Vertebrate Fossil Preparation

Extinct Monsters to Deep Time is an ethnography that documents the growing friction between the research and outreach functions of the museum in the 21st century. Marsh describes participant observation and historical research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History as it prepared for its largest-ever exhibit renovation, Deep Time.  As a museum ethnography, the book provides a grounded perspective on the inner-workings of the world’s largest natural history museum and the social processes of communicating science to the public.

Selección oficial de la Rassegna Internazionale del Cinema Archeologico di Rovereto (Italia, 2018): Deep Time Crabs - I granchi fossili del vicentino

Dirección: Marcello Peres - Nicola Tagliabue
Producción: Heracles Archaeology

En colaboración con: Associazione Amici del Museo Zannato, Soprintendenza Archeologia Veneto, Museo Zannato, Centro Studi Archeologici

Regia e testi del documentario "Deep Time Crabs - I granchi fossili del vicentino".

Sinossi:
Ideato e promosso dagli "Amici del Museo Zannato" di Montecchio Maggiore, il film documenta le attività di ricerca pulizia e studio che il gruppo di studiosi svolge da anni con lo scopo di salvaguardare e valorizzare il patrimonio paleontologico, soprattutto carcinologico, del territorio vicentino. Una immersione del tutto inedita in un mondo acquatico che non esiste più.

Regia: Marcello Peres e Nicola Tagliabue
Produzione: Heracles Archaeology
Consulenza scientifica: Andrea Checchi e Claudio Beschin
Anno: 2018
Durata: '28
Lingua: Italiano, Spagnolo, Inglese
In collaborazione con la Soprintendenza Archeologica del Veneto

Video Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU6Xr70SJAQ

The 'Collard Plesiosaur', found in 2003 in Bridgwater Bay on the Somerset coast is the only complete and fully articulated plesiosaur skeleton to have been found in Britain for over 100 years. The 1.5 metre long specimen was preserved in the finegrained and thinly laminated Lower Liassic Kilve Shales. This lithology is susceptible to fluctuations in humidity, severely compromising the integrity of specimens once dry. The priorities for the project were to arrest shale delamination caused by environmental fluctuations and to prepare the specimen for research. The specimen appeared to be mostly well fossilised in a homogeneous, un-cemented matrix, offering excellent potential for non-destructive recovery of fossil information using conventional X-radiography and Computed Tomography before the preparation commenced. Despite the skeleton being variably mineralised, the analyses yielded very detailed images. This 'virtual preparation' helped to inform the subsequent physi...

Squirrel remains are rare in the fossil record, which hampers a properly documented inter-pretation of their evolutionary history. The Late Miocene sciurids from Moncucco Torinese(NW Italy) are described based on a diverse tooth assemblage. The data presented hereinconfirm the presence of Sciurus warthae and Pliopetaurista pliocaenica, and also include thefirst unquestionable occurrence of Hylopetes hungaricus plus an indeterminate Sciurinae.The report of Sciurus warthae from Moncucco Torinese represents the earliest record ofthe genus Sciurus in Europe. Moreover, Moncucco Torinese is the first European localityrecording the co-occurrence of Sciurini and Pteromyini in the Late Miocene. Comparativeanalyses support a close relationship between S. warthae and Sciurus vulgaris corrobo-rating the hypothesis of an earliest divergence of the “Sciurus vulgaris clade” in the LateMiocene. Biochronological, paleobiogeographical and paleoecological implications are alsodiscussed.

éLes fossiles d’écureuil sont rares dans le registre fossile, avec des conséquences néga-tives pour une interprétation bien documentée de leur histoire évolutive. Les sciuridés duMiocène supérieur de Moncucco Torinese, Italie du Nord-Ouest, sont décrits ici sur la basede restes dentaires plutôt diversifiés. Les données présentées ici confirment la présencede Sciurus warthae et Pliopetaurista pliocaenica, et incluent aussi la première occurrence deHylopetes hungaricus en Italie, plus un taxon indéterminé. La présence de Sciurus warthaeà Moncucco Torinese représente la documentation la plus ancienne du genre Sciurus enEurope. En outre, Moncucco Torinese est la première localité européenne qui enregistrel’occurrence simultanée de Sciurini et de Pteromyini dans le Miocène supérieur. Les analy-ses comparatives sont en faveur d’une relation étroite entre S. warthae et Sciurus vulgaris,corroborant l’hypothèse d’une première divergence du clade « Sciurus vulgaris » au Miocènesupérieur. Les implications biochronologiques, paléobiogéographiques et paléoécologiquessont également discutées.© 2016 Académie des

Using the open source database software, Specify, the Non-vertebrate Paleontology laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin has been making use of built in flexibility for a variety of applications. One of the most exciting customizations has been the creation of a method for tracking specimen preparation actions. By making preparation actions part of a database record, NPL can track progress of individual preparators or specimens, watch for unapproved methods and keep organized photographic workflows for each project.

La diferenciación del espécimen fósil, respecto de la matriz sedimentaria que lo contiene, varía de acuerdo a las características de ambos y no son pocas las situaciones donde la textura y el color del fósil diicultan su reconocimiento, poniendo en riesgo no solo el hallazgo sino posteriormente la correcta preparación del mismo. Asimismo, algunas características de los fósiles pueden pasar inadvertidas bajo la luz del espectro visible a pesar de haber sido preservadas. Ciertos fósiles, al ser expuestos a luz ultravioleta (UV) revelan rasgos anatómicos que de otro modo no se advierten. La iluminación UV ha sido utilizada como herramienta en el análisis de especímenes fósiles. Se propone aquí su implementación como complemento a la técnica de preparación de fósiles. La utilización de iluminación UV, combina técnicas de fotografía y las propiedades uorescentes de algunos minerales. Permite al técnico preparador identiicar fácilmente la interface fósil-matriz sedimentaria, resalta las suturas y hace visibles partes blandas tales como impresiones de la piel, plumas o tejidos musculares no siempre evidentes bajo luz natural. En este con-texto, se propone aquí un dispositivo simple y artesanal para adicionar esta metodología al trabajo cotidiano de los técnicos preparadores. La preparación de fósiles bajo luz UV no solo per-mite dar un paso más allá en el hallazgo sino que resulta de suma importancia para que el investigador/preparador alcance una mejor identiicación del material de estudio. Su empleo es especialmente recomendable en aquellos casos donde las probabilidades de preservación de partes blandas sean mayores.

If not for Fascia you would be a bag of gushy mixed organic and metal molecules that dissolves in the
rain. Fascia is the reason you stay together, and it is the “Strings and springs” in connective tissues.
Fascia is only recognized as important in the last few years.

After the winter of 2006, several samples of Triassic dark bituminous marlstone and laminated limestone were collected loose in the scree in the Kamniška Bistrica valley in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, northern part of the Central Slovenia (Fig. 1). The site was then ...