Pyenson Lab

PPC 2012: Dispatch 1

First post from Caldera, in the Atacama Region of Chile. We arrived in the early evening a few days ago, just as the sun set over the South Pacific. Jorge and I traveled overnight from the Northern Hemisphere (passing almost directly over our Panamanian fossil dolphin locality), and then met with the rest of the team in Santiago, before taking an afternoon flight to Copiapo. 

PPC refers to Proyecto Palaeontologico Caldera, a collaborative effort between multiple Chilean institutions and the Smithsonian's NMNH that focuses on the paleontology of the Caldera Basin. Cerro Ballena, for example, is just one locality in the basin; other localities, mentioned in previous posts, have produced abundant fossil marine vertebrate material. (We are happy to note that the group's first peer-reviewed publication, Valenzuela-Toro et al., is based on material collected in October 2011).

Here some quick shots as we get settled for some serious work in Caldera:

First thing's first: start the morning right. This is Jorge's first trip to Chile, and I think it is going pretty well. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)


Eduardo Yury Yáñez, Mario Cozzuol and David Rubilar Rogers at the grill. This is Mario's second trip to Caldera, but first as a co-investigator with PPC (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

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)

A Panamanian story: Part 1

Sometimes, in paleontology, serendipity can take you a long way.

About a year ago, Jorge and I received a call from Aaron O'Dea, a colleague from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. 

(A sequence of our field work, putting a plaster jacket on the fossil, working in the tidally influenced field locality. NDP in the gray ballcap, Jorge in the yellow cap, and Dioselina Vigil, the skull's discoverer, in the background of the top picture. Photo credit: Aaron O'Dea, STRI/Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archaeology)

Less than a month later, Jorge and I were on a flight to Panama, with the specific purpose to recover the skull of a fossil toothed whale from a late Miocene site along the Caribbean coast. Our friendly hosts and collaborators at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) played an important role, and we were able to prospect the exposed rocks with some extra time and eyes, finding some more surprises.

Read more about the first part of this story, on the Panama side, which was posted on the Smithsonian's Ocean Portal, including:

- Nick's blog posts (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) on the Ocean Portal's new Paleobiology Blog;

- A slideshow featuring photos snapped along the way;

- And a time-lapse video of the excavation site. We had to work fast!

(The skull as it appeared in 2010, under water. The snout extends to the left, and the inside of the braincase is to the right. Photo credit: Dioselina Vigil, STRI/Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archaeology)

We initially thought that the skull belonged to a squalodontid, an extinct group of toothed whales that are best known from the Miocene of Maryland and Virginia, but we now think otherwise. That story, about how the skull traveled to NMNH, involves its discoverer, Dioselina Vigil, and highlights her internship in the Department of Paleobiology's Vertebrate Paleontology preparation lab. Check back soon for Part 2 of this story.

Media: Bohaskaia in Canadian press

I've noticed that Velez-Juarbe and Pyenson (2012)'s description of a new beluga relative, Bohaskaia monodontoides, in this month's JVP has gotten picked up in the Canadian press. See the lab's publications page for more links to these media articles. 

Also, for those with access to the print journal or the PDF, you will notice some Canadian connections in the paper's Acknowledgments.

The list shows newspapers from coast to coast, including my hometown paper, the Montreal Gazette -- a paper whose sports section I poured over endelessly as a kid, digesting stats on the Habs and the Expos. (It is a profound twist that the local MLB team here, the Washington Nationals, is the translocated Expos franchise).

 

Follow Jorge in Baja...

Howard University Ph.D. candidate, Lab member and NMNH predoc fellow Jorge Velez-Juarbe (first author on the recent PLoS ONE and JVP papers) is in Baja California on an NSF-funded expedition to prospect and collect fossil marine mammals, with collaborators from Howard University, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and from Mexico (both Baja Norte and Sur). 

Follow along at his Caribbean Paleobiology blog (see posts #1, #2, #3 and #3.5)!

The usual suspects collecting fossil marine mammals in Baja California. See Jorge's blog for more details! (Photo JVJ).

Bohaskaia monodontoides, new genus and new species

Reconstruction of a new fossil beluga relative, named Bohaskaia monodontoides, in the foreground. Its living relatives, the beluga and narwhal, are illustrated left to right in the background. Coloration of Bohaskaia is speculative. Art by Carl Buell.

And now more about Bohaskaia. It's the name of a new beluga relative that Jorge and I described in this month's Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. And its namesake honors Dave Bohaska, which we thought was deeply appropriate. 

I detailed Bohaskaia's "making of" story  in my Smithsonian Around the Mall post last Friday. Also, you can read Jorge's post on Caribbean Paleobiology (in Spanish!). [Addition 14 Mar 12: Smithsonian's Ocean Portal is now carrying the story as well].

Lastly, many sincere thanks to our friend Carl Buell's hard work -- more beautiful art below.

Publication: Velez-Juarbe and Pyenson, 2012

Today, the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology released its March issue for 2012, which contained a new lab publication by Jorge and Nick. We'll be telling the "making of" story behind this paper shortly; below is a teaser from the PDF (available behind the pay-wall, unfortunately, for the moment).

 

In the meantime, I'd be remiss if I didn't give Dan a shoutout over at MotFP. Check out the gorgeous cover art and news media surrounding Kspeka et al. (2012)'s publication in the same issue, describing giant fossil penguins (Kairuku spp.) from New Zealand. In the Pyenson Lab, we love all marine tetrapods more-or-less equally, but we reserve a special place for regal penguins storming beachfront marked off by dead whales (in the case below, Waipatia maerewhenua).

 

Two Kairuku sp. penguins walk past a ripe Waipatia. (Artwork by C. Gaskin / Geology Museum, University of Otago). See Kspeka et al. (2012) J. Vert. Paleo.

Follow-up on Velez-Juarbe et al. 2012

The sea cow story continues: today the Smithsonian Institution's Ocean Portal leads with a news release by Pyenson Lab member and NMNH pre-doctoral fellow Jorge Velez-Juarbe, describing the findings from a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE. Jorge is the lead author on the paper; note the Spanish text published on his blog, and the English version on Ocean Portal!

Many thanks to the talented and patient Carl Buell, whose artistic reconstructions grace the titlecard of the Ocean Portal and were incorporated into Figure 2 of the eventual paper!

 

Publication: Velez-Juarbe et al. 2012

Today, a new paper describing an important feature of the paleoecology of fossil sea cows was published in the journal PLoS ONE. The lead author is Pyenson Lab member and NMNH pre-doctoral fellow Jorge Velez-Juarbe, along with his advisor Daryl Domning (Howard University) and NDP. We'll link more to further coverage on Monday!

Illustration showing reconstructions of fossil dugongid assemblages from Florida, India and Mexico during the past ~26 million years. Art by Carl Buell. (Figure 2 from Velez-Juarbe et al. 2012.)

 

Talk: Closer Look at National Geographic Society Headquarters

Yesterday, the Pyenson Lab took a field trip a few blocks north of the White House to National Geographic Society's headquarters, here in Washington, D.C. Carolina Gutstein (who is visiting the lab as part of ongoing collaborations) and NDP were invited by the Committee on Research and Exploration to share more about our work in Chile, including some of our recent discoveries from our fieldwork earlier this fall.

We had a great time, and stayed afterwards to do some interviews with their staff. Our contact there managed to snap the photos below on NDP's camera phone during part of the interview, which they did in a dual format. The photos are a bit shaky, but based on the wide smiles below, we were likely sharing a good yarn or two from the field. 

 Left to right: CSG, NDP and NGS videography staff during filming (NDP courtesy of Chris Thornton)