The Dry Dredgers welcome Dr. Brenda Hunda as our featured speaker this month. Brenda’s program is entitled, “Transfer of the University of Minnesota Paleontology Collections to Cincinnati Museum Center.” This program will give you insight into the inner workings of a museum and collections management. Museums and universities all over the country house paleontological collections. Sometimes these collections become “orphaned” when the institution decides they are no longer needed. Brenda’s talk will illuminate this issue and the process involved in the rescue effort.
Dr. Hunda has been the Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Geier Collections and Research Center since 2004. Her work at the museum includes exhibit design, educational programming development, community outreach in the form of lectures and workshops, curating the largest collection of Upper Ordovician fossils in the world, developing a research program, and exploring one of the highest diversity fossil sea bottoms in North America. Recently she spent considerable time and effort in the creation of the new dinosaur exhibit at the Museum Center. Dr. Hunda earned her Ph.D. at the University of California-Riverside, where she studied with Nigel Hughes. Her work there focused on Flexicalymene trilobites from the Upper Ordovician of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. While still a student, she was a three-time recipient of the Dry Dredgers’ Paul Sanders award (now the Dry Dredgers Paleontological Research Award).
TIME: 8:00 pm
DATE: Friday, May 24, 2019
PLACE: Room 201 Braunstein Hall
University of Cincinnati Campus
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The Beginner’s Class will be held at 7:15 PM, Friday, May 24th. This month our focus will be on those new to collecting with a primer on Ordovician sea life and fossil hunting. We’ll look at the many species that are found in the Ordovician and share collecting tips. A slide show and fossil samples will be used to augment the talk. Come early to obtain a parking pass or bring a credit card to use the nearby garage. See the Dry Dredgers web pages for more information.
Shale can produce well-preserved fossils – and it can also be a gooey mess of nothing. Thicker layers present more opportunities for finds, and the Kope is perhaps the best local formation for sheer volume in terms of possibilities. Add in the Fairview, and top it off with the Bellevue, and there is great potential for amazing discoveries.
For our May field trip, we are heading to Northeastern Kentucky - one of the more spectacular road cuts in the region in terms of sheer size and variety of fossils. Saturday, May 25th, at 10:00 AM – and as usual, this is during Memorial Day weekend.
This site has produced a wide range of fossils, including Glyptocrinus and other crinoids, edrioasteroids, trilobites, cephalopods, brachiopods, bryozoan – the list goes on. There is always a spectacular “find of the day” by someone – it could be you! It is a busy roadway, but parking off the shoulder is plentiful. NOTE: while there is temptation to climb up the layers – DON’T! The best way is to go to the southern end where the layers taper off and walk out that way; it is much easier to do that on the western side. Bring your sunscreen, hat, and collecting tools; it promises to be a great trip.
If you are not a member, but would like to attend the field trip with us, email Bill Heimbrock at billheim@cinci.rr.com and he will get you the information you need.
If you are not a member, but would like to become one, Join now by clicking here.
Steve
Felton Update The special bulletin for Steve Felton is in the works but it will be a while yet before it is complete. I will continue to accumulate remembrances of Steve for this special issue. If you have an interesting story about your interactions with Steve or how he influenced you please send them to me. Short or long, it doesn’t matter.
The Dry Dredgers are pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Dry Dredgers Paleontological Research Awards. The value of the awards for this year totaled $2,200.00. The winning applicants are:
Claudia Selles who is a Master’s student at the University of Alberta. Her project is titled: Latitudinal Trends in Successful Predation on Devonian Strophomenate Brachiopods.
Cole Farnam who is a PhD student of Professor Carlton Brett at the University of Cincinnati. His project is titled: A Chemostratigraphic Analysis of the Cherokee Unconformity.
Nicholas Smith who is a Master’s student of Professor Colin Sumrall at the University of Tennessee. His project is titled: Paleozoic Ophiuroid (Echinodermata) Biodiversity: Reconciling Disarticulated Skeletal Elements with Articulated Skeletons.
Joshua Zimmt who is a PhD student at the University of California at Berkeley whose project is titled: Reinterpreting the Late Ordovician mass extinction: A stratigraphic paleobiological perspective.
All four were deemed to be excellent projects by the selection committee. The Dry Dredgers offer our congratulations to Claudia, Cole, Nicholas, and Joshua. We hope to hear from them in the future as their projects progress.
The Dry Dredgers have now made fifty awards totaling over $26,000.00.
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