Fossils on Fire: How We Evacuated A Museum.

Hello, Dear Readers!

It's been a busy two weeks for the Strange  Woman: the international assessors from the Global Geoparks Network have completed their on-site visit, and I now have a few spare moments to attend to both personal and professional activities.

It did not really occur to me how closely entwined are my personal and professional lives until this weekend, when I was telling the story of having to evacuate the PRPRC collections facility because of a forest fire that was encroaching on the town of Tumbler Ridge, and how this event will forever be associated with my marriage to my colleague and partner-in-paleo crime.

On a personal note, one of the most frequent questions I receive when I tell people that I work professionally with my husband in the same facility is "I could never do that - my husband would drive me insane! How do you stand it?" It's simple, really: he's my best friend. We think enough alike that we know how each other thinks and automatically have the other's back on important issues, yet have different approaches to these issues to cover multiple bases and explore new ideas together.

Along with celebrating the good times and fantastic results of our joint efforts, we are also there for one another during the soul-suckingly frustrating times. We may get the double hit of a budget cut, but since we know exactly what the other is going through, we can both plan, sympathize, and move forward together out of the fire. No matter what, we always have each other.

Our wedding was on July 1st, and even though it was a small event, there was still enough planning involved that we were quite busy up until the day; however, as the old saying goes, where there's smoke, there's fire. My family had arrived a couple of days before to help with the set-up and, of course, attend, and one of their first comments was that they were very disconcerted by the smoke rising above the ridge roughly north east of town. At the end of June, after a series of dry days and lightning strikes, a wildfire had started on Highway 52, and was growing larger daily. We were growing less concerned about our wedding and more concerned about the fledgling fossil collections of the PRPRC - what would we do if the official order was given to evacuate?

Not one of our choices was logistically simple. Our first option was to leave everything and bolt, taking only our personal belongings. We had had enough warning of the impending fire to cut and run with only personal items. However, that would entail leaving behind the fruits of our and those of several volunteers' efforts behind to suffer the whims of the weather and fire: we would be leaving behind the fossils. Rich and I didn't even discuss Option 1: these were some of the first and best representatives of Mesozoic vertebrates from British Columbia, and we both knew that the other felt it was our duty to do whatever we could to protect this part of our fossil heritage. This collection is bigger than ourselves.

Option 2 was to move everything out of the museum to a secure location. Unfortunately, this was logistically impossible. We could not arrange the freight in time, and the cost was more than our fledgling organization could bear (it still is more than we could afford if another evacuation were to happen.) At this point the collections had already accumulated several hundred specimens of Triassic vertebrates, not to mention dinosaur track-bearing rock slabs weighing several hundred kilograms each. The secure location part was not readily available: there was a muster station for evacuees set up in the nearby town of Chetwynd, but we wanted to avoid that area. Stress makes some people to odd things, and we wanted to keep stress as far away from the collections as humanly possible.

Option 3 was really our only option: to perform specimen triage, and identify those specimens that could be safely transported in our truck and educational van. All the computer towers and paper records would also be moved. In the event the evacuation warning became an order, we would load up the vehicles and leave the remaining specimens to chance.

If you work at a museum, imagine going through your collections and performing such a triage. What do you take, if you know your repository faces destruction? All the electronic and paper records, of course. Any type material would be the first to be packed, and if it were too large, any replicas or molds of said material. Other specimens that had been published would also be a priority. But what of the non-published specimens? What would be your criteria for selection? What becomes important?



Our wedding day was hot, and that is not a bad joke: the temperature was above 25C, and the forest was aromatic with dry needles. Most brides don't want rain on their wedding day, but this bride would have welcomed a torrential downpour if it had meant not having to worry about evacuating BC's fossils. There was no rain. After a small reception at the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery, we spent our wedding night wrapping and tagging specimens for the anticipated move. We were at the museum until 3am.

July 2 we had reserved for showing my family some of the hiking trails in the area, and we were able to visit most of them. My family were very aware of what we were facing in terms of the possible evacuation, and decided to leave a day early on July 3 so that we could focus on the museum. We spent the night of July 2 at the museum, putting the finishing touches on packing.

My family left just after 2pm on July 3, and Rich and I took this opportunity to catch up on some sleep. We were physically and emotionally exhausted. On waking around 7pm, we went outside to see the progress of the smoke over the mountain. I now know how characters in zombie movies feel when they wake from a coma and see the world around them rendered silent and abandoned. We made a couple phone calls and found that the evacuation order had been given not long before we had woken up. It was time.

I dropped Rich off at the museum to begin the official packing while I went back to our apartment for a quick personal pack. The very first item that was packed was my cat Maiahttp://birdsinmud.blogspot.ca/2012/12/its-3amdont-step-on-hairball.html: she was none too pleased at being unceremoniously bundled into her carrier and tossed into the cab of the truck. Next I packed our important paper documents (previously secured in one case as soon as we saw the smoke.) Then I packed a change of clothes for both of us, and, because they were still sitting out, our wedding clothes and gifts. I took about 15 minutes.

During the personal packing, I tracked down our Summer Education Coordinator, who was here without a vehicle. I picked her up at her apartment, along with a small, grey and white bob-tailed kitten that had been in the apartment next to hers. The kitten's owners could not get back into town, so we took the kitten with us. I have no idea what the name of the kitten was, but we called him Evac.

We went to the museum and began loading specimens. Both cats shared a space in the truck's cab, much to the endless dismay of a yowling Maia. We spent many hours loading specimens and documents: we had found that we had more room than previously thought for the move, and decided to stay, packing specimens into the vehicles until we were told in no uncertain terms that it was time to go. As we packed between 8pm and 11pm, we were visited a few times by the emergency response team. They were very curious about when we were planning to get out of town, and each time they stopped their insistence increased. We understood: they had a job to do and didn't want to have to worry about our safety while doing it, but I think they also understood that we had a job to do as well. During the loading of the specimens, we received concerned phone calls. The first question was "Are you guys OK?" The next question was "What is going to happen to the fossils?"

The final specimens that would fit - all the track slabs were left behind, but their latex molds were stowed on the top layer of material in the back of the van - were loaded just as fine, while ash particles began to fall around us. We broke out the field walkie-talkies and divided ourselves between the vehicles - Robin (our E. C.) and I were in the truck (with the two rather agitated cats), and Rich was in the van. We drove to our friend's house in Fort St. John via Chetwynd and Hudson's Hope, as the direct route was now inaccessible due to the fires. This white-knuckle drive took about four hours. Four hours of wondering if the remainder of our collections would survive. This fretting was accompanied by yowling from the back seat from Maia, repeated escape attempts from his temporary cardboard box carrier by Evac, and listening to the radio for updates.

Once we arrived in Fort St. John, we relaxed a bit. The fossils were secured, and we had nothing to do but wait. So we waited. We watched local TV to keep abreast of the updates, watched bad movies, played a round or two of golf, and ate pizza. We still jokingly call it the Evacuation Party. Maia was tormented by Evac, who wanted nothing more than to play with this other cat. Maia wanted to play as well, but only on her terms.

We were in Fort St. John until July 7. The evacuation order had been downgraded to an alert on July 6 after 4pm. The winds had shifted so that the town was no longer in danger, and 17mm of rain had fallen. The fossils could go home. Our Evacuation Party/honeymoon was over.

Collections management isn't just about keeping track of the history and location of a specimen: it also involves the health and safety of that collection, and having to consider everything that could possibly threaten that security. I often joke with VIPs that I'm paid to think of the worst things that could possibly happen to the fossils under my care, and to then come up with ways to avoid those scenarios. They laugh and I laugh, but it is a serious matter. Museums in the zone of the Ring of Fire must contend with earthquakes and possible tsunamis. Collections managers secret away valuable specimens in vaults and basement rooms during times of war or political uncertainty. Hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes are a reality for collections managers in tropical and flat locales. In our part of the world there are only three things that threaten the safety of our collections: forest fires, deliberate acts of vandalism, and loss/reduction of funding.

This began as a story about how closely my personal and professional lives are tied, but it really is a story about how seriously all collections managers, archivists, and curators take their duty of caring for our natural heritage. I am not the only curator with a story like this. It's not just a job: it's a mission to do the best we can by our ancient charges. Keeping vigil over The Dead is such a huge responsibility that it becomes an intimate part of all of our lives.

Fossil Commercialism and the Threat to Paleontology, Part 3: The Outreach

I recently did some consulting work on an i09.com article with Mika McKinnon entitled "Fossil Poaching and the Black Market in Dinosaur Bones". This is an article that was inspired by a discussion thread of "What Mysterious Creature Left These 190-Million-Year-Old Footprints?" on the issues surrounding the commercial fossil trade and private ownership of fossils among myself, artiofab, and someone who regretted not buying a trilobite trackway.

Please take a moment to read the "Fossil Poaching and the Black Market in Dinosaur Bones" article. It's full of juicy links to other media that highlight the issues with which academic paleontologists are concerned in regards to fossil heritage conservation.

The article does what very few discussion threads (or the media) address when tackling this quagmire of an issue: it suggests possible solutions that are neither "All selling and private ownership is evil!" nor "Have a Fossil Sellapalloza or you hate children's dreams!" It's a middle of the road approach that I think would benefit all parties in the long run (except those parties conducting illegal activities or exploiting impoverished areas by encouraging illegal activities.) I've summarized them below:

1. Develop a system to provide proof of legal collection.
- Did that specimen come from China? Likely illegally collected and exported. Is that tyrannosaur Mongolian in origin? That specimen was poached. Perhaps it is just me, but I can't imagine wanting to own anything that was illegally collected.
2. Have a review body of scientists clear items for sale.
- I like this suggestion, because it has the added benefit of the review body also being able to put sellers in touch with institutions that could archive the specimen, and working with them to develop a fair price or donation.
3. Regulated pricing of heritage items.
- Resources are involved when collecting fossils and preparing them, but having some sort of price cap (cost of collecting and preparing the specimen, plus a percentage?) would not only give museums a chance to realistically purchase a specimen for the public trust, but may help to discourage the illegal trade.
4 & 6. Register fossils in a private archives.
- As I've stated in a previous post, I would love to develop a Citizen Archives Program. The Citizen Archivist would be an official branch of our museum. They would be trained in the proper archiving techniques, and all specimens would officially be part of the museum's archives. Archives would be reviewed regularly to ensure that proper practices (e.g. no selling off or trading archived fossils, etc.), and there would be an agreement as to where the fossils went after the cessation of activity of the Archivist.
5. Remove fossils from the luxury market.
- How the hell did it become the "thing" to have a fossil in your home as a piece of art? I understand that fossils are fantastically fascinating and awe-inspiring, but that doesn't mean that they should be treated like art purchased from a gallery. People once wore dead birds on hats as a fashionable accessory: the "Plume Boom" in the early 1900s saw hundreds of millions of birds killed worldwide for the millinery trade. I would love the idea of owning "rare" fossils (the poor theropods seem to bear the brunt of fashion, extant or extinct) to become as fashionable as me wearing this to my next conference:

Umm..ma'am. I hate to intrude, but you have an ex-bird on your head. Image source: www.diaryofavintagegirl.com

I've also been contributing to the comments section of the article, clarifying issues and, in one case, trying to steer a comment back on track. I'm hoping that people will test-discuss some possible solutions, and I will discuss some of these solutions in future posts. If you have any ideas, please contribute to the discussion!

Setting the Stage: Neoichnology Field Work 2014

Hello, Dear Readers!

The snow is gone, the solar radiation has increased to levels high enough to turn me into a human lobster, and, best of all, the shorebirds are returning to northeastern British Columbia! The return of the shorebirds heralds the beginning of my summer neoichnology field work.

Neoichnology is the study of tracks made by extant animals. One of my research activities involves building a representative collection of shorebird (and other bird) tracks from the region. This year I am able to get an early start (for this region) on collecting data. Yesterday I made my first research foray of the year (as opposed to surveys for the return of shorebirds) into Bullmoose Marshes (thanks to the Wolverine Nordic and Mountain Society) to test a prototype of a Super Secret Awesome Track-Collecting Device.

Okay, it's really a piece of foam covered in mud. Super Secret Awesome Track-Collecting Device sounds much more exciting, doesn't it?

In the spring and early summer, when the water levels are still high in the marsh, the shorebirds go about their usual business of foraging and displaying along the submerged shorelines, except that their usual activities tend to not leave tracks. They also enjoy perching on partially submerged logs - again, not a substrate on which tracks usually impress.

The shorebirds that have first returned to the marshes this year are the Solitary Sandpipers.

This is why I need a telephoto lens.

Meet my quarry - the Solitary Sandpipers!

As you can see, they are quite content to hang out on logs, and there is very little shore exposed for these shorebirds to live up to their name. Rather than waiting for the water levels to decrease, I decided to try to bring the shore to the birds. Here is my step-by-step construction of my prototype for a Floating Ichnology Stage.

Step 1 - Gather your equipment:
- One piece of 5cm thick, high density polystyrene foam
- One stick
- A sharp knife
- Nylon rope, at least several meters long (depends on how much free water is available at the study area)
- A five gallon bucket
- A shovel
- At least one field assistant to take photos of their boss flolloping around in the mud (I brought both our field assistant and our summer education coordinator for an afternoon of birding)

All of the gear loaded into the back of Dagon, my trusty steed. There is enough material here for two stages.

We hiked all of the material out to the first viewing platform at the Marshes at the end of the Sora Trail. The next photos are a combination of constructing the two stages.

Step 2 - Attach the mooring rope to the foam stage. Obviously I will want to be able to pull in the stage after (if) I see shorebirds walk on its surface. I cut a hole completely through the foam. I tied one end of the mooring rope on the stick mid-length. (Make sure to clean up all the foam bits, or pre-cut in the lab.)

Step 3 - I then threaded the stick and rope through the hole from what I chose to be the bottom of the stage, so that the stick rests on the top surface of the stage and the rope is attached to the stick from the underside of the stage, as below:

Step 4 - Attach the free end of the mooring rope to a secure anchor point. At the Sora Trail site I attached the rope to a secure clump of willows, while at the Bittern Trail site I anchored the stage to one of the support posts of the dock.

Please, well-meaning tourists. Do not untie my stages. (I camouflaged the rope.) Also, please, well-meaning muskrats. Do not chew through my mooring ropes.

Step 5 - Mud the stage. I always use mud, sand, or silt that is local to the test area. One, I don't want to introduce foreign material to the area that I can't completely remove, and two, I don't want the sandpipers to think the surface is "strange."

It's like icing a swampy-smelling cake. The entire surface is coated with the local substrate.

It's a bit late, but this is my offering to #ManicureMonday.

Step 6 - Undeway!
I double-checked that the mooring rope was firmly attached to the dock, and then sent the stage out for its maiden voyage into the marsh.

It floats!

It's still floating!

Even if the strong winds that day blow the stages over to the shore, they will still provide a bare, soft substrate on which shorebirds can display and forage.

On the way to check the first stage we set afloat for feathered visitors, we found a small exposure of marsh mud. Solitary Sandpiper tracks were preserved! (Note: Solitary Sandpipers are the first shorebirds to return to the marshes this year, and so far there have been no sightings of the Greater or Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpiper, or the dowitchers.)

How many prints do you see here?

One way to collect data on shorebird prints is to make a phyical replica using fiberglass-reinforced plaster. I'm working on a step-by-step post that anyone can use to collect their own samples. A new addition to my data collection process is photogrammetry: I take several overlapping photos of the original specimen (prior to replicating) that can be used to reconstruct a 3-D digital model that only takes up hard drive space.

In-progress plaster casts of the Solitary Sandpiper footprints.

The plaster casts were successfully removed (as well as any spare plaster bits) and are now drying in the lab. Once the plaster is fully cured I will remove the extraneous mud from the surface and reveal the prints!

Tomorrow I'll revisit the stages and check them for prints. Hopefully I'll be able to report that the stages were attractive to the birds and well-used!

SAS

UPDATE 21-05-2014: Success! The floating stage at the end of the Sora Trail was not only used by at least one Solitary Sandpiper, but it was foraged on! The prints were very shallow, so I opted to take a series of 189 photogrammetry images (which I will begin processing tonight) instead of the replicating the entire surface in plaster.  Stay tuned!

The SS Cthulhu. (Yes, I named my stages using the Lovecraft mythos. It seems fitting, as they are covered with glop.)

Solitary Sandpiper prints on the SS Cthulhu.

Fossil Commercialism and the Threat to Paleontology, Part 2: The Rebuttal

Hello, Dear Readers!

A rebuttal commentary to the Shimada et al. (2014) paper in Palaeontologia Electronica entitled "The greatest challenge to 21st century paleontology: When commercialization of fossils threatens the science" has arrived! Larson and Russell (2014) have provided an article in support for commercialism in vertebrate paleontology entitled "The benefits of commercial fossil sales to 21st-century paleontology." Please take a moment to read the article before continuing to read this post.

To start with my comments, I think it is a well crafted rebuttal that goes through the history of commercialism in paleontology, and highlights some of the best-case scenarios where everything worked out in the best interest of the fossil resources and the depository of public knowledge. It (mostly) avoids the more reactionary responses that one usually sees on the paleontology-related list servers, and calls for greater co-operation among all parties involved with the care of fossil heritage resources. That being said, there are a few pits into which the logical framework of this article falls, and they are pitfalls that, in my opinion, do nothing to further the discussion of how to resolve the seemingly diametrically opposed positions of commercialism vs. conservation.

1. The "We've Always Done It This Way" Argument.
The commercial sale of vertebrate fossil heritage items is nothing new to the realm of vertebrate paleontology. Famous fossil collectors such as the Sternbergs were commissioned by museums to collect and prepare fossil specimens. This is well-known paleontology history for North America. While the situation back in the early days of the establishment of vertebrate paleontology collections produced a mutually beneficial relationship between academia and commercialism, it is just that: history. As the science of paleontology has evolved over the last century, so too must the commercial operations evolve. They have, to an extent: some scientifically important specimens do end up in public repositories. However, the day that the icon of the dinosaur world, Tyrannosaurus rex, went for sale at public auction for $8.3 million, was the day that people started associating fossils with swimming pools full of money. Gaining access to private lands in the US became prohibitively expensive for researchers. Poaching on federal lands increased. As quoted from a federal employee in the Washington Post article (link above):

“After Sue sold, it was truly frightening,” said Vincent L. Santucci, a National Park Service geologist who spent years investigating fossil poachers. “You heard people saying, ‘I’m going to give up my blue-collar job and move out West to find my million-dollar dinosaur.’ And it was worth the risk doing it on federal lands because of the economic rewards that might be gained.”

This is the mentality that associating dinosaurs (or any vertebrate fossil) with dollars now engenders: the get rich quick dream, the quest for the quick buck. This was likely the mentality behind the three examples outlined by Larson and Russell of ill-conceived attempts at making money off of fossil heritage resources: the illegally smuggled Tarbosaurus (one of my posts on the subject here, full of great links), the bill “HB 392", and the attempted public auction of the fossils within the Sternberg Collection at the San Diego Natural History Museum (the link provided in Larson and Russell leads to an error page on the museum's website: either the SDNHM removed the page or there is a typo in the link.) An item that was not highlighted by Larson and Russell was the "Dueling Dinosaurs" controversy, where a specimen that was speculated to be of scientific importance (a long read, but worth it) was offered at public auction at the low low estimated price of $7-$9 million (but generously offered to natural history museums before the sale for $15 million).

If the good working relationship envisioned by Larson and Russell involves North American museums spending on one specimen the same amount that could generously fund a multi-year field project, a collections renovation, several student scholarships, or educational initiatives, that vision is unrealistic.

I am still anxiously waiting for a reply on this issue to be made by our European vertebrate paleontology colleagues. As Larson and Russell point out, some governments purchase fossils directly from collectors. While no dollar values are provided, I speculate that the European commercial fossil dealers are not pricing the fossils they sell so high that academic institutions cannot afford this practice.

If commercial paleontology is to have a positive future in North America, there cannot be a "the sky's the limit" mentality to fossil sales. Either attitudes towards the buying and selling of our fossil heritage will have to change, or there will have to be regulated price caps on commercial fossil heritage items. Those items will have to be independently assessed prior to sale for their scientific value. We cannot rely on the dewy-eyed sentiment of "those were the good ol' days" to frame the conversation on the conservation of our fossil heritage.

2. Ad Hominem Strikes Again.

This particular line from Larson and Russell stood out:

"Shimada et al. (2014) stated: “We therefore consider the battle against heightened commercialization of fossils to be the greatest challenge to paleontology of the 21st century.” We believe, on the other hand, that the demonization and marginalization of a specific portion of the paleontological community is the result of misunderstanding, misplaced entitlement and simple intolerance."

Ah, welcome home, Ad Hominem attacks! You must have been homesick for this debate to show up again so soon, but I can honestly say that we did not miss you at all.

Misunderstanding is fine. Misunderstandings happen due to miscommunication, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows there has been no end of miscommunication in this debate. However, Larson and Russell attempt to deflect criticism towards commercialism in paleontology by saying the critics are entitled and intolerant. In essence, that commercialized paleontology is being unfairly picked on.

Newflash: science is ALL about the criticism. Science is critical of everything. Science does not wear rose-colored glasses and ignore issues. Scientists spend their entire lives having their work critiqued. Criticism is not the same as "being demonized." When I get a paper back from review, the reviewer was not intolerant and entitled, and my paper was not demonized. All that happens with criticism is that flaws are brought to our attention. Pretending those flaws do not exist, and trying paint criticism of those flaws a personal attack only serves to deflect the path of the constructive dialog that PE is trying to encourage. There are problems. How do we fix them?

3. Stop Lumping Private/Avocational Collectors with Commercial Paleontology.

This happens in every discussion I have seen regarding the flaws with the current way in which commercial paleontology is conducted in North America. Someone inevitably says that those entitled and intolerant academics are trying to kill hobbyist or avocational paleontology.

The issue with private fossil ownership in terms of owning a scientifically valuable specimen that is going to be researched is one of archival continuity. I'm going to pull this directly from one of my previous post on commercialism and private ownership in vertebrate paleontology:

"'What are the issues with scientifically important specimens being in a private collection?'
When you are a museum with a public-trust fossil archive, you are in essence making a pledge that you will do everything in your power to ensure that the fossils under your care will remain in the public trust. Public trust means that anyone who wants to do serious research on these fossils will be able to find those fossils 10, 100, even 1000 years from now. A private person isn’t likely to be around 100 years from now. There is no guarantee their descendants will be as interested in fossils as were Gramps or Gramma. There is no guarantee these fossils will be donated to a museum after the passing (or passing interest) of the initial purchaser. This is one way in which fossils are “lost to science” when they are privately purchased. It’s too easy to lose track of privately purchased fossils because there is no accountability for their whereabouts. There is no tracking system for scientifically important fossils outside of a museum setting."

This, in my opinion, is an easy fix, but it will require new regulations and resources. Create a paper trail for avocational collectors using existing natural history museums. Create a Citizen Repository Network.  This is a system that I one day hope to implement for our natural history repository. It was inspired by the Qualicum Beach Historical and Museum Society paleontology collections created and managed by Graham Beard, one of the shining examples in British Columbia of enthusiasm for and the proper management of fossil heritage resources. I once told our local paper that if everyone had the same mentality towards fossils as Graham, there would be no need for fossil protection laws. Another example are the volunteers of my institution. The bulk of our Triassic marine vertebrate collection would not exist were it not for these volunteers, many of them children. In fact, one of our holotypes, Rebellatrix, the fork-tailed coelacanth, would not have been described were it not for a volunteer collector who was 13 at the time she discovered the specimen.

I want to explicitly state that, as an academic paleontologist, I do not in any way confuse avocational collectors with the multi-million dollar price inflation that is displayed during the auction of a high-profile vertebrate fossil. If the issue of archival discontinuity were resolved, citizen archivists could house scientifically important specimens.

Larson and Russell (2014) provides a useful historical perspective on commercial paleontology in North America, and does briefly describe how commercial paleontology is managed in other parts of the world. However, this opinion piece falls into the previously dug pits of misdirected arguments. It does not offer any solutions to the current flaws in the commercial system they wholeheartedly praise. In fact, they do not directly address the issues of archival discontinuity and over the top prices to which vertebrate fossils and their researchers face in the commercial system.

I hope that more opinion pieces continue to be submitted to Palaeontologia Electronica, because a meaningful dialog has not yet been reached, but maybe this is the very start. I hope we'll get there.

Strange Woman

Fossil Commercialism and the Threat to Paleontology - Who Will Accept the Challenge?

I wonder if, in my lifetime, I'll see a resolution to the issue of the commercial fossil trade.

Hello, Dear Readers!

This post is going to be part summary, part rant. This is not the first time I have commented on the commercial fossil trade, and it will likely not be my last. Deep down I still believe there is a magical combination of words that will finally enlighten those who support the commercialization of fossils and they will get it. They will finally get why treating the only record we have of our planet's history like organic Pokemon cards does nothing to promote science education and knowledge. They will finally understand there is more to fossils than their current market (illegal or otherwise) value. I need to believe that people truly want to understand that our irreplaceable heritage is worth protecting.

I'm not the only one who believes this. Please read this thorough commentary published recently in Palaeontologica Electronica:

Shimada, Kenshu, Currie, Philip J., Scott, Eric, and Sumida, Stuart S. 2014. The greatest challenge to 21st century paleontology: When commercialization of fossils threatens the science. Palaeontologia Electronica Vol. 17, Issue 1; 1E: 4 p;palaeo-electronica.org/content/2014/691-great-threat-in-21st-century

The article was shared on the vertpaleo listserver less than 24 hours ago, and already the predictable sniping is underway:

For so many reasons.

Some researchers have brought up useful points, especially those in Europe who have good working relationships with their commercial collectors (I would be very interested to read a detailed commentary from my European colleagues on their experiences with commercial fossil collectors). However, the bulk of the comments follow the theme of the one above. This theme of commentary that is absolutely NOT helpful.

Here's the amusing part. The article was shared by the editor of Palaeontologica Electronic on PaleoNet. In anticipation of the name-calling, pseudoreasoning, and general unprofessional behavior of some of the commercial fossil trade supporters on various public forums, he wrote this (I'll write it out below, as the link doesn't seem to display the entire contents, and this link is difficult on the eyes):

"NOTE: I am not looking for brief "comments" on Shimada et al. Instead, I want detailed and well thought out statements that will contribute to a dialog on these critical topics. Please do not be hesitant to clearly stake out a position. I do, however, reserve the right to reject any contribution that I regard as impolite."

To all those who support the current state of fossil commercialism: here is your opportunity to convince us that the commercial fossil trade is beneficial. Many paleontologists have rationally and logically stated their concerns with the current commercialized system. Present a cohesive argument that details why the benefits of the current commercialized system outweigh the damage to fossil heritage resources.

I'll offer some friendly advice. Avoid the appeals to emotion and tradition. Don't paint yourselves as the downtrodden, demonized victims of the academic elite. No one will take that argument seriously because it offers neither factual content nor practical solutions. Frame your argument in terms of the fossils themselves rather than personal issues. How does the current system of commercialism benefit fossils? What is your evidence? Can you honestly see any problems with the current system, and if so, what are they? What practical changes can you envision that will allow for a greater collaboration between commercialism and conservation (I offer some suggestions here)?

In short: go productive or stay home.

Challenge accepted?

Strange Woman

Reviewing: A Thankless Job?

Hello, Dear Readers!

Excuse me for a moment while I brush the digital dust off of the blog. Ignore the cyber-spiders and the e-webs. There. That is much more presentable.

There has been a lot going on in my life since January, and much of it is not positive. I'm not going to elaborate on that here and now: those issues are still fresh and mutating, and I can't predict the outcome. I can postulate several likely outcomes, but which one will it be?

I'll focus instead on the productive side of my life. I made it a mission to continue with the paper writing storm we started in 2013. There have been delays, hurdles, and (of course) the unexpected, but 2014 is starting to bear the fruits of the academic trees we planted in 2013. First, a large ichnology publication on which I am second author is out, summarizing the work that has been done on vertebrate ichnology in western Canada over the last decade (the bulk of which includes discoveries and research by us and our volunteer team in the Peace Region.) Next, I am waiting for proofs for the published version of my M.Sc. thesis on Coelophysis dentition (this was the last update on that endeavor.) There are three collaborative papers that will be heading to press in March. All in all, not a bad academic start to 2014.

I have also been reviewing papers. If you have read my previous posts, you know that I take my role as Reviewer seriously and feel that, despite some flaws (check out the Nature's Peer Review Debate here), the peer-review system is the best means we have by which to produce and disseminate scientifically accurate information.

It takes time and effort to provide a thoughtful and constructive review of a paper. Most authors, who have also been on the Reviewer end of the process, recognize this. Most scientific papers contain an "Acknowledgements" section. There are items which should appear in the Acknowledgements section (e.g., grants, direct contributors who are not authors, etc.) It can look like the Academy Awards acceptance speech for scientists. If the current form of the paper would not exist without the input or efforts of other parties, you thank those parties. For example, in both the university and the published version of my M.Sc. thesis, I give shout-outs to the curators, collections managers, and technical staff who assisted me in accessing the specimens. I thank the people with whom I discussed the project at great length. I thank my committee. In the published version I thank all of these, and I also thank the reviewers.

Scientists, being human, sometimes take the opportunity to interject a little of their personality (humor, snark, noncompliments) into their published work (examples here and here).  For the big ichnology review, we really wanted to change the heading of the Acknowledgements section to "Ichnoledgements," but apparently that was taking a joke too far. Fair enough. In a scientific paper about dogs, one would not be able to change the experiment methodology heading to "Mutterials and Methods."

I flipped through one of the papers that I had recently reviewed. I find it interesting to see how the authors incorporate my revision suggestions. As a reviewer, I know that my comments may be accepted in full or completely rejected in a letter to the journal editor (with justification as to why they are rejected). In the end, it is up to the author to decide which suggested revisions to incorporate or ignore; however, the journal editor can also insist on or add amendments to the reviewer comments. [NOTE: Don't want to incur the wrath of your editors/reviewers? Show how you incorporated their suggestions!]

One thing that caught my gaze was the Acknowledgements section. Not one reviewer was named or thanked.

Interesting.

There is cranky, and then there is owl-strength cranky. Link to image.

While there is no rule that states "Thou shalt thank thy reviewers or forever burn in a pit of reality TV programming," you learn by reading (recent) paper after paper after paper after paper (etcetera, etcetera) that there are recurring themes in the Acknowledgements section. One of these is thanking the reviewers.

"Hold up, Shaman," you may ask, "why be annoyed? Aren't scientists expected to review papers? And don't you get your papers reviewed in turn?" (The extremely polite version of an actual comment received by a colleague not thanked by the authors for their review: the original comment contained the words "whining" and "self-centered.")

This cat is disappointed with your patronizing dismissal of my colleague's critique. Image link.

There are logical reasons for thanking your reviewers, especially if they are not anonymous:

• Naming your reviewers gives the final version of your paper historical transparency: everyone who reads the paper knows who had some influence on its content.This is exactly why thanking those who have directly influenced your paper is not just gratuitous thanks: great or small, they are also responsible for the final published content. Readers of that paper should know the names of the hands stirring the pot.
• Professional courtesy and respect: researchers are not sitting for hours with tense anticipation at their computer, eagerly awaiting the "BING" of an incoming email with a review request. They are writing papers, teaching and advising students, grading, serving on communities, and, somehow, having a personal life. Yes, we are expected to review, and yes, we expect ourselves to review. However, if a researcher has too much going on in the timeframe of the review request, they can decline. When a fellow researcher accepts a request to review your paper, they are taking time in their already packed professional lives to ensure your paper is ready to publish. That deserves acknowledgement.
• Naming reviewers lets your colleagues know who is functionally available to review papers on certain topics. This can be a good resource for less experienced authors who might not yet know who all the experts in their specialization who also are available to review manuscripts.

There are reasons why reviewers might not be named:

• Some journals may remove the names of the reviewers on their final formatting. This may be done to preserve a feel of complete objectivity during the review process, but in my opinion the benefits of naming reviewers outweigh the costs, especially in a field as relatively small as vertebrate paleontology. When in doubt, be transparent.
• The review is really, really bad. I'm not talking about a review that is critical and results in the rejection of the paper, but a truly piss-poor job done by the reviewer. There are some reviews that are negative without providing any feedback, insulting, or vindictive. Comments such as "This is wrong" without any follow-up information is an example of a completely useless review. Sadly, many of these stories seem to correlate with anonymous reviewers, but not all do. I feel that if a review is truly not helpful, there is little point in thanking said reviewer. They are not doing science any service.
• The reviewers are anonymous. I have mixed feelings about this. I thank my anonymous reviewers. Others do not. Reviewers may have valid reasons for remaining anonymous. Perhaps they know the authors well (a good chance in vertebrate paleontology) and want to write as objectively as possible. Perhaps they do not agree with the authors' conclusions, but do not want to risk offending a well-established colleague (something students may feel). 

As a personal example, I did consider an anonymous review for one paper only because I thought it was poorly presented and that the interpretations of the results were incomplete. There is always a chance the authors will take the review personally rather than as a critique on what was needed to bring the paper up to code.

Yes, in this analogy the paper is a house. Image link.

In the end I waived anonymity. There was nothing I put in the review that I wouldn't have said in person to the authors were they sitting in front of me as I read the paper. That was my choice, and I can't say that my choices are right for everyone. Each reviewer has to decide what they do with the option of anonymity: every situation is slightly different.

A final word (for this post) on thanking reviewers: I believe this is just the polite thing to do. Just because reviewing papers is an expected part of our jobs doesn't mean that we do not deserve to be thanked for doing our jobs. I thank the police when I have to call them. I thank my doctor and pharmacist. I thank waitstaff and the people who make my coffee. I thank my employees and volunteers. I thank my advisers and colleagues. They are doing their jobs, and I was raised to thank the people who help me. Everyone who does something for you is a person, and people like to be acknowledged for their hard work. It's the simplest way to let that person know that you appreciate their efforts.

Thank You.

SAS.

We Have Always Been Here.

 (An homage to Kosh of Babylon 5.)

(Updates: new handle,
"Just because it's publicly published does not make it accurate...Just because it's publicly published does not make it accurate..."

Oh, hello Dear Reader!

You caught me chanting my favorite Internet and popular media-related mantra. It is the mantra that I made my students repeat for every writing lab. The Internet and the public media are lousy with misinformation presented in a credible fashion. Opinion pieces are taken as fact. Cryptozoology web pages and books. Pig-chimp hybrids. Seazoria.

People working in academia are not immune to misconceptions and misinformation, as demonstrated this article by Nicolas Kristof. His article highlights, complete with affirming quotes, that academics have created for themselves a cocoon of irrelevancy in terms of public communication. Perhaps the academics in the disciplines mentioned within the article (Middle Eastern studies, international theory, history, political science) are not as active in social media and communication as they could theoretically be. I'm not one to judge what professors do or don't do with their time: Janet D. Stemwedel's article thoroughly and accurately demonstrates that a) professors have mandatory research, teaching, and service duties, and b) despite the workload, a multitude of professors do public outreach on Twitter, Facebook, and their own blogs despite these activities not being considered under "traditional outreach/service."

To preface my critique, I am not in a tenure track position. I am not working in a traditional academic position. That being said, I am an active academic (student though I am) and can comment on the relevancy of this article as it pertains to my specialty of vertebrate paleontology and related disciplines.

Paleontology, I feel, naturally leads to active public engagement. Tell a non-academic that you study fossils and chances are you will discuss the accuracies of the latest dinosaur show or the trending fossil-related news article. People love fossils. Fossils inspire awe and a voracious curiosity. Every fossil, from the fluffiest dinosaur to the boniest fish, has a uniquely fascinating story just waiting to be told, and paleontologists are fortunate enough to directly interact with these fossils to bring their stories to the world, first through scientific publications, then through the media and museum exhibits.

So, on reading quotes such as this,
'“All the disciplines have become more and more specialized and more and more quantitative, making them less and less accessible to the general public,” notes Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and now the president of the New America Foundation',

...I become a touch irate. Yes, paleontology has very specialized fields of study: histology (study of bone structure), palynology (pollen and spores), cladistics (evolutionary patterns). Heck, I have my own specialties: dinosaur tooth identification and vertebrate ichnology. These are rather extreme ends of the animal: if a dinosaur is ever found that was kicked in the teeth, I'll geek out all over the place.

What the New York Times article and those quoted within failed to acknowledge is the amount of training in basic information acquired by each rarified researcher. My paleontology training included cell biology, animal biology, ecology, earth history, earth sciences, statistics, calculus, basic anatomy, comparative vertebrate anatomy, invertebrate zoology, evolution, climate, ethology, ornithology, invertebrate paleontology, and a load of basic and specialized courses in vertebrate paleontology. A paleontologist may, for example, study the tooth patterns of an extinct fish, but that is not all they know: they represent an entire undergraduate and graduate education's worth of accumulated knowledge.

"Hold up, Strange Woman: these researchers may have the knowledge to speak on many of these subjects, but can they do it in a way that is interesting to the general public?"

Fair question, and easily answered. Nicolas Kristof does all of academia a huge service by pointing out:
'Professors today have a growing number of tools available to educate the public, from online courses to blogs to social media. Yet academics have been slow to cast pearls through Twitter and Facebook.'

[Begin sarcasm] Really? Social media exists for academics and the general public alike? It's not just a place to post pictures of cat memes? Holy crap! This is news! [End sarcasm].

The avalanche is well underway, and the above quote about the availability of social media as a tool for science communication is a pebble trying to influence the flow.

Here is a tiny list (not at all meant to be exhaustive) of paleontology-related blogs run by real-life academics (professors, researchers, and students), many who also have Twitter feeds. Many also have links to other paleontology-related blogs. Some are museum blogs, and the information on them would not be possible without input from their academic team. Some of these blogs are new. Many of these blogs have been around for a few years.


Archosaur Musings
Canadian Museum of Nature Blog
Chinleana (Triassic fun)
Dinochick Blogs  (with a long list of other paleontology-related blogs!)
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Inside the Royal Tyrrell Museum
The Integrative Paleontologists (PLOS Blogs) 
Jersey Boys Hunt Dinosaurs
Life Traces of the Georgia Coast (an ichno-tastic blog covering the traces of all backboned critters and those critters that likely taste good with clarified garlic butter)
Musings of a Clumsy Palaeontologist
PaleoBlog 
Paleo Illustrata
Pick & Scalpel (there is also have a Facebook page, WitmerLab at Ohio University, that is full of wonderful CT-scan images and 3D reconstructions)
Pseudoplocephalus
Rantings of a Canadian Evolutionary Biologist
Tetrapod Zoology 
What's in John's Freezer? (full of squishy dissection images, themed quizzes, and great skeletal anatomy)
The Whirlpool of Life
UPDATES!
Blogozoic 
4th Dimensional Biology

Vertebrate paleontologists are also very active on Facebook. Many natural history museums manage both a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Are these paleontologists blogging every day? Are they on Facebook and Twitter 24/7? No, of course not. As with any other academic person, paleontologists have both busy professional and personal lives. That being said, the amount of time and energy paleontologists put into social media is astounding. This is not including the outreach they do through public talks, educational days, museum open-houses, and the media.

One of the great joys I have in my career is the large amount of public outreach opportunities that I have. Talking to school groups and womanning Fossil Road Show booths are my favorites. Outreach started very early in my education. My favorite outreach moment is when, at a fossil booth for a Museum Open House, a four year old was absolutely convinced I was Ms. Frizzle from "The Magic School Bus". He stayed to reminisce about our adventures together through the human nose. Interacting with kids about fossils is a joy. I also develop our museum's educational programming, judge science fairs, visit classrooms, manage our museum's Facebook page, and speak to the media when contacted (we don't have a PR office). 

These are considered normal outreach activities, regardless if they "count" in terms of a traditional tenured academic career. I have met very few paleontologists that are put off by the idea to interacting with the public. Every scientific discipline has a subset of that community that is active in public outreach. We talk to the media. We give public talks. We run information booths. We talk to school groups. We design public museum displays based on their research. We advise on movies and documentaries. We are educators. We love what we do and want to share our fascinating world with you. We are not hiding from the public. We are not hiding from you. Ask us.

We have always been here.http://gimpasaura.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1