The Random Walk

The Occasional Fossil

2009-08-07T10:48:00.001-07:00

Fossil Wasp (NOT to scale!) from Eocene lake beds at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. (photo by Bud Wobus).

Very dang cool. Link goes to the original photo.

Very Good Book

2009-08-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Dave Raup, an excellent paleontologist has written a very good book on extinction that does a good job of dealing with some of these counting issues. It's called "Extinction Bad Genes or Bad Luck. " The link takes you to Amazon. I can't seem to find my copy so I'll be ordering another one.

Anciennt Versus Modern Extinction Pt 3

2009-08-06T12:02:00.001-07:00

Counting
The word extinction means we have fewer plants and animals than we did before. So we're going to need to count things. But what are we counting? Species? Here's a dirty little secret: Paleontologists don't really have a good species concept. Biologists have a pretty good one.

The biological species concept defines a species as members of populations that actually or potentially interbreed in nature, not according to similarity of appearance.

To that we probably need to add that the offspring can, themselves, reproduce but you get the idea. Here's the problem.... "similarity of appearance" is really all we have in Paleontology. You take two fossils, put then on a water bed, give them some privacy and cue the Barry White. Come back a month later and there are still just going to be two fossils there. FOSSILS DON'T REPRODUCE. In fact we can't be really sure those two fossils were the opposite sex. (not that there's anything WRONG with same sex fossils) . So what do we do about the species concept in paleontology?... basically we muddle through as best we can mainly relying on appearance.
The diversity curve we've been looking at is a family level curve not a species level curve. For those of you who are taxonomically challenged remember that species' group into genera and genera group into families. Not all families have the same number of species. A family of insects may have hundreds of species. The family we belong to, Hominidae contains us, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. So taking out a family of insects takes out a whole lot more species than taking out a family of primates.
So you've got a bunch of biologists out there defining extinction by counting species and you've got paleontologists counting what are basically morphoptypes. And really most of our work on broad patterns in extinction and radiation is done two taxomic levels up. Comparing those is gong to be very very tricky.
Next up: Taphonomy. Because if you don't understand that you don't understand anything.

Getting ready for some content

2009-08-05T08:16:00.001-07:00

So I was sitting around musing about my lack of blogging. I've honestly never been able to get over the the "who really cares about what I have to say"hump. But I was feeling a bit guilty for the people who do read.. coming to the blog.. no new content... over and over... but then I realized wait a sec.... no one goes to blogs any more it's all about the RSS so here I am in your RSS feed... taking up space.
The point of this really though (you knew there had to be a real point somewhere didn't you) is that I'm about to post up another entry on modern versus ancient extinction and RSS feeds don't usually show past posts. So if you care, go back and read the first two again so you know what the heck I'm talking about. I know I'm going to have to.
The first is here
the second is here

And just random bit. If you're not reading Isis the scientist you should be.

So very wrong

2009-07-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

I was over at the wired science blog (which is very good by the way) when I ran across this in the comments on one of the posts.

There is no big surprise here. What most people consider “Science” is often glorified Voodoo Artistry. Even the “hard sciences” like Physics and Math have plenty of unsolved mysteries. The soft sciences (Biology) have plenty too. Stuff like Oceanography and Meteorology (silly science) are almost totally librarian, i.e. they are really detailed observations without much of what Scientists consider “science”, that is, they have almost no predictive power.

It should surprise very few hard thinking people that much of what mass media considers “science” is often lame. How is it that so many “smart people” have bought into the Global Climate Crisis when our “weather scientists” can hardly predict (accurately) the weather a few weeks out. And, “they” expect us to believe that 20 years out we will be subject to catastrophic climate change.

Here’s the deal : lots of people who study “science” want to be considered “scientists” so they can feel good about their work. Maybe we should consider a stronger definition of what we can call science. If your body of work cannot accurately predict 99% of it’s claims, it cannot be considered science. If your work has no definable experimental framework, it is not science. If your work opens more questions than it answers, it is not science.

... and no reading the original post doesn't really help. The original post is here and was on some anomalously high tides they've been having on the east coast. It would be difficult to fit more misconceptions about science into such a short space. I addressed some of the problems in a response in the comments. But it seems a shame to keep it buried in some comments so here it is.

Ok, I really don’t have the time or inclination to address what you have written in any detail, and I rather suspect it wouldn’t matter just because your mind seems to be made up no matter what the facts are. But for the benefit of anyone reading who might actually think you know what you’re talking about let’s cover some things. (and yes I did this very quickly and I’m sure there are typos… sorry)

”How is it that so many “smart people” have bought into the Global Climate Crisis when our “weather scientists” can hardly predict (accurately) the weather a few weeks out. And, “they” expect us to believe that 20 years out we will be subject to catastrophic climate change.”

Weather versus climate, they’re not the same go learn the difference

“lots of people who study “science” want to be considered “scientists” so they can feel good about their work.”

While, unlike you, I cannot speak for “lots of people who study “science”” I can speak for myself and a few of my colleagues. I can honestly say that how we feel about our work has nothing to do with what you or anyone else calls us.

“If your body of work cannot accurately predict 99% of it’s claims, it cannot be considered science. “

Did you read that sentence after you wrote it? How do you predict a claim? I’m Paleontologist. If I claim that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs how then, do I predict it? I might predict we’ll find a crater but if we don’t am I wrong or have we just not found it yet?

But let’s back off of the semantics and look at the broader point. You seem to be claiming that science should be predictive. To some degree it should be, but 99%? The hallmark of science it not that it’s predictive, it’s that scientific ideas are tested. This means that sometimes we get stuff wrong. When that happens we get rid of what doesn’t work and, hopefully, replace it with what does, then that idea is tested etc etc. What this means in the cumulative sense is that we get better at stuff. By your definition if, right off the bat, if we can’t make predictions with 99% accuracy then, apparently, we’re not doing science. If I desperately cared whether of not you were calling me a scientist then the solution would be to simply gather data until I could predict things with 99% accuracy. Two problems: First predictions are very useful at well below your 99% benchmark. Hurricane track predictions are nowhere near 99% accurate (depending on how you define accuracy) but they’re still very useful. If we wait to be 99% accurate we’ll be waiting a very long time. And in the case of hurricane track predictions people will be dying while we wait for that 99%. Second, we actually learn a lot by predicting stuff and being wrong, that’s how we test our ideas. If we never predicted something and were wrong how would we know whether or not our ideas were correct? Learning what doesn’t work is sometimes as valuable as learning what does.

“If your work has no definable experimental framework, it is not science.”

Why? I’m a paleontologist. I do some experimentation but most of my data are collected in the field. Why are data collected through observation in the field less valid than data collected through experimentation?

“If your work opens more questions than it answers, it is not science.”

Once again: why? So if your answer to one question leads to more, of it your work shows is that we really don’t understand something as well as we thought we did then it’s not science? Once again if we’re unwilling to take on what we think we know then how will we ever know if what we think we know is wrong?

Update: He responded in the comments. Go read if you want it's.... interesting?

Modern Versus Ancient Extinction pt 2

2009-06-16T08:46:00.001-07:00

Rock Volume
Ok let's think a little more about Jack's curve.

Remember we're counting fossils here. The number of fossils you have is going to depend on the amount of rock that you have. The younger the rock, the more of it there is. So there is a lot more Tertiary (the "T" on the graph) rock out there than say Cambrian (the "C" with a line through it) so there are more Tertiary fossils than Cambrian fossils. You can compensate for this but it's always going to be very tricky. So that huge run up of in diversity that you see at the end of Jack's curve might not be "real" just because we have so much more rock for those more recent time periods. So the general shape of the curve is a little suspect. With respect to extinction, I'm not saying that extinction events in the paleontoloogical record are simply a result of not having rock for those time periods, but certainly the volume of rock is going to affect how severe we view the extinction as being.
Next time: taphonomy and counting issues

Modern Versus Ancient Extinction pt 1

2009-06-08T08:36:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to get to this for a while. It hits on something that comes up from time to time in Paleontology. Writing in the New Yorker Elizabeth Colbert says:

The fifth, the end-Cretaceous event, which occurred sixty-five million years ago, exterminated not just the dinosaurs but seventy-five per cent of all species on earth. Once a mass extinction occurs, it takes millions of years for life to recover, and when it does it’s generally with a new cast of characters. In this way, mass extinctions have played a determining role in evolution’s course. It’s now generally agreed among biologists that another mass extinction is under way.

What these biologists are doing is jumping from ancient extinction events to a modern "extinction". This is much trickier than most people think so lets look at it. Let's begin, as Anton Ego would say, with some

Perspective.

This is Jack Sepkoski's Family diversity curve with all five of the major extinctions numbered. Jack generated this curve by going into the literature and tabulating the number of taxonomic families through time. Paleontologists spend a great deal of time pouring over curves like this one so we can understand the broad sweep of life's evolution. We also spend a great deal of time looking at extinction events in great detail. So with that sort of perspective it is certainly fair to ask what can paleontologists or the paleontological record tell us about the current biological crisis.
The answer.... not much.
Why next time.

The Fallen

2009-05-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

A Google Earth layer that maps the home of all the military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. 5,679 to date. Download it here.

Good News Bad News

2009-04-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

It looks like there is a fairly quick solution to global warming. The bad news is in involves India and Pakistan nuking each other.

Apparently even a limited nuclear exchange would have dire climatic consequences. A large one would be catastrophic.

Italian Earthquake

2009-04-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

I spent some time yesterday trying to sort out the tectonics of the Mediterranean for a blog post on the Italian earthquake. What the I learned is that the tectonics of the Med are very complicated.
Highly Allochthonous does and excellent job with it though,
and Here's the official USGS account.

Few and Proud

2009-04-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

Today in 1985 (don't you DARE do the math) I graduated Marine boot camp at Paris Island South Carolina. I have pictures but no scanner right now so you'll have to wait till next year to see em.

New time scale... now in COLOR

2009-04-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

Geologists use a variety of techniques to divide the Earth's history up into manageable units The boundaries between these units mark large changes to the Earth or the Earth's biosphere: extinction, faunal turnover etc. The "official" (this whole process is remarkably unofficial) time scale for North America is put out by the Geological Society of America and is called the DNAG scale (Decade of North American Geology). As we get more and more refined radiometric dates and as old tems exit and new terms enter (like I said: remarkably unofficial) the scale needs to be updated. So here's the new one: know it, learn it, live it, love it. (or just click on it to go to the GSA web site and print it. )

Ok Maybe Not

2009-03-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

In the last post I mentioned trace fossils. I looked back to link to the post on trace fossils versus body fossils only to find there isn't one. So: Body fossils are the kinds of fossils that most people think of when the think of a fossil. The remains of the organism. Trace fossils are the remains of the ACTIVITY of an organism. So this footprint. Trace fossil

The dinosaur bone. Body fossil.

Trace fossils are very useful. Every organism (with the sort of exception of things that molt) have the potential to leave exactly one complete body fossil. And usually you find scattered stuff like the bone above. But an organism could leave thousands of trace fossils, so they are very common. Trace fossils are given generic and specific names but do not form higher order linean groups (families, kingdoms etc...). The foot print above belongs to the ichnogenus (ichno- is a prefix for trace fossil) Acrocanthosaurus.

The Occasional fossil

2009-03-28T15:27:00.001-07:00

This is not one fossil but a whole bunch. Back when this rock was sediment there were all sorts of organisms living in it. As they burrowed through the sediment they made tunnels which, themselves, filled with sediment. When the sediment turned to rock the fluid carry the cementing agent was able to penetrate the relatively un packed filled in tunnel better than the surrounding sediment so as the rock weathers and erodes the tunnels "stick out". Remember from an earlier post these are trace fossils.

Pompous Gasbag Alert

2009-03-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Psychology Professor David Barash writing for the Chronicle of Higher Ed says about spectator sports.

Not that I would try to stop anyone from root, root, rooting to his or her heart's content. It's just that such things are normally done by pigs, in the mud, or by seedlings, lacking a firm grip on reality — fine for them, but I am not at all sure this is something that human beings should do. In desperation, if threatened with starvation, I suppose that I would root — for dinner. But for the home team? Never.

And it just goes on from there .. and on .. and on .. and on.. Look I get it, and having attended two big football school, I will admit to being way past miffed when the entire campus gives itself over to football in the fall. But rather than conceding that it's not for him Barash goes on to make a (weak) case that enjoyment of spectator sports is a reflection on everything from one's intelligence to one's mother's parentage (ok the last bit is sarcasm but you get the idea).

I don't have the time or desire to take the whole thing apart but let me just make a couple points.

Athletes are talented people doing dramatic things . I enjoy watching talented people doing dramatic things
What else would you have us do? I enjoy participating in and talking science, music, literature and philosophy as much as (probably more than) the next guy but sometimes it's fun to just go watch some sports. I like to think of that as balance. Not that people who don't do spectator sports aren't balanced it's just my balance. But apparenly the good DrBarash disapproves

ok now for disclosure
Footbal: yes sometimes
Baseball: not so much
Basketball: a little but not so much since Larry Bird retired
Golf: naw
NASCAR: used to but then realized that it really is just a bunch or rednecks turning left. And they don't run in the rain??? wimps
Tennis: Archaeogrrrl is a huge fan so so am I
Hockey: Not even a little
Cycling: oh HELL yes.

ps Archaeogrrrl has some theories about locker room trauma early in Dr Barashs's life but we won't go there.

Crafting it forward

2009-03-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

Via profgrrrl.
I really doubt I'll get 5 comments (that would be a record for this blog) but in the spirit of getting things rolling:
The first 5 people to comment will get something made by me or my wife. I'm not all that crafty but she is. I like profgrrrl's restrictions so here they are.

you may or may not like what we make you
it might take a few months
exactly what we make will be a surprise

It could be food or craft or any number of things that I or archaeogrrrl make.
Usually in order to participate in these things you need to have a blog of your own to carry this on. That might me asking a bit much here so I'm gonna throw it open to anyone.

Happy Vernal Equinox

2009-03-22T12:00:00.001-07:00

I suppose I could blog once every three months but that does seem to sort of defeat the purpose.

Happy Winter Solstice

2008-12-21T07:39:00.000-08:00

And remember the reason for the season: the 23.5 degree tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation.

(ducks the inevitable lightning bolt)

what the $*#&$((

2008-12-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

someone has hijacked my paleoprof google account so if you're getting e mails from Paleoprof until further notice it's not me.

Two graphs noted without comment

2008-12-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

... mostly because it's just depressing.

This chart depicts the public acceptance of evolution theory in 34 countries in 2005. Adults were asked to respond to the statement: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." The percentage of respondents who believed this to be true is marked in blue; those who believed it to be false, in red; and those who were not sure, in yellow.

It's a little small click to embigen if you need to.

here we go

2008-12-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

I have a student who wants to withdraw .... for some sort of vague transportation reason. There are like 3 classes left??!!?? Next semester I'm carrying a sword instead of a meter stick. Might cut down on the STUPID requests/questions.

There can be only one...

Old friends

2008-11-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

Reading Isaac Asimov is like talking with an old friend. A very freakin' smart old friend.

(ok hands up who gets the picture??)

Random things

2008-11-21T14:34:00.001-08:00

Ok so profgrrrrl did this and it was pretty cool so what the heck I figured I would too. The deal is that you write 6 totally random things about yourself. There are some other rules too but this is the internet and we don't need the MAN'S rules.
Ok six random things
1) If I can help it at all I don't walk into dark rooms I'll feel around the wall for the light switch before walking in.
2) If I had it to do over I might be a lunar geologist.
3) Yes Archeogrrrrl I pretended to like U2 way more than I do to get you to like me when we were dating. (actually it was a little more than "get her to like me" but this is a g rated blog)
4) I am so not gay but if I was... Daniel Craig
5) Speaking of Bond. I want to be Sean Connery when I grow up.
6) I feel like I should like baseball: the statistics, the tradition, the stately pace. But every time I try to watch it the stately pace puts me to sleep.

The occasional taphonomic effect

2008-11-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

Things with lots of hard parts tend to be preserved in the fossil record. (At least the hard parts do )
So:
Clams and snails and such

no problem
jelly fish

not so much. (took me forever to find a decent picture of one)
dinosaurs and other large terrestrial vertebrates

ok but not great. See the previous post about life position as well.

Still more...

2008-11-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

A very interesting extension of the pattern I noted below. See it HERE

Working it

2008-11-13T06:16:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough week here. I'm working on getting my head back straight. Meanwhile here's some paleo porn.

Geology Controls Everything

2008-11-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

I was looking at the electoral map by county and I saw a familiar pattern. It's most obvious of the picture below that shows the counties that Republicans made gains in this election.

I know it's a little blurry but that's ok we're just looking at at VERY general trend. I've circled the area we're interested in. Now look at the geologic map of the United States. I've circled the same area.

See how the Mc Cain voting pattern ends as the rocks that make up the Appalachian mountains end? Here's a closer pic of the region.

Back in the good old days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth there was a giant inland sea called the Sundance Sea (or Western Interior Epicontinental Seaway for those of you who like the words). In the central Alabama Georgia region this sea lapped up against and weathered the rocks that make up the Appalachian mountains, depositing the younger (green) rocks. Geologically what we're dealing with here are older (Pennsylvanian, about say 300 millionish years old) rock of the Appalachian mountains truncated by and overlain by much younger (Cretaceous, about say 80 ish million years old) rock.
Geopolitically I'm sure there are a number of factors that play into why Appalachia is Republican country (and if there's a political scientist out there who would like to collaborate on something get in touch) my guess is that a lot of them are controlled by the underlying geology.
Interesting that on this map anyway the political boundary and the Geologic boundary coincide.

Mountains and such

2008-11-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

The arc of history is long but it bends toward freedom.
--M.L. King

A man who would have had to sit at the back of the bus when he was a child is now the president of the United States Of America.
Thank God.

Have a cry

2008-11-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

But in a good way

These two boys waited as a long line of adults greeted Senator Obama before a rally on Martin Luther King Day in Columbia, S.C. They never took their eyes off of him. Their grandmother told me, "Our young men have waited a long time to have someone to look up to, to make them believe Dr. King's words can be true for them." Jan. 21, 2008.

That picture and text come from a great photo essay by Callie Shell that can be found here

Picrtures to soothe the nervous Democrat's heart

2008-11-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

Normal paleo-oriented (mostly) blogging will resume after election when I can breathe again.

Bassets for Obama

2008-11-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

Continuing a theme (click the picture to enbiggen and get the whole effect)

best add ever

2008-10-28T13:36:00.001-07:00

I cannot find it on you tube so I'll link to it on Ackerman.

all in the game....

I am so not hip

2008-10-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

... as evidenced by the fact that I use the word "hip"
but also this from the incomparable profgrrrl in the comments.

... Turns out you kids WERE up to something, and it wasn't taphonomy either.

the occasional taphonomic effect

2008-10-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Environment/life position
The first step to being fossilized is to get buried. So things that live buried, like most clams.

Are well represented in the fossil record. At the other end of the scale, large terrestrial vertebrates like dinosaurs.

Not nearly as common

still more to come...

what the?....

2008-10-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

Ok I can understand a grocery store selling ping pong balls (I guess), and beer no problem. But in the same aisle?? And it wasn't some random thing, there were two distinct ping pong displays in the beer aisle.

Have you kids figured out something having to do with ping pong balls and beer? (Other than playing ping pong drunk because I've done that and it was.... underwhelming)

Breasts for Obama

2008-10-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

say no more*

*except that I have the coolest wife in the world
(now THAT'S some real content)

The occasional concept.

2008-10-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

Taphonomy
Taphonomy is the paleontologists way of saying "shit happens" generally to the fossils ~I'm~ trying to study. (Yes we take it personally:) In a perfect world a Thompson's Gazelle, for example, dies of a heart attack while drinking at a river, it falls into the river where it is covered with fine grained sediment and is perfectly preserved intact until a paleontologist comes along and digs it up. This never happens. Thompson's Gazelles don't die of heart attacks, they die of Lion bites to the throat, after which they are scattered by the Lions all over the Serengeti. If they do fall into the river they're torn apart by crocodiles once the bones are buried there are all sorts of chemical processes that can degrade the bone so by the time we get to it there's usually not much left.
Taphonomy was once described to me as the loss of information in the fossil record. I'm not quite that pessimistic. For example, if your fossil shows signs of being eaten by crocodiles then you know that there were crocodiles around. But I'm a paleoecologist so I'm into that sort of thing.
Regardless, taphonomy is the transition from the life assemblage, which is all the biology going on in a certain area, to the fossil assemblage, which is what the paleontologist finds in the rock record. If you don't understand taphonomy you don't understand anything in paleo.

more to come....

... once more with feeling

2008-10-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

Ok I've just emerged from another blogging crisis. My blogging crises have two parts 1) why would anyone bother to read what I write and 2) if I had "real" content it might be more wortwhile. Problem is, real content tends to be time consuming. Right now with two publications waiting at the door, a lab manual to finish writing, an online class to develp and a book publisher waiting for material blogging with very few people reading seems a bit less important. But I do want to build this blog into something and that requires effort.
So the new model: more content, real content but in shorter posts.

if you blog it they will come...

2008-10-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

Ok I came in this morning, I unlocked the class room for my students. I unlocked my office, I went back down to the departmental office for coffee. Given this exceptionally simple sequence of events...
where the HELL are my keys?!?

Update: In the office supply store room. My across the hall colleague figured it out because she saw me with some office supplies, knew I had been in there, knew I wasn't finding them anywhere else, hadn't heard me mention the store room and so figured I had forgotten I was in there and they were in there.
Elementary Watson
I work with very smart people

maybe she could be vice president some day...

2008-09-30T14:23:00.001-07:00

I am definitely not ready for the test.
I thought it was next week and did not have too much time this week to study for it.
Let me know what I should do.

Um.... study?

I got this e mail at 12:30 am last night. The test was today.

What Dreams May Come

2008-09-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

"You keep thinking Butch, that's what you're good at. "

the occasional fossil

2008-09-26T12:54:00.001-07:00

Protolindenia wittei yep it's a dragon fly from the famous Solnhofen limestone in Germany. A rock deposit well known for containing beautifully preserved fossils.

Today's occasional fossil insipired by this

...could not make this up

2008-09-25T11:49:00.001-07:00

My latest test had the following question:
Name the three properties of telescopes we discussed and explain why each is important.

Answer: 1) light gathering ability- because without it you can't see shit.

problem is.... he's kind of right. In a drunken fratboy sort of way.

give me the rifle and I'll give them a 200m head start.....

2008-07-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

I caught three students working together to cheat on a make up test tonight. ARGH

NOTHING pisses me off more than that.

.... over compensating for the previous post

2008-07-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

I want this rifle

If I start driving a Hummer someone shoot me

Getting in touch with my feminine side

2008-07-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

I want this bag.
If I start posting about shoes someone shoot me

Finals

2008-07-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Finals week is actually going pretty well. So well that my thoughts have turned to the fall semester. Two more to go then I enter grades then I'm DONE

The Occasional Fossil

2008-06-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Palm frond... just because I'm in an obvious sort of mood.

George Carlin Dead.....

2008-06-23T17:18:00.002-07:00

shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits

(sorry mom)

Paleo 101 Rambling Post on Uniformitarianism

2008-06-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

Uniformitarianism is usually the cornerstone of any class in geology or paleontology. Wikipedia (of all places) has a pretty good definition.

the assumption that the natural processes operating in the past are the same as those that can be observed operating in the present.

This usually just summed up as "the present is the key to the past". I don't really like summing it up though because it glosses over something very very important: Uniformitarianism is an assumption. When I look at ripple marks in a 300 million year old sandstone (see below)

I assume they form in the same way ripple marks form today by water running over sand making little "waves" in the sand (I'm NOT a sedimentologist can you tell?) See below:

Like I said this is an assumption but I think it's a valid assumption. Really it's not more of an assumption than any scientist makes. More fundamentally uniformitarianism means that the "rules" don't change. What ever laws of physics operate to make ripples today operated in the past to make ancient ripples.
Wait a second.
That's the fundamental assumption that underlies ALL of science. If we didn't assume that the laws of nature don't change then there would be no way to figure anything out, no way to do science. So why do geologists and paleontologists make such a big deal out of it? (believe me we do, we gave it a big name and we talk about it a LOT). I mean it's not like in chemistry the Professor says " ok the ideal gas law states that pv=nrt and it has ALWAYS been that way. ??? No, pv=nrt it just does and you assume it always has.
Geologists and paleontologists have had to deal with something that chemists and physicists do not: People who think the Earth is 6,000 years old. What geologists are really saying when we talk about uniformitarianism is: "if you are going to insist on believing the Earth is 6,000 years old then you're also going to have to believe that the laws of physics change significantly because there is no way that the rock that is on the surface of the Earth today could have formed in 6,000 years"
Now my guess is that people who believe this who believe the 6,000 year time frame would just call the suspension of the laws of physics a miracle and get on with their lives. But if that's the case then what's the point of any kind of science? What's the point of anything? Why get up in the morning if gravity may well stop working at any time or why dry to drive as your car relies on the ideal gas law and it may stop working.
Ok this has degenerated a bit so here's the crux:

Uniformitarianism just means that the laws don't change... for anyone, not for physicists or chemists or geologists. So when geologists look for explanations for what we see in the rock record we look to what's going on now. Because the processes that are acting now are the same as the processes that were acting then.

... the stupid assignment

2008-06-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Ok ok I know I'm fixating on this student BUT. My problem child came up to me today and said "I tried to do the stupid earthquake assignment"....

This may require more self control than I have.

Just in case

2008-06-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

If someone out there has an extra 850 dollars laying around (yeah right)

I take a 60 cm frame
(HEY ... it's worth a try .. you never know... )

Politics

2008-06-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Ok I really wasn't going to go here but: Barak Obama just did an interview in the Wall Street Journal in which he said:

I tend to be eclectic. I do think we're in a different time in 2008 than we were in 1992. The thing I think people should feel confident in is that I'm going to make these judgments not based on some fierce ideological pre-disposition but based on what makes sense. I'm a big believer in evidence. I'm a big believer in fact. You know, if somebody shows me we can do something better through a market mechanism, I'm happy to do it. I have no vested interest in expanding government or setting up a program just for the sake of setting one up. It's too much work.

QUICK someone elect him president before he changes his mind!!!!!!

speechless

2008-06-12T18:29:00.001-07:00

I have a student who has left me just speechless. She is utterly without... I don't know ... curiosity... I'm just amazed and just sort of taken back. She's been on me all semester about how she doesn't "do" math or tests. By not dong math she means not doing arithmetic I was talking about relative humidity and I wrote 5/10 and got 50% and she stopped me because she didn't understand. (remember I teach COLLEGE) So as the rest of the class groaned I went through the whole thing... feeling like I was teaching 5th grade.
Then yesterday ... she came to me after class to tell me she can't do the writing assignment. I asked her what she thought of the reading associated with the assignment. She said "Oh yeah I read that it was boring I didn't really think anything about it." I was just dumbstruck. How can you read something and not think ANYTHING about it??!!?? hell I think something about the damn phone book when I read it (Look at all those Smiths I wonder why that is?) she just managed to read a 5 page essay on the faith and science as and not think anything about it.

I think the girl has a serious future in politics

DING DONG

2008-05-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

In case there's any one here who doesn't read profgrrrl. She's getting married so pop on over and congratulate her.

where do they learn this?

2008-05-28T08:27:00.001-07:00

Over the past couple of semesters I've had a rash of students want to know if they can take the test then retake it if they don't do well?? In what universe is this acceptable? I've also had more than a few students tell me "I don't do well on tests" then look at me expecting something. My response is usually something along the lines of "figure out WHY you don't do well on tests and I'll do what I can to mitigate that but you have to take the tests". I have a feeling high school these days is a bit less... shall we say rigorous than it should be.

NASA baby... yeah (do your best Austin Powers)

2008-05-27T08:28:00.001-07:00

Our engineering club got a behind the scenes tour of NASA a couple of weeks ago. They asked me to come along so they would be sure and have enough professors. We got to talk with engineers who work with the International Space Station and the Vehicle assembly building. We also got to go drive around Pad 39B where Discovery is waiting to launch. Very cool stuff. Click on any of the pictures to make them bigger

The Vehicle assembly building. This is where they "stacked" the Saturn V for the Apollo missions and where they attach the shuttle, Solid rocket boosters and external tank.

Inside the VAB. Photography does not do it justice. It used to be the largest building in the world in terms of volume. Now it's #3 but still huge.

A used Shuttle engine bell in the VAB.

The tops of the solid rocket boosters waiting to be stacked for the next shuttle mission which is going to the Hubble.

Discovery on the pad

Looking straight down the flame trench.

The fence directly in the path of the flame trench where you really really don't want to be during launch.

crisis

2008-05-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm having a bit of an existential blogging crisis here, namely: "why would I think that anyone really cares what I have to say". That, and I've been a bit sick lately. I think the resolution to the first problem is: even if no one else cares it's still fun to write... and I am feeling a bit better. So blogging will hopefully resume soon.

it's over.....

2008-05-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

Graduation was today and so it ends. Blogging will resume shortly. Coming soon Uniformitarianism... yummy... tastes like chicken

fun notes

2008-04-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

The great thing about what I do is I have all this .... stuff... in my office. Which sometimes leads to some interesting circumstances.

things to NOT sign me up for

2008-04-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

Robotic prostate surgery
I saw a billboard for this on my way to my mom's house this weekend. There were two smiling surgeons with a machine behind them that had two ... shall we say ... metal fingers that looked poised to... um... open.

oh HELL no...

just wanted to make that clear.

End of the semester

2008-04-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

ARGGG pressure lots to do little time to do it....

I'm at blueschist, heading to eclogite.
ok that was a VERY bad geologist joke... pretend it was funny

The Occasional Fossil

2008-03-31T17:41:00.001-07:00

This is a crinoid, an animal vaguely related to starfish, sea urchins and sand dollars. They are not extinct, but they are not nearly as common as they used to be. There was a time when the bottom of the continental shelf was teaming with these things, now they seem to be mostly restricted to hyper saline environments. Below I have a reconstruction.

Once again this is an animal, it moves using a water vascular system, it can pump water in and out if it's various parts and when it does so it moves. In graduate school I was once caught in an argument between two professors about whether or not the water vascular system extends all the way to the bottom of the animal. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. (I just hmmmmed and nodded a lot)

4000 Dead

2008-03-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Plus tens of thousands wounded plus no one is even sure how many dead, wounded, homeless, displaced Iraqis, but all told probably millions
And why? I have yet to hear an official reason that makes any sense. Meanwhile the people who actually attacked us are running wild in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And here we are.... 4000

Paleo 101 Pt 1 What, if anything, is paleontology

2008-03-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I started this blog to was to give myself an opportunity to write about issues in paleontology and science in general. Things have been a bit light on that front so today I start a new feature: Paleo 101, just a very brief run through of what paleontology is and what paleontologists do. There are a lot of misconceptions out there . I aim to clear them up, at least among my readership (all three of you).

Ok first things first, what is paleontology?
Paleontology is the study of the history of life.
This is a pretty good definition but it's awfully broad and could be taken to mean a variety of things. So lets talk for a moment about what paleontology isn't. Paleontology isn't Archeology. We don't care about ancient civilizations, temples, pyramids, arrowheads any of that stuff. Once humans evolved to the point where they are "anatomically modern" we no longer care about them, that's where Archeology picks up. In fact, the study of human evolutions is paleoanthropology and is usually studied by people who are more anthropologists than paleontologists.
Paleontology is not the study of fossils. Although fossils are the primary tool we use there is much more to it than that. Nor is paleontology the study of dinosaurs. There is a LOT more to the history of life than just dinosaurs.
Life on earth goes back about 3 billion years. On both ends of this things get a little hinkey. (if you want to be a paleontologist you have to learn technical terms like hinkey) Let's say you're walking along the beach and you find a shell.
1) Is it a fossil? and
2) would a paleontologist be interested?
In order 1) probably not. Fossils are usually older than the shells you find on the beach (although there are places where fossil shells are washing up on beaches). Exactly how old something has to be in order to be considered a fossil is open to some debate but just about everyone agrees that most shells on the beach aren't. Also, fossils have usually undergone some sort of physical or chemical modification that has allowed them to remain intact for thousands to billions of years. Shells on the beach haven't.
2) Maybe so. Even though it's not a fossil, paleontologists spend a great deal of time studying the patterns and processes of life in modern environments in order to understand what's happening in ancient environments. If your shell is abraded or broken or fell victim to a predator of some kind or is laying in a bed in a particular way with a bunch of other shells we may be very interested in it. The philosophical underpinning for this way or doing science is called uniformitarianism which is such an important concept that we'll have a post on just that in the near future.
On the other (hinkey) end, the oldest undisputed fossils look something like this:
Got it? That's a fossil. It's a stromatolite. A mat of sediment that was trapped by a microbial community then was turned into rock. We know it's biological in origin because it has a particular chemical signature. This is the thing with really old fossils, we're not dealing directly with the remains of a organism we're dealing with the chemical signature of the organism in the rock. Consequently, you'll find a lot of disagreement out there as to how old the oldest life actually is.

Ok that'll wrap us up for today. Next time: Uniformitarianism.

I have the best wife in the world

2008-03-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

Archaeogrrrl went into the pool store to get some chemicals and stuff leaving me in the car with the dog and the A/C on. She came back, not only with the chemicals, but with this

radio control boat. Now I just need some ducks to chase.

ok, I'm freaked out

2008-03-14T18:07:00.001-07:00

So I get in the elevator the other day and the phone starts to ring (the elevator's emergency phone, not my cell). I don't answer it but apparently it answers itself. There's someone on the other end saying "hello, hello" so, being the generally genial person I am I say "hello". The person on the other end asks who he's called. I tell him that he called the elevator in this building of this campus of this college. There is a long pause followed by "boy did I dial the wrong number".
You can call an elevator??? Not to be paranoid but a person could call the elevator and just not say anything and listen.
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't meant they're not out to get me.

at last our long nightmare is over.

2008-03-13T13:15:00.002-07:00

Seriously isn't there anything more important. I mean... DAMN

Something nice

2008-03-12T11:55:00.001-07:00

I do so much bitching about students that I feel I need to share something nice. I made a small mistake when I wrote my last test for lab. This mistake made one of the problems MUCH harder. Most of my students were on auto pilot and did what I did. They didn't even notice mistake and did the problem what way I intended it to be done. BUT I had a few who noticed the mistake and did the problem as written and GOT IT RIGHT I was so proud of them. (I gave them extra points) it was great to see them take what I taught them and then ramp it up two or three levels.
I'm having one of those Maybe-this-isn't-such-a-bad-way-to-make-a-living moments.

anyone want to buy a television?

2008-03-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

I won't be needing mine any more.
The Wire. The best show on television EVER is over. It ended after 5 seasons but more importantly it ended when it finished telling its story. Unlike another HBO drama (you know ... the "S" one) it didn't linger on life support for three or four seasons. If Shakespeare were alive today and writing for television he would write The Wire. I just thank god for my DVD's.

The occasional fossil

2008-03-08T11:20:00.001-08:00

oh why wait
I was rooting around the net and found this:

It's a 125 million year old cicada from china. Click on the image to make it bigger, it's worth it I promise. You can see the segmentation of the body and the veins in the wings. That level of preservation is remarkable. I don't know for sure but this was probably preserved in a lake. A lot of the material coming from China is from ancient lakes. Because they usually have very fine sediments and not a lot of water movement lakes are ideal environments for preserving fine detail.

Spring Break

2008-03-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

It's spring break so blogging's been a bit light lately. Fear not gentle readers I have plans for the coming week including an effort to drag the blog back into more G rated territory.

getting her bag on

2008-03-02T13:27:00.001-08:00

The girl went to Macy's Lancome counter the other day for the free gift with purchase event. She came out with not one but TWO gifts. They had neglected to call her about this event (she heard about it on TV) so rather than have to choose a gift they gave her both. She's very excited, apparently they're very Jackie-O.

I'm having a project runway moment. Make it work people!

could be a while...

2008-03-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

Archaeogrrrl just read the last blog entries and was not amused. I offered to take the offending entries down to which she replied "oh no leave them up it's your blog"

"of course it's my body"

could be a long self-induced dry spell.

equal time

2008-03-01T21:23:00.001-08:00

I'm not gay but if I was...

cookie time

2008-03-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's girl scout cookie time!!!! Oh yeah baby. I always appreciate the way they pack the thin mints in those single serving sleeves. Two servings per box. None of the girl scouts around here seem to look like this though (and frankly if they did I'd be scared)

maybe if I carried a sword to class instead of a meter stick....

2008-02-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

A real e-mail (the names have been changed to protect the innocent)

Hi Paleoprof this is Laaaaaazy Lucy from you class.I was wondering if you could kinda explain to me whats been going on in class this week.And if we have any test after spring break,what do i need to study.I plan to be back in class after spring break.

and the response I didn't send

Dear Laaaaaaazy
Why yes, I'd be happy to give you a weeks worth of lecture in the form of an e-mail. See the attached 22 page document outlining, in great detail, everything we covered in class that I wrote especially for you. What ever you do, do NOT look at the notes, reviews and power points I provided online and assume we picked up where we left off. Under NO circumstances should you look at the book to help fill in any material that is not directly addressed by the notes or you may need extra help with.

You have, somehow, managed to figure out that we are nearing the end this unit. Under NO circumstances should you look at the syllabus that I gave you AND put on line, under the heading of "test dates" to find the date of said test.

I will, of course, continue to take a larger interest in your education than you are. Everything will be fine I promise.

Yours in servitude
Paleoprof

ps. I'm sure your English teacher would be happy to proofread any future e-mails before you send them to me. Just a thought

...seriously

2008-02-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

Who on earth writes the power points that you have access to when you adopt a book?!? These things are TERRIBLE I usually write my own but I'm running short on time so I'm adapting the ones that the publisher provided. Adapting... un-fu**ing. I'm not sure I'm saving any time.
ok back to work.

..update

2008-02-27T15:13:00.000-08:00

Just in case you were worried (mom)
Cell phone ... not radioactive
Computer monitor ... not radioactive
Plastic Mammoth... not radioactive
Real Mammoth (tooth)... not radioactive
Demo minerals for radiometric dating lab ... VERY radioactive (But not dangerous. Fear not, I'm not going to grow a third arm or anything. )

what the.....

2008-02-26T12:27:00.000-08:00

A diet coke can just appeared on my desk. It is not mine, I just looked and there it was. Strange..... Those of you who have seen my desk know that anything is possible. But still
(It's not radioactive by the way. )

The manhattan project redux....

2008-02-26T08:28:00.001-08:00

I have a gieger counter in my office now. Stay tuned .....

Been a little exictement around here

2008-02-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

So apparently one of our professors (not me) had the Gall (GALL I TELL YOU) to give a student who made an 88 a B. The student tried explaining to him that he was an A student even got his mother to come in and explain that he's an A student but to no avail, the grade remained. So now the student is making threats against the school and the professor. We have cops everywhere but somehow the student still hasn't done anything illegal, apparently we're waiting for him to do something illegal so that he can be arrested.
I'm not a gun nut. In general, I believe that more guns leads, oddly enough, to more gun violence. And I really do NOT believe that having teachers carry guns is a solution to the school violence problem. But in the position we're in right now... of waiting for this person to do something. I'm tempted to want a gun on me.

V-Day

2008-02-14T07:31:00.000-08:00

Happy valentines day!!!
Go find your sweetie and get your groove on.

The Occasional Fossil

2008-02-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

Ok I know I'm slipping, first the Friday fossil then the weekly fossil now... the occasional fossil. Work with me people I'm still finding my pace. I think this is the second trilobite I've done but that's ok trilobites are cool. Above there's a slab with a bunch of trilobites, most of them are Elrathia kingi but if you look very carefully near the top and a little to the right (click on the picture to make it big) you'll see a little thing that looks like a fat figure 8, that's Peronopsis here's a close up of one of those.

Peronopsis is a blind trilobite (most trilobites had really wicked compound eyes) and it's planktonic which means it would just float in the water column. Elrathia is a very common triloite you frequently find them for sale. Many times they're missing a part called the free cheek which makes their heads (which are actually called cephalons.. at least I think that's the plural of cephalon.... cephala???) look squeezed, you can see this in some of the trilobites in the rock above. They're still Elrathia kingi they're just missing their free cheeks. As with many trilobites these are great index fossils, these are common in, and restricted to the Middle Cambrian. So if you find one you know how old the rock is. Very handy

All Hail the Honored Dead

2008-02-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

REDDING, California (AP) — Raymond Jacobs, believed to be the last surviving member of the group of Marines photographed during the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, has died at age 82.

I tell my students that there are three very important groups of people passing away right now:
World War Two Veterans, The original civil rights workers, and the Astronauts, engineers and managers of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. These people did amazing things for our country indeed the world, and their passing is always sad. Unfortunately we don't hear about many of them till they pass. While in the Marine Corps I was fortunate enough to meet Joe Rosenthal the gentleman who took that photograph he, unfortunately, passed away in 2006.

Was that a game or what?

2008-02-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

Ok I'm not a huge football fan I'll start really paying attention around the playoffs then the super bowl then I'm pretty much over football. I enjoyed going to the games in college but that's more of a social thing. But DANG quarters 1-3 were ok but the fourth quarter was AMAZING and the right team won as far as I'm concerned. Very cool

just a thought

2008-01-31T16:50:00.000-08:00

Does it really not bother anyone else that one of the teams in the super bowl, the team that's about (probably) to go undefeated got caught cheating at the beginning of the season? I mean... really people. Dang.

someone is in trouble

2008-01-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

There was a relatively minor snafu with the insurance on our house when we bought it. As with all things involving real estate these days it's complicated but what it comes down to is that because of someone else's mistake we might have to have another insurance inspection done, we already paid for one but apparently there is something not right about it. Archaeogrrrl is having NONE of this, she is tooling up. She has phone numbers for state senators, representatives, real estate regulators, insurance regulators and anyone else she thinks could help. Someone is is deep trouble and thankfully it is not me.
PLUS yesterday these inspectors show up with NO notice they call me at work to tell me that they're at my house for this inspection. AND they want to know why my wife won't let them in. As if I'm going to call my wife and tell her to let this strange man into our house with her alone.
But anyway like I said she's tooling up... this should be fun.

Weekly fossil (almost NSFW edition)

2008-01-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

Ok so this is a very special fossil. I bought this amber pendant and matching earrings for archaeogrrrl at the 2000 national Geological Society of America meeting. It was the first jewelry I bought her. And if you're wondering about fossil content yes there are arthropod pieces in the amber (no you cannot get DNA from them) While at the meeting I went to the Zeiss booth and put it under one of their microscopes just to make sure (aren't I a romantic dog). As Archaeogrrrl says it worked because today is the 9th anniversary of our first date.
Y'all have a good weekend I know I'm going to.

Today I have learned....

2008-01-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

NOT to leave old Starbucks cups on my desk... I may absently mindedly pick them up and drink from them.... BLECK.
(it wasn't THAT bad but it wasn't good)

Galileo??

2008-01-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

Our story begins in 1633 when Galileo was convicted of heresy for suggesting that the Earth goes around the sun (cheeky bastard). He managed to avoid prison but was sentenced to house arrest. Fast forward to 1992 when Pope John Paul II conceded that the Earth goes around the sun (Good man there). BUT before that in 1990 when the current pope, Ratzinger, was a cardinal he said that he though the Galileo trial was "rational and just", and now... he's in trouble for it. There were plenty of people in 1633 who didn't think the trial was "rational and just" but how you can still think it in 1990 is... stunning.
Do NOT talk smack about Galileo I mean he's up there playing golf with God. He has a direct line...you don't.
Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Interactive class??

2008-01-16T08:56:00.001-08:00

Ok so I'm teaching what's known as an "interactive class" this semester. (My first thought was aren't all my classes interactive.) This is a little different I have a camera and a video monitor on my end and there is a camera and video monitor in a class room across town. In a perfect world my image would be projected on one screen and my Power Points would be on the other. For various reasons this is not working and we've had to seriously tweak the system and it's mostly working now but it is very different.
1) I'm yelling: as I lecture I'm talking way louder than I usually do to try and make sure the remote class can hear me.
2) I can't walk that much: I'm usually someone who walks half a mile or so during he course of a lecture I can't do that here because it moves me away from the microphon eso my voice comes and goes.. not good. they're working on getting me a wireless microphone we'll see.
3) eye contact: there isn't any with the remote class but that didn't stop me from staring down the computer screen and trying to MAKE eye contact all the while ignoring the class in front of me. My bad working on that one.

all in all very strange and I'm not sure it's worth all the trouble

Gotta get my GROOVE back

2008-01-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm up at my sisters' house for the weekend to be followed by a one day trip back to the elephant graveyard with my mom. We had dinner at one of those Japanese resturants where they do the cooking at the table: flipping food into peoples mouths etc. The food was pretty good but the kids LOVED it. They were fascinated.
I'm feeling like I need to get settled into my work routine, there are some very different things going on this semester that are going to require my attention to make them work and so far my attention has been taken up with moving and family I need to get back into me, the grrrl and work.

Students

2008-01-10T10:17:00.001-08:00

Profgrrrrl had some nice things to say about her students and I think that at the beginning of the semester that's only appropriate I'm SURE there will be plenty of time for complaining later but for now:
I too have some awesome students. One class in particular is not just laughing at all my stupid jokes they're making jokes of their own. They seem engaged and interested and all that good stuff that faculty dream of. Interestingly though, the class right before them.. dead... can NOT get a rise out of them. Funny the way class dynamics work. All the difference in the world.

House !!!!

2008-01-10T09:13:00.001-08:00

Ok I was hoping for a bigger roll out on this but with the help of our families Archaeo grrrl and I just bought our first HOUSE!!!!!!
It is SOOOO cool it has a fireplace and a pool and nice big rooms including a nice big kitchen that opens to the family room and.. and... and.. it's SOOO AWESOME. We are very VERY happy especially since we are almost done moving!!
Pictures soon

Lots going on

2008-01-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

so much going on in fact that I'm having trouble finding the time to Blog. Normal blogging will resume shortly stay tuned.

Recipe time

2007-12-27T08:56:00.001-08:00

Archaeogirl had a great idea:
1) Medium Starbucks white chocolate peppermint moca in a large cup
2) Peppermint schnapps
Combine to taste
YUMMY
HO HO HO

I almost forgot

2007-12-26T17:25:00.001-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS
Or, if for what ever reason you're not a Christian, HAPPY HOLIDAYS

(get it they're STARfish.... Christmas... star.. starfish)

Weekly fossil

2007-12-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

Ok Life is still all happening at once (or more to the point NOT happening.. more on all this later) so I figure it's time to get back to blogging a bit. Since I don't have any students to bitch about (classes start jan 7th) what better to do than a fossil. Hallucigenia (which gets my vote for coolest name for any fossil ever) from the famous Precambrian Burgess shale in British Columbia.

It's basically a little wormey looking thing with spikes on one side and noodley appendages on the other. The question is which does it walk on the spikes of the noodley things? When it was first discovered it was reconstructed like this.

Walking on the spikes. Now I ask you, does ANYTHING walk on spikes??..... It's ok I'll wait...... Yeah I didn't think so. So eventually cooler heads prevailed and now.

Ahhh much better. At some point another species was found with substantially smaller spikes that could not possibly have been used as legs. So, it got flipped. Isn't Paleontology just too dang much fun?

staying alive

2007-12-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

life is all happening at once right now hopefully I'll be back to blogging soon.