First Taste of Consulting

So a fellow comes into the office today and asks for me by name and then thrust a slab of limestone into my hands. "Can you tell me how old it is?" he asked. Looking at the specimen, I saw that it was a highly altered, largely recrystalized colonial rugose coral. "Well, its older than triassic" I reply. "Oh really?" he said "we were pretty sure it was triassic. Are you sure?"
"Yeah, pretty sure" my confidence in the mans abilities rapidly waning "the whole group went extint at the end of the permian. You don't even really see many corals from the Triassic."
The man then explained that he worked for a geological consulting firm and that it was really important to know how old it was. Honestly, my best bet would be devonian. That was when everything was in full swing with rugose corals. Granted, it could be any time during the paleozoic, but really it would be very difficult to tell more precisely. If the guy is a consultant, why the hell is he taking really badly preserved corals to someone who doesn't even have a masters or specialization in biostratigraphy? Anyone in geology should know that corals are really bad index fossils. They're widely spread, but have little morphological variation over time. Oh, sure, I took paleo, I can instantly recognize the smallest, most poorly preserved pieces of every organism that has ever lived! I'll have a look at some of my text books but really, how irresponsible is this guy if he pawns his work off on university staff. I should tell him that I've figured it out, charge him to hear the information and then tell him that its Devonian anyway. No skin off my back if the well he tells someone to drill turns out dryer than the Palm Springs.

The Hermit Needs a Break

from hermiting that is. Canada Day is Friday and I'd like to go out partying, but since I divide my work time between the EAS basement and the semi-abandoned greenhouse complex my social links are limited. So if anyone wants to do something on Canada Day (or feels like crank calling me at weird hours), drop me a line. The number is (780) 437-8515 .

Okay, what the hell

What the hell did I do. I changed a couple of links (very slightly) in the template and now my column width is screwed up. I don't want to try and change it back without knowing what I did in the first place. Any suggestions? Beuller?

Mystery Fossil Revealed

After consulting many PhD's who couldn't even agree on what Kingdom to place the onerous specimen into, a couple of grad students in Dr. Chatterton's invert lab came to the rescue. Apparently its a spine from a shark similar to Listracanthus from the early Triassic of Wapiti Lake, British Columbia. They knew because they had collected buckets of identical fossils and even used them as a marker bed for the strata that they were in. The runner up identification was that of a very poorly known and rare graptolite, which was thought up by Dr. Fred Clark. In all fairness, having never seen specimens like that makes it difficult for anyone to venture a guess. As Dr. George Pemberton says "the best geologist [or paleontologist] is the one that's seen the most rocks [or fossils]."

More on the value of a BSc

A while ago while cleaning out a store room for the EAS department, I came across a couple of interesting fossils. They are not slab and counter-slab but they are nearly identical. Initially, I thought that it was a part of a plant, but having shown it to several profess in paleobotany who couldn't identify it, I'm now open to suggestions. I don't think that it's a spong because it doesn't have spicules, and I don't think that its any part of a vertebrate. Unfortunately, there is no locality or age information for these fossils. Below are a couple of photos.
The offending specimen:



Zoomed in to show detail:

Trans American Road Trip

For anyone who's interested, I'm organizing an end of University/ end of summer trans North American adventure. The purpose of this trip would be to travel north America and see much of its natural beauty as well as collect rock, mineral and fossil samples for a small Californian museum that I'm in contact with. This would be a road trip and the cost is dependant on the number of people that go. The more people that come along, the lower the price (i.e. of gasoline) per person. I'm looking for a few stalwart individuals, so if you oranyone you know would be interested in this, have them contact me. This trip wouldn't start until either mid or late August and would runas long as the participants are interested.

Missed Your Chance Charlie Brown

For those of you on the U of A campus today, I recommend going over to the faculty Club some time between 10:00 and 11:00 am. The reason is that Donald Johanson, the many who found the Australopithecus nic-named Lucy, will be there. He isn't giving a talk, but I gather that he'd be an interesting individual to meet. He's in town on non-paleoanthropology business, but the university managed to get an hour of his time and throw him a little party at the faculty club. I was personally invited but will regretfully be unable to attend. If anyone sees Dr. Caldwell, please extend him my sincerest apologies, but I'll actually be out at the EAS warehouse down at the research farm, and so won't be able to scoot over to the party.

On the floor no more

I have a bed. It's a big deal to me because it's the first sort of true bed I've had since my air mattress completely crapped out in mid December. My mom offered to buy me a bed when she came up to visit last week but my hermit sense told me that I'd soon be able to procure one for a small fraction of what she was going to spend. Its not that I didn't think she could afford it. Nor is it the case that I couldn't afford a normal bed for myself, I just think that there are better things to spend money on than my creature comforts. My hermit sense did not fail me, for just yesterday, the university sold off a bunch of surplus/ old equipment, furniture, and items from lost and found. I picked up a new (circa 1999) sound card for my computer, a key board for Hydrass and a lawn chair, which is now serving as my bed. All together I spent $10 CAD. The lawn chair itself was $2.

Quadruple Entendre

The Edmonton Sun, E-town’s crappier noose paper ran the following headline yesterday.

For such a simple headline it accomplishes a lot, a quadruple entendre in fact. The first meaning refers of course to the verdict of ‘not guilty’ in Jackson’s molestation case. He beat the wrap. The second meaning is sexual. I won’t demean your intelligence by explaining it. The final two might be combined into a single meaning because they both refer to Jackson’s song by the title “Beat it” from the late 80’s. The song used the term ‘beat it’ to refer mean ‘go away’ and as a play on the use of rhythmical music as a means of conflict resolution. By allowing the above headline the editor must either have a pretty good sense of humor (doubtful), or have not realized the second meaning (and therefore have the mind of a child).

Finally, information I can use!

Any great super villain has a doomsday device. Currently, mine is in the planning phase so that when I found this, I thought that it was just the thing I'd been looking for. Then I realized that I don't want to completely annihilate the planet (ala death star) but merely subjugate its inhabitants. Oh well. I suppose I'll just file this under plan B.

Old Habbits Die Hard

shoes
Originally uploaded by wgelnaw.

What is he thinking,
that California Will?
He goes around with one shoe on still.
One foot warm and the other chill.
Odd habbit of Califonia Will.

Look Out Ladies

Despite having broken the ties that bind several weeks ago (see: my world is a far brighter place now that you're not in it), I'm only now officially a bachelor. And now that I don't have a ton of work and projects to take up my time, I can focus on ahem other pursuits. Okay, granted that I'm a bachelor of science, but that just means that I can repeatedly and falsifyably be single.
My parents came up for the convocation ceremony and I was given the royal treatment. Each supper I ate was about as much as I spend weekly on groceries, but I'm not complaining. I enjoy a steak dinner. As for the generosity of other relatives, I made out like it was my bar mitsvah. Oh, and really, look out. I'm getting a van at the end of the summer and bachelor van jokes aside, I haven't driven regularly for about 3 years, so it'd be wise to give a blue chevy Astro lt van some space for safety's sake.

My How Much I've Learned

After 4 years of intensive study, including many sleepless nights and GPA of 3.6in my final year, I apparently can't tell the difference between an early jawless fish and a turtle. I was at the warehouse that containes many of the University's not yet studied specimens and was showed a pile of red Australian limestone sitting outside, weathering out. There were several chunks left around that were not in the pile of rocks to keep, so I was allowed to take one home. Finding one with a pit of thin flat bone with a dimpled texture sticking out I assumed that it was a turtle and that the limestone was from a Plio- or Pleistocene limestone deposit like at Riversleigh Australia. Apparently it's devonian and the bone I picked up was an armoured jawless fish similar to Bothriolepis.
Fish:


Turtle: