AMNH-IP-Columbia University Collection

 

Curation and Conservation of Columbia University Fossil Invertebrate Collection at the AMNH, Summer 2024 (A Pilot Project)





Columbia University Collection - Curation and Conservation - 2024

Week 5

This week...


We started our second to last full week off strong with all four of us working on cataloging, photographing, cleaning, and labeling. By the second day this week we lost a strong soldier. Covid unfortunately took Makena out of the workforce so there were only three of us working for the rest of the week. 

We also started the week off strong with a broken stool (whoops). 

By Wednesday we had recovered from our mishaps and went on a tour in the Anthropology department where John Hansen showed us around talking about collections and a bit about collections management. Due to the repatriation act which only allows people who have obtained permission to see the tribal artifacts, we were limited in the objects he could show us; so instead of Native American artifacts, John showed us some opium pipes, pigeon whistles, knives, pots, and blacksmith tools from the Han Dynasty in China. Unfortunately also, we were not able to publish any pictures of those  amazing objects due to museum imaging and copyright policies. 

We also got a chance to see the Invertebrate Paleontology collection of Ediacaran fossils. These are examples of the oldest animal fossils found. They date back to the pre-Cambrian eon, over 500 million years ago. From the information we have, we think they lived at the bottom of the ocean filter feeding. These animals went extinct by the beginning of the Cambrian, but there isn't consensus on why.  

Pictured on the left are some specimens we have been curating and on the right are some very dirty fingers (with ancient New York City soot perhaps from the 1940's) resulting from cleaning the fossils.

Today, we went to a talk by Dr. Roger Benson who works in the Vertebrate Paleontology department and studies smaller animals. The current project he is researching involves finding small fossilized bones in Scotland, collecting rock slabs that contain these bones, and CT scanning the slabs to determine what bones are inside. He and his team then take the scans and reconstruct the bones to make a digital model of the skeleton. He showed us models they made of salamanders and lizards. These scans allow him and other researchers to piece together more clear timelines of how animals evolved millions of years ago. 




On a lighter note, we have continued to explore the city and now that our dorm's dining hall is closed we have taken advantage of the (very expensive) food NYC has to offer. Yesterday we went into Brooklyn to get some delicious tacos from Taqueria Ramirez and finished it off with a little after dinner treat at Davey's Ice Cream. Pictured here are two al pastor tacos, two beef brisket tacos, and some vegan berry crumble ice cream. 

Comments

  1. Iphigene'sDreamAugust 10, 2024 at 8:51 PM

    A most entertaining entry for the week! You all are showing great fortitude and good humor when coming up against challenges. Some experiences with NYC cuisine are definitely in order, before returning to Colorado College dining hall during Fall Semester!

    ReplyDelete

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