Pyenson Lab

Upcoming public lecture: Calvert Marine Museum, 11 May

I'm happy to share the flyer for my upcoming talk at the Calvert Marine Museum on Saturday May 11th, at 2:30 pm. CMM is a regional jewel for natural and cultural history, and the Smithsonian has had a strong relationship with it for many decades. Their fossil marine mammal collections, in particular, represent a >100 year sample from the nearby Calvert Formation, reflecting the museum's long-standing relationships with citizen scientists and local collectors of all stripes. I am thrilled to be speaking at the invitation of their Fossil Club, and only wish I could stay more than the afternoon and spend a few weeks in their collections. (You can get that signed and notarized, Stephen).

See you there. (Right, Dave?).

Economist article, in this week's print edition

There's been a lot of great feedback from the AAAS symposium, but perhaps none more prominent that a great piece by Geoffrey Carr in this week's issue of The Economist. I've always enjoyed their pithy tone; and, as a North American, their house style is downright charming. I also love that the words "fossil cetaceans" earned a sub-heading:

The piece reveals some of the plans we have in the works for display later this year, arising out of our work digitization the fossils from Cerro Ballena. We hope to share more later this year, but enjoy this tidbit for now. (h/t to our new digitization preservation specialist, Holly Little, for the photo).

AAAS 2013 in Boston...

I was in Boston this past weekend for AAAS 2013, where I co-organized a symposium with Jere Lipps of the Cooper Center about the evolution of the Great Whales. We had a great line-up of speakers, including paleontologists, a biomechanist (Jeremy Goldbogen), a bioacoustician (Megan McKenna), an ecologist (Daniel Palacios) and a historian of science (D. Graham Burnett). (Note, the list was dominated by scientists who are US federal employees or funded by federal projects). The Sunday talks were then bookended by a lively discussion. It was a truly integrative, intellectual feast, with many narrative loops.

Plus, I got to spot some science celebrities: Steven Pinker, OSTP Director John Holdren, among others. (Doug Erwin, I'm lookin' at you).

My talk recapitulated the story of what our team has accomplished at Cerro Ballena, including an update about the latest advances we've made with the 3D datasets from the site. This video, made by Carla Schaffer at AAAS, shares some more:

More news stories to follow, I'm sure.

One year since Cerro Ballena

It was roughly a year ago that our team finished digitizing the fossil marine mammal graveyard at Cerro Ballena, in the Atacama of Chile. (It was some crazy times). In the interim, news of the site reached many different news outlets, and it got covered by a terrific piece in Smithsonian magazine. Next year, we will have much more to say about the site, so stay tuned.

Until then, check out this nice mix of time-lapses from the different days at the site, during our November 2011 work. Tip of the hat to the wonderful laser cowboys.

 

PPC 2012: Anyone can cook

Well, yes, any one can cook -- but why have anyone cook, when you can have Prof. Mario A. Cozzuol cook?  I'd like to introduce a special dispatch from our South American journey: Cooking with Cozzuol.

Feast your eyes. I defy readers to find a better field cook. Some meals we won't soon forget, all fresh from just offshore Caldera. Condé Nast, you shut down Gourmet too soon!

Professor M. A. Cozzuol, original pose. Transverse cut on that steak is just south of 10 cm in anteroposterior thickness. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe).

Different fish, same fate -- our bellies. Note the cilantro and garlic garnishes. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Not quite into all that fish? Why not try some shrimp? Fresh camarones. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Chlamys cooked on the grill. After 10 minutes, they popped open, got a sprinkle of parmesan and cilantro. Done. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Fiesta de limon. Key ingredients. Reminds me that we also had some killer lemon pie at Casa Tornini with Tuareg (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Big up to my kid for letting me take his IKEA Italian espresso maker. That's now its second trip to Caldera. Eat your heart out, laser cowboys (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe).

PPC 2012: Dispatch 3

We're alternating our time out in the field with many hours in the Museo Paleontologico Caldera, housed in the old train station at the harbor of Caldera. Inside, the museum currently holds the entirety of Cerro Ballena fossils that were excavated in 2010 and 2011; we also added a few more on this trip, from some transect surveys we conducted on the west side of the road cut.

David Rubilar Rogers, from the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago, excavates a billfish snout from Cerro Ballena that we discovered along our transect. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe).

A typical afternoon in MPC's collections. MPC curator Mario E. Suarez (in green) laughs as Mario Cozzuol, a professor at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, shares a funny story. Note students and David Rubilar Rogers preparing fossil material at the bench. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

NDP excavates a mammalian vertebrae discovered along our transect. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

NDP photographing specimens in the MPC collections. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

PPC 2012: Go read Jorge's posts

Over at Caribbean Palaeobiology, NMNH resesarch student and Howard University Ph.D. candidate Jorge Velez-Juarbe is posting about his experiences here on the expedition to Chile.

Go check it out (Post 1, Post 2 and Post 3), and watch for updates. 

PPC 2012: Dispatch 2

We've spent the weekend out and about, revisiting a few localities, finding a new one, and then returning to the cabañas to discuss and write manuscripts. Today was a special blend of fieldwork at Cerro Ballena, twinned with museum work at Museo Paleontologico Caldera, in town. 

Historically, Caldera has staked its claim on being the port of call for major mining operations in the region, especially around the nearby city of Copiapo. Long-distance sea freight has made Caldera even more important, and many companies continue to set up shop in the vincity. Late afternoon, near our beach house, or home base. (Photo NDP)

A freighter anchored in Bahia Caldera, likely from India, loaded in ore, just as it was even 100 years ago in this small desert town. Cerro Ballena is in the center view of the backdrop, cut by the Pan-American Highway now running on strips both north and south. The entire 2011 quarry is now gone, but many questions remain to be answered about the locality. (Photo NDP).

The skeletons of Cerro Ballena, in their current state, at the Museo Paleontologico Caldera. Several dozen jackets -- many the size of a small boat -- along with many more dozen crates. Here, Chilean graduate students help label, triage and examine the material. Hard to believe that all of these fossils once covered the entire 2011 quarry locality, but, thankfully, they're all in a museum now. (Photo NDP)

Preview: Return to South America, Part 2

Next week, we'll be here.

A page from Isaiah Bowman (1924)'s Desert Trails of the Atacama in American Geographical Society. Something I found in a used bookstore in Vancouver in 2011. (Photo: NDP)

Preview: Return to South America

Things have been busy these past few weeks, with interns finishing up their internships, graduate students submitting postdoc applications, and preparing for another expedition to South America.

In preparation for the last item, I thought we'd share some recent images processed by the Smithsonian's 3D Digitization team. Earlier this spring, they stopped by the museum to scan the type specimen of Odobenocetops -- the walrus whale -- as part of the forthcoming digitization initiatives at the Smithsonian. New material of this species of enigmatic fossil dolphin relative was discovered last year in Chile. Stay tuned for more previews...

A preliminary peak at the digital avatar of Odobenocetops peruvianus (USNM 488252), reconstructed from CT slices in Geomagic. Many thanks to the hardwork of Smithsonian 3D intern Lauren Lewis!