggers whose bread and butter is posting links to new papers, so I'm still going to stand by my original contributions, however uninspired they may be. This one should be good though. Taxonomic details will remain vague until analysis is complete.]

The University of Texas at Austin is well known in the paleo community for its innovative and groundbreaking work with CT technology, that was certainly one of the strengths of the lab that I was most aware of before taking this job. I had already spent many hours cruising the DigiMorph site, and knew how useful the technology was as a resource for imaging specimens (and for finding awesome desktop background images), but it took actually seeing the process in action with a few specimens to realize just how amazing its integration into my workflow could really be. You can expect to see a series of posts, talks, papers (including talks by Sebastian Egberts, Bill Simpson, and myself at the Third Annual FPCS meeting in Chicago later this month) on this topic in coming months and years from VPL, this post will detail the process of scanning a block outside of our UT lab.

Last fall Sebastian was working on a block filled mostly with larger elements of a partial skeleton, but kept uncovering tiny bones in some parts of the jacket. We came to realize that there could be important taxonomic information present in the location and orientation of the bones in the block, and wanted both a three dimensional record of where elements came from as they were before being removed from the jacket, and an idea of what to expect as work progressed. The larger scanner at UTCT accommodates objects up to 15cm at the long axis, and is intended for individual elements, not large field jackets. This block was approximately 75cm long, and would not fit in our scanners. Through the generosity of Dr. George Rodgers, we were able to have the jacket scanned at the Austin Heart Hospital in a medical CT scanner, which in addition to being incredibly useful, was a fun experience for all involved.

The Heart Hospital has a software program that is programmed to render the Xray data based on density of biological tissues, using a series of presets to highlight whatever it is that the physician is looking for. These presets were not very effective at discerning fossil bone from rock, so the raw data was sent over to the staff at UTCT for final processing. We can use a combination of the original slices and 3D models generated by the CT lab to help us in the prep lab. This allows us to gain significant insight into what we will likely encounter while working through the block. The final image is a close up of the CT techs monitor, which gives a brief snapshot overview of the block on the left, and the actual Xray slice on the right, which is perpendicular to the long axis of the block.

Following up on shipping

2010-04-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, as promised a few weeks ago, a quick look at the method that we came up with to pack these specimens for shipping. I'm gonna state at the outset that I'm not really committed to this post, so if it suffers for quality, well, don't be surprised.

As with the Homotherium skull, we thought it prudent to immobilize the blocks of rock completely, lest they rocket through the side of the plywood when the package inevitability negatively accelerates from 80 mph to zero in 1.4 seconds. And like the Homotherium cast, we used polyurethane foam on the blocks that were 125+ lbs. Basically, I just packed a plastic bag between the wall of the crate and the specimen, then filled it with expanding foam. Here are some pictures.

One bag of foam was set on top of the block, then the lid was placed down to create a solid and tight fit. Finally, all of the empty space was filled with bubble wrap. That was a purely psychological move, as it would almost certainly do nothing if the rest of the packing failed in any way, other than maybe keep pieces from floating around if any chunks of rock spalled off.

When Fox News comes for you!

2010-03-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back Fox News gave a poor entomologist a hard time about getting grant money to spend on collections improvement. If you haven't heard about this already (I hadn't) the short of it was that Tucker Carlson interviewed an Average Looking Scientist (ALS) about the need to keep pests out of biological collections, answers to which he gave in a responsible yet not too quippy way. While he didn't say anything outrageous, the takeaway from the story was that Obama was killing kittens with taxpayer dollars. I know, I know, that's what I would do if I were President too, but some cable news people enjoy being surrounded by animals that don't like them.

In a moment of digital esprit d'escalier, Chris Norris over at Prerogative of Harlots has written some great responses to the questions that Carlson asked, but at this late date they can only serve to teach us a valuable lesson.

My point, and thus how it relates to paleontology, is this- A few times in the past I've posed the question "Why does vertebrate paleontology matter, why is it important that we do that voodoo that we do so well?" Notably, a little over a year ago, I asked this question on the vertpaleo listserv, to see what kind of acceptable soundbite type, media savy, answers that we could get to answer questions when cases like this arose. There were somewhere between 35 and 50 replies, and the responses for the most part fell into two general classes, the group saying "Well, a lot of paleontologists teach med school, so we wouldn't have doctors without paleontologists", and the other group, quoting roughly from one vocal email "anybody who doesn't like what I do can go to hell." Well thanks ladies and gentlemen! Just what I was looking for, media savy. I would also like to tell Tucker Carlson to go to hell, and worse, but that doesn't exactly help the cause, and what do you do when your legislator asks that question?

Since the profession of physician was established at least a few weeks before the first fossils were collected, and since no one really cares about quality health care in American anyway, I think the first suggestion is easily sunk as a newsworthy response. The second has some obvious flaws that I won't even bother going in to. Look, I know it is hard to say clever things on camera, especially if someone like Carlson is interviewing you for Sean Hannity's program, that is a lot of pressure at the national stage. But that is also why it is imperative, for the sake of science funding, to have ducks in a row long before these opportunities come along. Otherwise, when Fox comes to your collection, they won't just make you look like a jackass, they'll equate your research to domestic terrorism.

The New Yankee Workshop

2010-03-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

It all started with the surplus warehouse. That place gets me into all kinds of trouble. I found a couple of Steel Fixture collections cabinets just, well, just sitting there looking so lonely. They needed to be in a place full of other cabinets. Plus, I needed some cabinets in the lab, trying to streamline work flow and keep track of volunteer and student projects. Unfortunately, the drawer size was different than anything we had in stock in the lab. And then all this happened. Thirty drawers in 8 hours. Of course, the pneumatic brad nailer is my favorite tool, because it is basically a firearm, my favorite class of tools.

Marking the fronts for drawer pull cutouts, using Tupperware as a template, because it was handy.

Just a jigsaw and clamp for cutting out those cut outs. Edges were rounded over with a rat-tail file quickly, this is soft pine, and smoothed out with sandpaper. Remember Norm's words of wisdom... the most impahtant paht of shop safety is your saftey glahses.

Sides, fronts, and backs were glued, then clamped together upside down, bottoms were glued and then nailed in place, clamps removed, and edges were nailed tight.

Return of Da Bears

2010-03-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

Remember Walter Payton and the Fridge? Walter is still on ice, but the Fridge has been thoroughly defleshed, and has finally made it to the five gallon bucket stage.

That is one fat bear. It is obviously from Chicago.

Rinsing in ammonia, almost done!

The Crate Escape

2010-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, a cardboard box just isn't enough to get a specimen from A to B, here I'll run through the steps that we just went through to prepare a giant outgoing loan. The specimen consisted of several large blocks of rock containing vertebrate bones. The specimen is an unprepared mosasaur that is being shipped to Canada for preparation and description, a point that I won't elaborate on further because I don't really care that much about mosasaurs except, in this case, to get them to their destination safely, and what I really want to talk about is last week's construction of the shipping crates.

Collections manager Lyndon Murray divided the 27 blocks of matrix into relatively weight balanced groups, which led us to building 5 crates, all somewhere between 32" x 48" inches in length and width. Lyn scaled up some simply designed crates that we had lying around in the building, and started measuring out all of the lumber, which I then cut.

The sides and tops of each crate were formed with 1/2" plywood reinforced with 1x4s around the outer edges, glued and fastened with a nail gun. (My favorite sawhorses, Rubbermaid storage bins. Also, use eye and hearing protection when using power tools.)

The bottom of each crate was a 2x4 frame, glued with Elmer's Wood Glue,(laid out for assembly here) and affixed with screws to another piece of 1/2" ply. Note Dr. Murray modeling the Elmer's.

All six panels are finished at this stage, with one side off to show the construction. All screw holes are predrilled, and sides attached to the 2x4 base, and to each other. The lid is also screwed down after packing is complete, each hole is circled just so it is clear down the road where screws should go when the crate is resealed. Also, one end receives a registration mark so it is immediately obvious how it all goes back together.

The final crates, we allotted two days for construction, and it took slightly over a week. Not a big surprise there. Next up, packing the heavy buggers.

FedEx-proofing your packages

2010-03-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've got six weeks of catching up to do, I have been totally slacking off on blog updates. No good excuses, spent most of this weekend sleeping, eating BBQ at the Salt Lick, and watching movies on IFC and the Sundance Channel. Anyway, on to paleontology.

By the way, the title of this post is not reflective of the opinions of my employer, in fact, I've been shafted by all of the common carriers, FedEx is just the one who's done it most recently. The VPL recently loaned a cast of a Homotherium serum skull from Freisenhahn Cave here in Texas to the Field Museum for a traveling exhibit that they've developed called Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age. This cast happened to be awesomely made of bronze, so it weighed about 25 pounds with wicked scimitar teeth sticking out at crazy angles. After {common carrier} loads it's prepaid and heavily insured (but don't worry, that insurance doesn't actually cover any of the stuff you'd want it to, just set that money on fire and then flush it down the toilet) cargo into the catapult and points it roughly in the direction of the address on the label, you really start to hope it hits the pile of mattresses outside the "sorting facility". Since we here at VPL extra-love big chunks of fossil shaped metal, we decided to give this specimen the best chance we could of surviving the trip.

The elegant solution to this problem was boxing the specimens in expanding polyurethane foam, in this case some leftover Polytek Polyfoam. First, the bottom of the box was lined with a plastic bag, a small quantity of foam was mixed and poured into the bag, and then as the foam began to expand the bag was closed up and the skull pressed into it to create a very snug form fitting barrier. You'll notice the aluminum foil that is scrunched up into any undercuts, so that unpacking the specimen does not require the use of a saw, fire, teeth, or any of those other old stand-bys.

An additional small bag was poured to surround the mandibles, and then a final cap was made to fill in the top of the cardboard box. The last two pictures show the top of the foam packing in place... the box closed up, and for maximum survivability, double boxed with packing peanuts. This method of completely encapsulating the object in foam eliminates any space for the specimen to accelerate from one side of the package to another, which normally breaks things up but contains them within the original packaging. In the case of a twentyfive pound pointy alloy of copper and tin, it would tend to accelerate right through the side of the package. When you try to file a claim on that, Fe{common carrier}Ex will just tell you that it was not packed properly to sustain a fall of 132 stories, and that next time you need to provide receipts for your packing material.

3rd Annual Preparation Symposium update

2010-03-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder that there is one week left until the early registration deadline for this year's Prep and Collections Symposium.

Registration forms can be downloaded from www.fieldmuseum.org/prepsymposium

Here is the schedule, some AWESOME looking talks and workshops! What a lot of fun this will be!

Schedule of Events – Thursday, April 29th
9:00 AM Registration at West Entrance
Refreshments and light edibles available
Meet and greet, organize for tours

9:15 Collections and Laboratory Tours: participants placed upon arrival
Collection Resource Center
Fossil Mammal Collections, McDonald’s Fossil Preparation Laboratory,
Fossil Fish Collection, Herpetology Collection, Preparation Laboratories

12:00 PM Lunch served on Northwest Terrace (weather permitting)
In the case of inclement weather, lunch will be served in Lecture Hall 2

1:30 Roundtable Discussions
Air Abrasion Facilities & Techniques – J.P. Cavigelli and Anthony Maltese
Classroom B
Lab Safety, OSHA standards and MSDS – Jolynn Parchen
BioSync Conference Room
Laboratory Renovations and Design – Matt Brown
Ward Lecture Hall
Collecting Large Vertebrate Specimens – Mike Getty and Eric Lund
Lecture Hall 2

3:00 Break: refreshments available at west entrance

3:30 Roundtable Discussions
Molding, Casting and Reconstruction – Erin Fitzgerald and Tyler Keilor
Classroom B
Collections Management, Rehousing, and Organization - William Simpson
Fossil Mammal Collection
Volunteer Programs – Dennis Kinzig and Karen Nordquist
Classroom A
Professional Development – Greg Brown, Marilyn Fox, Matt Brown
Lecture Hall 2

5-9:00 Opening Reception
Rice Gallery, Main Floor (Center West), The Field Museum
Pizza, Beer and Beverages served

Schedule of Events – Friday Morning, April 30th
9:00 AM Registration at West Entrance
Refreshments and light edibles available

Platform Presentations: Ward Lecture Hall

9:15 Opening Remarks: Peter Makovicky, Chair, Geology Department

9:30 Simpson, William: 3D Surface Imaging of a Tyrannosaurus rex Skeleton Using Computed Tomography (CT) and Laser Scanning

9:45 Egberts, Sebastian: Use of Computed Tomography (CT) Data in Physical Preparation of Fossil Vertebrates

10:15 Carrió, Vicen: Protocols of Packaging and Moving Specimens: organization strategies for institutions

10:30 Van Beek, Constance: Preparation of Micro-features of Eocene Green River Formation Specimens: materials and methods

10:45 Break: refreshments available at west entrance

11:00 Wylie, Caitlin D.: Preparation and Society: fossil preparation techniques in the 19th century and today

11:15 Williams, Scott A.: The Permian Challenge: preparing small fossil tetrapods from Richard’s Spur, Oklahoma

11:30 Fry, Roger F. and Derek J. Main: Mapping and Excavating a Mid-Cretaceous Crocodile (Archosauria: Goniopholidae) at a Large Urban Dig Utilizing and All Volunteer Crew: the Arlington Archosaur Site, North Central Texas

11:45 Brown, Matthew: Renovation and Modernization of the University of Texas at Austin Fossil Preparation Laboratory

12:00 PM Lunch served on Northwest Terrace (weather permitting)
In the case of inclement weather, lunch will be served in Lecture Hall 2

1:00 PM McDonald, H. Gregory: A Brave New World: The Paleontological Resources Protection Act of 2009: collection management partnerships between federal agencies and non-federal repositories, a view from the National Park Service

1:30 Boonchai, Nareerat, Steve Manchester and Terry Lott: Methods for the Preparation and Anatomical Analysis of Eocene Leaf Cuticles from Puryear Claypit, Western Tennessee

1:45 Smith, Matthew E.: Preparation Methods for Fossil Invertebrates from Florida and the Caribbean Islands

2:15 Break: refreshments available at west entrance

2:30 Cavin, Jennifer L.: Cast Cutter Versus Hand Saw: an experiment in opening field jackets

2:45 Evander, Robert L.: Preventative Maintenance for Air Scribes

3:00 Nelson, Thomas L., Jennifer M. Grasso and Philip A. Gensler: Addressing a Critical Need Within the Collections at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument: refined and improved techniques and materials for the production of multi-size clam shell specimen cradles

3:30 Beiner, Gali Gali and Rivka Rabinovich: An Elephant Task: conservation methods of middle Pleistocene proboscidian remains from Revadim, Israel

3:45 Morrison, Ian:

4:00 Poster Session: Lecture Hall 2
Boonchai, Nareerat et.al.: Excavating Dinosaurs in Nakhon Ratchasima, Northeastern Thailand: how to deal with hard rock and fragmented bones
Fitzgerald, Vicki: Reproductive Health and Safety for Employees Working in Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratories
Maltese, Anthony: Enclosed Workspaces for Air Abrasion of Large Fossil Specimens
Potapova, Olga: Preservation Techniques and Documentation Procedures for Collections at the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs Inc., South Dakota
Val, Sandra et.al.: Preparation of Dinosaur Eggshells: new insights on traditional techniques

5:00 PM Meeting adjourned for the day

Schedule of Events – Saturday, May 1st
9:00 AM Workshops
Refreshments and light edibles available on the 3rd Floor

Archival Materials and Techniques for Fossil Preparation
Amy Davidson, Rm 3107 Fossil Preparation Lab.

Techniques for Acid Preparation
Jim Holstein, Rm 3112 Fossil Preparation Lab.

Creating Temporary Support Structures for Preparation
Debbie Wagner, Rm. 3226

Histology Techniques at The Field Museum
Akiko Shinya, Rm. 3013 Rock Sawing & Sample Prep. Lab.

12:00 PM Lunch served on Northwest Terrace (weather permitting)
In the case of inclement weather, lunch will be served in Lecture Hall 2

1:00 Workshops

Archival Materials and Techniques for Fossil Preparation
Amy Davidson, Rm 3107 Fossil Preparation Lab.

Techniques for Acid Preparation
Jim Holstein, Rm 3112 Fossil Preparation Lab.

Creating Temporary Support Structures for Preparation
Debbie Wagner, Rm. 3226

Histology Techniques at The Field Museum
Akiko Shinya, Rm. 3013 Rock Sawing & Sample Prep. Lab.

4:00 Workshops adjourn

6:00 PM Symposium Dinner Reception, offsite (see map & directions on p.6)
Museum Point Tower 3
Penthouse
233 East 13th St.

Contact Lisa Herzog for further information: lherzog@fieldmuseum.org
Direct: 312-665-7626

Proceedings of the 1st Annual FPCS- FREE!

2010-01-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

For all of you fans of paleontology methods (and if you are interested in any aspect of paleontology, this should be you), the following should be right up your alley.

After much anticipation, Methods in Paleontology: Proceedings of the First Annual Fossil Preparation and Collections Symposium, edited by M.A. Brown, J.F. Kane, and W. G. Parker, 2009, is finally available for distribution in PDF format. Copyright on all papers is retained by the individual authors, and is made available for free distribution electronically.

I'm proud to see this collection of very good papers finally hit the streets in portable document format, and would like to give everyone involved in the process a big pat on the back, congratulations folks, this is a big step for the field. Thanks to the authors, my co-editors, reviewers, proofreaders, and supporters who kept this project more or less on track over the last two years since the idea to host such a meeting was hatched.

Old timers like me who insist on hard copies can purchase a beautiful printed volume to help fill the prep reference shelves of their bookcase here.

An extra bonus!

The abstract book from the meeting

Busy start to the year and more free papers coming soon...

2010-01-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

The free papers line is really just a teaser to get you in here, I promise I won't cry wolf next time, I've got the Petrified Forest Proceedings Volume ready to post, the PDFs will go online soon. A while back I posted a link to Geological Curator Volume 5 no.7 (1987) Proceedings of the 1986 GCG Conference which is devoted to the Conservation of Geological Material and edited by Crowther and Collins. But since I'm an idiot, the real issue to check out is Volume 4, no. 7, not 5. Sorry about that, the issue is worth reading.

If I were a resolving kind of man, on New Years Eve I would have decided to say NO to starting any more projects before I finish the ones that are ongoing, but alas, I am weak, and get something of a rush from being in over my head. The semester is ramping up, and there are a ton of people (students, volunteers, and staff, about a dozen) working in the lab throughout the week. Which means that I need to do a better job with both records and specimen management (can anyone say database?).

At least I am almost done with the manuscript to send to the editors of the special Geological Curator SVP/SPPC Preparation Session Volume, which is already way over due. That will be out this spring, I'd like to encourage anyone who has talked about submitting to get on the ball and actually do so, they are good people. I'd like to say thanks to Remmert Schouten, Matthew Parkes, Paolo Viscardi, and Gareth Dyke, for making sure this happens!

Welcome back to work

2010-01-05T19:58:00.001-08:00

So, on Monday my flight arrived in Austin at about 12:30pm, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to swing by the lab on my way home (it's not on the way) even though I'd been traveling for 28 hrs and no sleep. Still, it was good to be back, and the lab is more like home than home anyway, for the most part.

Please bear through the long story before the juicy pics. (You'll appreciate the double pun in a few minutes.)

I was informed on arrival that the power had gone out to the buildings that house our bug room and recent prep lab. After a bit of trouble shooting by facilities, they determined that the main power supply had shorted due to a waterline break not too far away. This means replacing 1000 feet of power supply, which will take quite a while. In the meantime, we're temporarily powering three 25 cubic foot deep freezers with a generator, the fourth trips the breaker. So, we had to consolidate some partially thawed, partially bagged, partially tagged, completely smelly critters of all wonderful drippy sorts out of the fourth into the other pretty full three freezers. Luckily, some of that was bags of "Biological Waste", so Environmental Health Services is coming by soon to pick up 25 gallons worth of parts. For the rest we did a pretty good job of playing freezer Tetris, chipping the ~1-2 inches of frost off the walls helped. We found some turtles, tons of birds, flat rabbits, bags of goo, a coral snake, bags of assorted parts, croc chunks, and at the very bottom sitting in two inches of blood and water, two bears. As AJ put it, "Some days this job is just like Christmas." Amen.

Shhh, he's sleeping. Thats the small one, I call him Walter Payton.

This one is The 'Fridge. We couldn't find room for him in the freezer, so in a few days when thawed, he will finally get dissected and macerated, since the bug colony has been frosted out. The typically 80 degree room was in the 40s when I checked it Monday, and there isn't much buggy activity in any of their tanks these days.

Now we know how many bones it takes to fill the Royal Albert Hall

2009-12-15T18:04:00.000-08:00

This post brings us back from the surreal world of The Wizard of Oz to the surreal world of vertebrate paleontology. I'm finally following up on a post-SVP promise to chronicle the tour of the Paleontological Conservation Unit at The Natural History Museum in London. The day began standing around the front gates until a helpful fellow attendee who read the directions (Greg Brown) pointed out that we should be using the side entrance for staff and visitors. Thanks Greg.

I think it would be fair to describe the PCU facility as cavernous. Despite my best efforts I couldn't capture more than, say, 26.2% of the lab in any particular photo. The first one is looking towards the corner where fossil preparation takes place. I've long been interested by the PCU as laid out on their website (links are all dead thanks to a remodel), which defines all aspects of working with specimens based on the corresponding roles within the fields of conservation and preparation. In principle this sounds really great, but after seeing the operation more or less in practice (at least in demonstration) I've begun to rethink some of my preparation philosophy. That topic probably strays too far afield for this post, so we'll get back to the tour already in progress.

PCU Fossil Preparator Scott Moore-Fay holding up a specimen that he is working on, that may have been a trilobite, time is the enemy of my memory. He has a very nice Leica stereo microscope mounted on an articulating arm, and a helpful bellows-adjusting head. There is a ring-light mounted on the objective, good lighting around the workstation, ceiling mounted exhaust, and a plethora of overhead electrical outlets that I like to have everywhere to eliminate extension cords.
Scott's workstation, I also like the table top flammable cabinet. Good chair.

Ooooooo....ahhhhh....

We are going to leave the main lab briefly and step down a corridor to the acid preparation lab. Holy smokes, another whole lab for acid preparation? Yup. In this photo you are seeing a little over half of it. Look at these great, ventilated acid baths. Acid can be fed into them from an outdoor storage tank that might be around 300L, though I may be wrong on quantity. I also recall that this lab uses acetic acid almost exclusively, but that can also be corrected by those more knowledgeable. I'm going to break this post here so I can get some other things done, and will follow up with the rest of the tour, finish off in the acid lab, and discuss the conservation aspects of the PCU. This might also be a good place to point out that Scott is the only full time staff preparator at the Natural History Museum. Amazing, I know. For those who haven't worked in an institution this size, it can be tough to wrap your mind around the fact that there could be something in the neighborhood of 1000 years or more of backlog preparation in the collections alone, which seems like it represent great job security for that lucky dude or dudette.

Way to go, Warner Bros.

2009-12-12T00:16:00.000-08:00

Apparently, the fine folks at Warner Brothers have no clue what The Wizard of Oz is about, otherwise they probably wouldn't have used it in this ad.

I mean, sure, this accurately reflects the true state of things; a big, blustering, powerless figurehead trying to intimidate those who really hold all the cards, but I doubt this is the message that they really want to convey. Way to go, fellas.

The Casablanca one is pretty despicable too, though that films theme of sacrificing ones own happiness to fight fascism could apply to more than one side of the situation. Maybe.

This day in paleontology history...

2009-12-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

Well, it might not have been this exact day, but at some point, roughly a couple of days after Thanksgiving 1999, I completed my 20+ hour drive from Chicago to Orlando Florida, after my term on the Sue project, to start my new job at the Field Museum's satellite preparation lab at Disney's Animal Kingdom Themepark.
I moved in with Casey Holliday and his roommate Tom Mullane, who worked for Disney Education, for a couple of weeks while I found an apartment, just 10 very short years ago.

The lab was built by Disney for the Sue project, which they cleverly funded in partnership with McDonald's, United Airlines, the Field Museum, and others. Disney had the "Dinosaur" movie in the pipeline, and created Dinoland in Animal Kingdom as a product tie-in.

During the Sue project, Casey Holliday, Bruce Schumacher, and Joanne Avery prepared over 50% the skeleton in this lab. I arrived after Joanne left, and Bruce was on his way out to his new job with the US Forest Service, and I brought a microscope and some fossils from the Triassic of Madagascar. During the next 11 months, Casey and I prepped the Triassic material, some Cretaceous Malagasy material (titanosaurs, croc and theropod bits) and a juvenile tyrannosaurid collected by Elmer Riggs in Alberta in 1922.

Here I am at the age of 18 in a rare, non-bearded photo, holding up the right tibia and femur of that tyrannosaurid. Behind me is the view out of one of our 3 glass walls. This lab was in the middle of a theme park with a capacity of about 35,000 people, which was often met during busy travel periods. Overall, it was an odd place to work, but tons of fun. Casey is a great guy to work with, and the ability to go over to MGM Studios over lunch and ride a roller coaster, Aerosmith's Rock n' Roller Coaster no less, makes the best job in the world even better.

The lab, full of molds of Sue's cervical vertebrae.
Casey and Bruce moving Sue's femur with a crowd of onlookers, in National Geographic, 1999. As weird as this place was, I'd go back to work there in a heartbeat. Disney had student members of it's college program work outside the lab in costume, making presentations to large groups of visitors. The lab was situated near the exit of the "Tarzan" live stage show, which seated a few thousand people. Every hour or so, the show would dump, and the path leading by this glass became one of the exits for the show, exposing us to more visitors in 15 minutes than most museums get in a week, a day for the very largest.

The extreme humidity of central Florida led to frequent problems with the air abrasive units, but the most interesting of troubles came from the exhaust system. The Nederman arms were ducted to a blower on the roof, and when blasting through many pounds of sodium bicarbonate the blower would "clog". Once every two weeks or so we would have to climb up on the roof, and remove an access panel to expose the fan blades. The sodium bicarb would build up on the blades and form a pumice-like rock that had to be chipped off with a hammer and putty knife. This maintenance was critical, because the buildup threw the fan so off balance that not only would it rattle the walls, but the floor itself. Firing the system back up after this cleaning was always awesome, sending up an ejecta of white powder that drifted over Dinoland. The ladder to the roof was also handy for climbing up to watch shuttle launches. After work was a great time to walk through this giant zoo with a beer and check out the animals, or catch a safari ride, and maybe make plans to head to the Big Bamboo Lounge, a hole in the wall Disney hangout that deserves it's own tribute post.
We also kept a minifridge stocked with Corona and limes, which made the lab a popular aftershift hangout for the education staff.

Sadly, as soon as the Field Museum contract was up, Disney bulldozed the lab to build a roller coaster. I got them back by knocking down a couple of their streetlamps with the moving truck on my way out of the park. Thanks Casey for providing the photos, all of mine were stolen by a psychotic former co-worker.

Christmas in December... (Free PDF's!!!)

2009-12-01T19:12:00.001-08:00

For your reading pleasure, I have some more preparation related PDF's, courtesy of the Geological Curators Group and the GCG Archive. Thanks to Amy Davidson for scouring these back issues and providing some recommendations, especially regarding adhesives.

Check out:
Geological Curator Volume 5 no.7 (1987) Proceedings of the 1986 GCG Conference which is devoted to the Conservation of Geological Material and edited by Crowther and Collins. Note especially-

Keene "Some Adhesives and Consolidants used in Conservation" p.421.

Jaeschke "Archaeological Conservation: Some Useful Applications for
Geology" p.467.

Also recommended are:

Larkin, N.R. and Makridou, E. “Comparing Gap-Fillers Used in Conserving
Sub-Fossil Material.” Geological Curator 7,2 (1999) pp.81-90.

Buttler, C.J. “The Conservation of the Sedgwick Museum Barrington
(Quaternary) Hippopotamus Skeleton” Geological Curator 6,1 (1994) pp.3-6

Others that may be of interest/useful are:

Howie, F. Pyrite and conservation pt 1: Historical aspects. Vol 1, 9
and
Howie, F. Physical Conservation of Existing Collections. Vol 2, 5

Also relevant in Vol 1,9 is "Problems with Resins at Bolton" by A.C. Howell
and "Data Security in Scientific Objects" by C.P. Palmer.

There are a bunch more out there, if you happen to come across anything that you find helpful in your journeys through the literature, shoot me a message and I'll post it. Thanks again to Amy for kickstarting this, and to the good folks at GCG for hosting this content and not charging $35 per article to download it.

3rd Annual Fossil Preparation and Collections Symposium

2009-11-22T20:14:00.000-08:00

The Field Museum will be hosting the 3rd Annual Fossil Preparation and Collections Symposium in Chicago from April 28-May 1, 2010.

I organized the first meeting at Petrified Forest National Park, which was a great success, about 45 people showed up, and we all had a lot of fun (pictures here, thanks ReBecca). J.P. Cavigelli hosted the next meeting this summer at the Tate, with I think about 65 or 70 attendees, which was also fantastic {update, some pics here, thanks again ReBecca}. Thanks to the Field, Geology Department Chair Pete Makovicky, and host Lisa Herzog for taking the reins in 2010.

A major contributing factor to the success of these meetings is presentations from people like you! If you have an idea for a talk, poster, or workshop, hurry up and get in touch with Lisa.

"The Field Museum is located on the shore of Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago and has a long history of vertebrate fossil preparation. It currently houses three operational fossil preparation laboratories, employs five full time preparators, and maintains an active volunteer program.

The three day symposium will feature collection tours, platform and poster presentations, roundtable discussions and preparation workshops. This is a distinct opportunity for fossil preparators to meet and talk with other professionals and volunteers in the field.

Any questions or comments should be directed to the conference organizer Lisa Herzog at lherzog@fieldmuseum.org or 312-665-7626. Suggestions for roundtable discussion are welcome."

Some old (Historic) preparation references online (free)

2009-11-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

After downloading a number of pdfs last week, I thought I would help make some of these easier to find.

Charles Schuchert: 1895. Directions for Collecting and Preparing Fossils. Pt. K, Bull. US Natl. Museum, no. 39, 31 pp., 19 illus.
Adam Herman: 1909. Modern laboratory methods in vertebrate paleontology. Bulletin of the AMNH ; v. 26, article 23.
Don Baird: 1980 The burnt dope technique, and other intertidal ploys from America. Geological Curator 2:8

(Free if you have institutional subscription, if not, send me an email)
(Stabilizing inverts)
A Method for the Preparation of Fossils
Author(s): G. Arthur Cooper
Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 77, No. 1999 (Apr. 21, 1933), p. 394
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1656997

(Nonprep methods)
The Preparation of Paleontologic Illustrations
Author(s): John B. Reeside, Jr.
Source: Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Sep., 1930), pp. 299-308
Published by: Paleontological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1297906

Ammonium Chloride Sublimate Apparatus
Author(s): Chalmer L. Cooper
Source: Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jun., 1935), pp. 357-359
Published by: Paleontological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1298246

My powers are godlike

2009-11-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, so maybe I should have saved that title for a case study that demonstrates those abilities in a spectacular way, like, the tiny chip of enamel that I glued back onto a cusp from a tooth measuring under 1mm in total length. In that case though, it shouldn't have broken in the first place. I'm just so pleased with the ease and simplicity with which this little sub-project came together.

Anyway, while preparing to install the cabinets, I was despairing that I would have to shim the crap out of them, the 65 year old brick floor slopes one half inch over 25 inches, the first photo shows this. So, I was thinking about floor leveling options, like that self leveling stuff that you put down before tiling a floor. I figured that it would take forever to set up thoroughly in that thickness, then it occurred to me that Hydrocal might be a workable option.

First I built a dam out of clay, which wouldn't stick to the newly waxed, slightly dusty floor all by itself. So, cleverly (I think), I smeared Vaseline along the bottom of the clay, then pushed it down, and bingo, a water tight adhesive gasket. I then taped three pieces of string to the high point of the floor, near the wall, and pulled them taught and through the clay. Using a bubble level, I set my desired height in string, then poured Hydrocal into the dammed area, smoothed it by hand and then trowel, checked the level again, and called it done.

Here is the Hydrocal pad... And finally, almost PERFECTLY level with one cabinet on. I'll be back next week to finish up the installation in preparation for the arrival of the counter top.

Moving right along

2009-11-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

On schedule, just waiting for the Resistop counter and the installation of the fume hood, then all should be right with the world.

Sadly, not only did the shipping company deliver the Global cabinets to the wrong address, requiring several hours of my day to track down and pick up, the bastards managed to bash the hell out of the floor cabinets. After a little bit of pounding with a hand sledge and a block of wood, the doors open and close again, but this point may receive further airing here if the Global Industrial customer service people don't return my calls.

Stay tuned...

2009-11-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

On coming episodes of This Old Preplab we will be remodeling this plaster room, gutting the left side that we see here, putting in the previously discussed fume hood, acid storage, and new counters, and generally making it look like this. Watch as we as we transform a cluttered workspace into a slightly less cluttered colored pencil rendering.

Inner workings

2009-11-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Back to the lift tables for a brief moment, here we can see the mechanism by which they do their magic. Centered under the table is a 3 ton bottle jack, operated with the lever the extends to the table edge. This jack is the only hydraulic part of the mechanism, lifting and lowering the tabletop, while the load is stabilized by the four pistons at the corners. The large, four inch diameter sleeve contains three machined nylon "doughnuts" that keep the two inch steel tubing aligned. Since hydraulic jacks are not designed for, or safe for, supporting weight, the two inch tubing is drilled at intervals for pins that hold the full weight of the table at rest. So, the table is jacked up, pins are set, and then the jack is released so that the table is safe to work on, around, and under. Voila.

Installing the work benches

2009-10-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

David Braley, the brilliant welder in the Pickle Campus facilities department, fabricated the metal framework for the work benches that line two walls of the lab. This bench is a giant L, 30" deep, 22' long on the longest arm, and 9' long on the short. This frame is incredibly straight and level, a very difficult task, but supremely executed by David. The whole construction is 2" tubular steel, supported by leveling feet for easy installation. The short leg abuts the long, and is both bolted and pinned, creating an incredibly stable platform to epoxy the table tops in place.
I decided to go with the same tabletop material that we used for years at the Field Museum. Bill Simpson performed some rigorous testing on samples from various manufacturers, and finally settled on Resitop, a composite of phenolic resin and craft paper layered densely and cured under pressure and heat. Then it is topped off with a melamine laminate top in a wide variety of colors and patterns. I have always been very happy with the Resistop, it is widely resistant (perhaps impervious) to acids, bases, and solvents. It is also resistant for at least a few minutes to direct flame. The company we ordered from stocks white, black, and grey, other choices cost much more, because you pay for each 5'X7' panel instead of just the material that you actually use. We went with one inch thick at roughly $23 per square foot, including a four inch high backsplash on the workbench.

After spending quite a bit of time leveling the frame with the tops in place, the resin tops were epoxied onto the frames using West Systems Marine Epoxy thickened with a little bit of Cabosil to fill any void space, and were then clamped all around with C-clamps. Backsplashes were then epoxied and clamped, and will be filleted with more epoxy.

The 3rd Armored Table Division rolls into Austin....

2009-10-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

We would do General Patton proud, not only did I fight the Romans as a Carthaginian in a past life, but our new piece of furniture, MBT (Main Battle Table) 01, has just made its way into our loading dock. For scale, Sebastian > 2m. This table has a 5' x 7' work surface, adjusts between 28" and 40" lifted by a 3 ton jack, all by itself weighs about 900 pounds, and since I couldn't figure out how to keep tank treads from scuffing the new wax job on the floor, we went with wheels. Yeah, that sucks, but what can you do. This photo shows the table at full height, before we epoxied the Resistop table top in place.

And after, table lowered. I'll follow up some of the specifics of how it was built in the next post.

The labs at Bristol

2009-10-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

Remmert Schouten said he wanted to see a new blog post, so here you go dude. In addition to doing a great job putting together the adhesives and consolidants workshop, Remmert was kind enough to give us a tour of his lab at the University of Bristol. Here Remmert is giving a tour to the SVP preparators.

That's actually not true. However, he wasn't kidding when he showed us his lab shoes, actual wooden clogs. This might come as a surprise to us North American fossil people, but clogs are actually rated by the EU and UK as acceptable safety footwear, being resistant to acid and puncture.

If you don't believe me, check out Wikipedia.

During the tour, we passed around another item worth discussing, a stone masons hammer. I've seen these called dummy hammers or round hand hammers, and are available from a few sources on the internet, usually for about 25 or 30 US dollars. These hammers are used with typical chisels, a method that I like quite a bit in harder matrices for removing large quantities of matrix. Having a range of hammer and chisel sizes allows a great degree of accuracy in removing matrix, I've even prepped right up to the bone surface this way.
Remmert described the ability to finesse a wide range of strike force out of the mallet by adjusting how much you choke up on the handle, and by what part of the head with which you hit the chisel. A blow from the broad end of the tool will direct more force at your chisel and block for coarse work, and gentler taps towards the base of the head where the steel meets the wood will allow for gentler and more precise work.

Thanks very much to Remmert for the opportunity to see his lab, and for the work he contributed as part of the Host Committee for SVP Bristol.

24 hours of late night

2009-10-06T21:55:00.001-07:00

Well, dear friends, my mind is blown. I've seen some surreal shit in my life, not the least of which are the Salvador Dali museum I visited last week, and the direct flight from Paris to Dallas Forth Worth I-airport.

However, starting two nights ago on Letterman Steve Martin played the banjo with the convincing head of Muammar Qaddafi, which I could handle. But tonight, of all bands, KISS performed on Dave. Gene, Ace, Paul, and Peter. In their seventies. Not the right venue. Followed immediately by Craig Ferguson and a bunch of other people in blonde wigs lipsyncing Mmmbop. Then Chick Corea on freakin Jimmy Fallon?!?! Disgusting.

Nearly recovered from SVP

2009-10-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Like many paleontologists, I took advantage of this year's phenomenal SVP location to spend some time seeing other European paleo. My trip would have been an exhausting whirlwind, if not for the tremendous energy that this meeting generates for me every year. Also like many other paleontologists, I ride a high for months after we all go home.

This meeting generated several topics to post about, and as I get my photos, notes, and thoughts sorted out, I'll be following up on those, hopefully having it all wrapped up by the end of the week. I'd have more done tonight, but I'm going to see Zombieland. Priorities, priorities. Briefly, my schedule looked like this:

Sunday- Arrived in London, met up with Sarah Werning, went to pub. Slept on the floor of Sarah's bathroom.
Monday-Started day with tour of the Natural History Museum Paleontological Conservation Unit. Had a late lunch, saw the fossil gallery, visited the Wallace and Grommit exhibit at the Science Museum. Caught bus to Bristol. Added London to the list of major cities that I've been to and only seen the science museum and bars.
Tuesday-Exciting 8 hours at adhesives and consolidants workshop (really!) Went to pub and talked about adhesives and consolidants for a few hours. Went to another pub and pissed people off by talking about adhesives and consolidants some more. Wednesday begins about here.
Wednesday- Excellent day of some talks, posters, mostly meetings with other folks. Great discussion with Amy Davidson, Greg Brown, and Bill Parker about the role of preparation within paleontology. Welcome reception in the evening, followed by pubs, Indian food, pubs, and then clubs. Some members of our group were picked up by the "classy" scantily clad Bristol ladies that Jeff Martz writes about, this evening ends on Thursday as well, returning to my hotel at about 5:00.
Thursday-Absolutely brutal schedule, Romer talks, Triassic talks, Prep talks, and birds all apposed each other. Some really good talks were presented at the prep session. Preparators Committee meeting was very productive. Saw David Attenborough give an excellent talk on Alfred Russel Wallace and Birds of Paradise, wonderful night. Hosted a student roundtable on getting non-academic jobs: prep, collections, contract paleo, government paleo, etc. Afterwards, Jeff's Beaver Stuffing event took place.
Friday- Wow, this is getting ridiculous. I'll just say the rest of the trip was a blast- Spent all night on Saturday hanging out with as the crowd slowly dropped away, the last SVP allnighter was Sarah Werning and I hanging out in the hotel lobby, watching the Bristol police haul away some disorderly young girls. I took a cab to the airport, and headed to Paris for five days. I'll have some photos of the prep lab there to post shortly.

All those stinky fumes

2009-09-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

I wish that I'd had a fume hood already for much of this project, instead, I've been overhauling one that I rescued from surplus to install in the lab. It came from the Marine Science lab, so is fairly well coated with salt that needed scrubbing off, in addition to removal of the sink. On testing, the fan and lights still worked great, so I onward I go.

Step one was pulling out the sink, cutting a piece of plywood to fit, and glassing the hole flush. I used layers of woven fiberglass and Gougeon Brothers West Systems Marine Epoxy to fill that gap, along with another hole in the right back corner. I sanded the bottom of the hood heavily, and then began painting in the same epoxy, pigmented black, to completely cover the fiberglass bottom. This will create a durable, easy to clean and repair surface for the light acid preparation, resin mixing, and fumed silica work that will take place in the hood. Our welding shop is fabricating a base to support the hood and surround the acid cabinet that will be placed below.

I'll post more pictures when the project is finished and installed.

Airline filtration

2009-08-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

I stated in a previous post that the air compressor and tank are outside the building. They are in a 100+ degree shed all summer (which is from Feb 16- Feb 12, as far as I can reckon) without any kind of chiller or cooler before it comes through the wall. This drastic change in temperature between the outdoor temps and the air conditioned lab generated gallons of water condensing in the airline. This corroded the pipes and fittings, plugged the tools, and clogged the air abrasive unit. Also, and apologies to the elderly, but I think you'll know what I mean, when you unplugged a tool from the quick connect you got blasted in the face with oily wet air that smelled like old man for hours.

The first picture shows the air coming in as a Z of black pipe to the left of and behind the first filter. That filter is the primary water trap, which when drained yields a few ounces of water every day. The next unit is a general particulate prefilter, before the oil filter, with the red label, and finally, the long tube of the dessicant filter, that holds four pounds of cobalt indicating silica beads. This multi-pronged attack seems to have made a substantial difference so far in the amount of moisture that harasses us.

After the filters, the plumbing gets slightly more complicated. The 1/2" copper schedule L line exits to a T fitting, and one pipe runs up and across the ceiling to supply air to the middle of the room, where large worktables will soon sit. The other line runs down, and then splits to two regulators, where all of our air then runs in parallel lines of low and high pressure. The high pressure is for Microjacks, AROs, etc, and the low is for foot pedals, air guns, and some of the new tools that we are now getting from Charlie Magovern. We then have air hookups spaced every four to five feet equivalent with the location of workstations, with two quick connects for each line. Both ceiling and wall lines also have ball valve shut-offs inline after the filters for safety and maintenance.

Some of our offices have air supplied from the same system also, here you can see the set up at the workstation in my office. The air comes in from the right of the photo, passes through a ball-valve, then an oil an moisture trap. I've installed a small ball-valve operated pressure "indicator", it's not a real regulator, just so that I know what the incoming pressure is. After that I have two high pressure quick connects, an actual regulator, and a low pressure outlet for my foot pedal. The air line running to my offices passes through about 30 feet of non climate controlled collections, then back into the AC, so I still get a fair amount of moisture condensing there and ending up in the filter. After filter is now much much drier than it was before this changeover.

Lab reno' part two, er, maybe 3?

2009-08-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

When we first consulted with the UT Facilities department to find out what it would cost to replace the air system, the head of their plumbing shop gave us an estimate of two guys for two weeks, at thirty bucks an hour, plus supplies and materials. That quickly comes out to a number around $6000, plus all of that downtime for the 4-5 people who work in the lab in a normal week. In dismay (and disbelief, since I know how difficult this sort of plumbing is), we asked if we could do it ourselves. The answer was yes, but clearly they didn't think it was a good idea.

After a few trips to the hardware store, some consultations, and a few hours online weighing the options, I decided to go with copper pipe to replace the mix of materials already in place and causing problems. Then, with this pile of fittings and tools, and 100 feet of schedule L pipe, Sebastian and I took to the task of installing the system. Instead of two weeks, it took two long days, with much of that time spent by me running around buying parts to make sure Sebastian had everything needed to keep the project moving. The following pictorial is a brief outline of the steps involved in sweating copper pipe.

Step 1: (Currently no photo) After cutting the pipe to length, all surfaces to be joined are scrubbed bright with a wire brush and painted with a thin coat of flux to ensure flow of solder.

Step 2: Pipe sections are mated with fittings, then heated with a propane torch for 10-20 seconds, until the metal is hot enough to melt the solder on contact.

Step 3: The torch is withdrawn, and the solder is applied to the hot joint. It will melt instantly and be drawn into any gap space, solidly connecting the two separate pieces of metal.

Step 4: The joint is wiped with a cloth to remove remaining flux and excess solder from the surface.

More traditional uses of fire in the lab...

2009-08-21T11:17:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: No Fossils Were Prepared in the Following Blog Post

This was an exceptionally busy week in the lab, and the only time we touched fossils was to get them out of our way. The first major phase in the lab renovation began on Monday, with half of the room being repainted. Some big cabinets with not much in them were taken off the walls, large cracks in the masonry were sealed up, and all of the existing airlines were removed, more on those soon. The walls were then given a fresh couple of coats of white semi-gloss enamel, which really makes it a whole new room.

This project was in preparation for the main event of August, replacing the compressed air delivery system. The existing airlines were composed of black pipe, galvanized, copper, brass, and maybe PVC. The compressor and tank is outside the building in 100 degree heat for most of the day, passes through the wall into a 70ish degree room, and immediately begins condensing tons of moisture in the airline. We drain about half a cup or more of water out of the tank each day, and about the same out of the water trap inside the lab. The mix of metals in the system ensures quite a bit of corrosion in the parts, most every fitting has some form of rust inside of it. The air tools have recently begun clogging at a high frequency requiring complete breakdown for cleaning several times a week.

So, the fun stuff.

With the help of the very able and German Sebastian Egberts, I've spent the last half of this week installing a completely copper air system. While I was shuttling back and forth between two Home Depots and one Lowe's buying up every fitting they had in stock, Sebastian measured and cut the copper pipe and soldered the quick connect fittings into place. After two full days of work, we have the system nearly complete and leak free, another post will follow up in detail the process of getting the system in place, with, yes, more pictures of fire in the lab.

These folks get points for creativity

2009-08-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

http://psychoceramic.com/

Let me stand next to your fire....

2009-08-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

In tribute to the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, and by request of Casey Holliday, this post will deal with a method developed by Holliday and Brown in 1999 at the Walt Disney World Animal Kingdom Fossil Preparation Field Station. The "Pyro Preparation" method is specifically used to facilitate safe removal of plaster and burlap field jackets from very delicate specimens. The technique was created to deal with vertebrae of Rapetosaurus krausei where much of the matrix had been removed in the field, followed by application of a thick (~2-3 cm) and tightly conforming plaster jacket. Removal of the field jacket in the lab by traditional means was impossible without significant damage to or destruction of the fossil material, as the vertebrae were poorly mineralized and subject to substantial weathering before discovery. This condition resulted in extremely crumbly bone that was very difficult to consolidate with the jacket in place. The field jacket was tightly wrapped around the neural spines and left transverse processes of several articulated vertebra, with little to no matrix buffer between the bone and jacket. The mechanical lock created by the conforming plaster exerted considerable leverage on the bases of the spines, and attempts at removing the plaster with a razor blade and Stryker cast cutting saw resulted in much breakage and grinding of elements. In desperation we decided to try fire as an option. First, the plaster is gently scored with a razor blade to expose the underlying burlap, then a volatile solvent (in this case acetone) is applied to the burlap. When ignited, most or all of the burlap burns up, allowing the next layer of plaster to be crumbled and scratched away (Fig 1). Before being applied to the fossil, this technique was attempted with the experiementers hand slipped between the jacket and matrix, to ensure that temperatures inside the block would not be high enough to cause damage through thermal shock or scortching. After several layers of burlap were burned away, the jacket was pliable enough to remove by slowly peeling it away, while applying consolidant to the freshly exposed and friable fossil surfaces.

Cool old Carl Zeiss microscope

2009-08-13T16:25:00.000-07:00

I found this old critter here at VPL, a Carl Zeiss Jena microscope. The right eyetube is also stamped with a Bausch and Lomb Optical, Rochester, New York logo. The last photo is after cleaning, the brass and nickle plated elements look great after a little bit of elbow grease, the would probably look even better with a lot of elbow grease.

Current lab renovation projects

2009-08-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

So, I guess if one is going to start a blog, they must occasionally post to it. This is just about the last thing I remember to do, since I'm not yet in the habit.

There are two projects dominating my time right now, designing new work surfaces and planning for the re-plumbing of the compressed air line. I'll go into greater detail on both soon as the projects come together, both are a lot of fun, and both will be something I have to live with for quite a while, so I want to get them right. The tables are almost out of my hands, I'll be placing the final order for the tabletops tomorrow or Monday, and my sketches have been handed over to the fabricator in our facilities department to start construction on the bases.

I'm also working on cleaning up a fume hood that I rescued from the UT Surplus warehouse that will serve for a few years until it is upgraded. Pictures of that process will follow in future posts as well.

Oh yeah

2009-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

Don't let this happen either.

Hey, That Ain't Gatorade!

2009-07-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

Have you seen a situation like this before? Sure, it is very convenient, and cheap, to store lab chemicals in food containers. But it's not cool. For one, the turpentine in that coffee can isn't much use now that the volatiles have all evaporated out. Then, what the hell is the white powder all over the mayo jar of xylene? I don't think it is mayo. I think this kind of storage is against the law, though I can't find a reference immediately, but it certainly violates both recommended practice (see NIOSH/CDC guide) and common sense.

The Grolsch bottle in the background full of acetone reminds me of a story from a few years back, a friend was working on his boat, and pouring waste epoxy into a nearby empty beer bottle. A few minutes later, when reaching for his bottle full of beer, he grabbed the one with epoxy in it. One short trip to the emergency room later and a cheap and handy way to dispose of a chemical becomes neither cheap or handy. A final example before I go. One prolific collector that I know loves to store thick solution adhesives (i.e. Vinac B-15) in little Visine eyewash bottles. Well, sure, they work well for dispensing adhesive cleanly and one drop at a time. But in the field, have you ever gotten dust or dirt in your eye, and wished for eyewash? Does a foreign object in the eye blur your vision? Might you consolidate your eye closed? So much for getting the red out.

Be Cool. Only store chemicals in properly labeled containers not intended for food use.

Jay in Roswell lost his job

2009-06-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

What do you do when the perfume shop doesn't want you anymore?

Click photo to read the note

This is a no brainer, but...

2009-06-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

iPhones are not designed for field use.

Microscope Madness!!!!!

2009-05-15T16:27:00.001-07:00

I freely admit that I am a scope snob, so this row of metal and glass makes my heart glad. You can't prep well if you can't see your material, and when it comes to bang for your buck, Swiss optics are my choice for stocking a workbench. There is one interloper in this mix, the second boom from the left holds a Nikon SMZ-1, which happens to be the first microscope that I purchased for myself, however, I've recently made the upgrade to a Wild M8 for my own freelance work. To outfit the VPL lab, I chose two M8's, the beauties on the right, to be the real workhorses. As budget allows in the next few years, I will probably be replacing the rest of the Olympus setups that Bob Rainey used for so many years. For the purposes of training students and volunteers who come through the lab, I've purchased a Wild teaching setup outfitted with an M7 body and two upright heads. I will soon be adding a custom focusing mount developed by Mike Eklund at The Natural History Studio (also my source for much of my refurbished lab gear) that will enable the teaching setup to be mounted on a boom arm for maximum reach and specimen diversity.

These used scopes can be tough to come by in good condition and at a reasonable price, but I'm very happy with the deals that I've gotten on the last 4 or 5 that I've bought. The above packages have been outfitted with Fostec/Schott light sources and Schott ring lights.

New Digs

2009-04-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it took forever to get around to a new post, but I have been pretty busy over the last six months. So, having just moved to Texas last week, I'm planning a series of articles documenting the renovation of the fossil prep facility at the UT Austin Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory over the coming months. As generations of paleontologists are turning over, attitudes towards materials and methods in the field are changing as well, and the goal of this lab is to reflect some of those changes. A large number of paleontologists have been trained in this department over the years, and the VPL is still continuing strong in that tradition. Our plan is to develop a lab that can expose students to the widest array of techniques and materials possible, providing both new preparators and new research paleontologists with an advanced understanding of the requirements for establishing labs, hiring preparators, and providing training. Part of this process is a floor to ceiling renovation of the preparation facility at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus, where both students and professional preparators will be able to participate in classes, workshops, and conferences examining paleontology methods and led by expert instructors from around the world. There are still many unknowns in the process, but part of this blogs purpose is to hopefully work through those issues as they come up, and to both give and get ideas through dialouge. I'll start with a picture of what the lab looks like now, and hopefully follow up in coming days.

That didn't take long!

2008-08-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

Letters from the Lounge

So, after trying to stage pictures of my new truck for about 3 weeks (I haven't even made a payment yet, it's a baby) I walk outside and just happen to have my camera in hand, and wham, bam, thank you atmospheric conditions, the sunset gives me the perfect shot. Were I a good photographer, and had actually been waiting, with tripod and one of my fast lenses, for the lighting to be just right, I would have moved the damned tractor first and made sure that there wasn't a pile of pallets, kitty litter, and other trash in the background. Oh well....

I also learned today that the US Special Forces has been using Toyota Tacomas in Afghanistan, (despite the fact that our government would never have a problem providing its employees with equipment that works, of course) bought off the dealership lot near Fort Campbell, slightly retrofitted (the belt fed M240 isn't a dealer option, otherwise I'd have one already), and shipped overseas for actual combat. Sweet. They obviously couldn't be less armored than a HMMWV right?

Ramblings from the prep lab

2008-08-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Lounge!

So, this new blog takes its name from an office we had in the fossil preparation division at the Field Museum. I needed a place to store some leather furniture, some lava lamps, and a zebra print rug, which made a fantastic place to have weekly project meetings, lunch, naps, and private going away parties. A great place to break from the stress of working in a public display lab, B.S., or watch co-workers work through a glass window.

Time will tell what happens with this blog, whether it is updated, or read, or commented upon. I'll work out some ideas, discuss things paleo, prep specific, probably guns, trucks, and weather too. Maybe stay away from politics.

Keep your ear to the rail chums...