The holotype of Isotelus rex, MM I-2950

The Manitoba Museum is home to many unusual and unique specimens. Among the most remarkable is the world’s largest complete trilobite, the holotype specimen of the species Isotelus rex. Over the years we have occasionally received requests from other museums for replicas of this striking fossil.

More than a decade ago, before the specimen ever went on exhibit, we had a mould prepared by an outside contractor who also made a number of resin replicas. These were on the shelf and ready to be painted if an order arrived. But eventually those replicas ran out, and when a new order came in from a museum in Japan last year, it was discovered that the original mould was too old and worn to be used again. A new mould was needed, which meant that we would have to remove the specimen from its exhibit in the Earth History Gallery.

The I. rex type specimen, on exhibit with a trackway and other trilobite material.

So we pulled out the case, carefully slid out the fossil (this is tricky, because it weighs about as much as I do!), and wheeled it away to the artists’ studio to be worked on by Debbie Thompson and Betsy Thorsteinson. While the specimen was “on leave” from the exhibit, it was temporarily replaced by one of the existing replicas.

The following photos are Betsy’s documentation of the complex and fascinating replication process. Our artists are tremendously skilled, as indicated by the high quality of work in so many of our galleries, and by the attention to detail in the preparation of these perfect trilobite replicas.

First, the fossil specimen was coated with layers of latex to precisely replicate its surface. This was strengthened with cheesecloth.

A plaster jacket was built up over the latex, and braced with wood.

Once this had dried, the mould was pulled from the fossil. Debbie painted a layer of mould separator onto the latex prior to casting.

Ed suffering through spring snow and winds, during fieldwork on the Grand Rapids Uplands.

Ed Dobrzanski is a “fixture” at the Museum.  He had been a volunteer here before I started back in in 1993, and he has volunteered continuously for the past 20 years. Ed has done tremendous work as an amateur paleontologist, collecting, preparing, studying, identifying, and cataloguing fossils. He has contributed to paleontological field and laboratory work in a great variety of ways. For his all-round efforts, many of us are delighted that Ed has just been named as the recipient of the Katherine Palmer Award, a North America-wide award for amateur paleontologists, presented annually by the Paleontological Research Institution.

An inveterate collector with interests in a great variety of objects, Ed had a long career as a government meteorologist. When staff reductions resulted in an opportunity for early retirement, Ed took advantage of this to turn his volunteer work into a daily avocation. In his time here, Ed has contributed tremendous knowledge to the organization of fossil collections as varied as brachiopods (lamp shells), fishes, and bivalves. He has also donated many specimens to the Museum (and to other institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum), has contributed to exhibit development and public programs, and assists with all sorts of tasks in other departments of the Museum!

Florence Zawislak (L) and Ed discuss a cartful of specimens.

My colleagues and I are fortunate to have Ed as a collaborator on many research projects. He is skilled with the essential field and laboratory tools: whether using a hammer, GPS, shotgun, survey equipment, microscope, rock saw, or lapidary grinder, Ed has considerable expertise. He takes wonderfully precise notes, understands maps thoroughly, and maintains a compendious knowledge of obscure fossil localities. Ed has been a key member of my field teams, and has also collaborated in the field with many other scientists such as Bob Elias (University of Manitoba), Dave Rudkin (ROM), Jisuo Jin (University of Western Ontario) and Jan Audun Rasmussen (Natural History Museum of Denmark). His efforts have resulted in the co-authorship of several papers, a guidebook, and many conference abstracts.

Ed Dobrzanski is a tremendous asset to the science of paleontology in Manitoba and beyond; it is wonderful to see this recognized!

Ed assisted visiting Danish researcher Dr. Jan Audun Rasmussen, who carried out field research in southern Manitoba.

Our elevator display case greets visitors to the Natural History areas.

The spaces that house Museum curators and collections are, perhaps, notorious for appearing to be crammed full of objects. Our work consists of collecting and organizing, and actively-collecting Museum scientists typically have many specimens spread out for study and cataloguing. Our collections rooms contain many thousands of well-organized specimens, but it is tricky to find space for the largest pieces. For this reason, some of our biggest specimens are not stored in the official Natural History storage: ever since I have worked at the Museum, most of our large mammal mounts have been in alcoves along the hallways here. If I wish to, I could say “good morning” to two muskoxen, a grizzly bear, and two mule deer just in the short space between the elevator and my office!

A replica ichthyosaur rests behind a variety of skulls: a large fish, a coyote, and a beaver.

It used to be that, when the elevator stopped at our floor, those inside would glance out to see our creatures, safe in their protective plastic cocoons. Although this may be an interesting sight (if you know what they are), it is hardly a fitting introduction to the great variety of activities here, and it made it look rather like a warehouse. A few years ago, we decided to remedy this; when an old display case came available in the Museum basement, we grabbed it and placed it facing the elevator to house an introductory exhibit.

A grouping of minerals, Tyndall Stone, fossil ammonoids, and bird gravel and "dino stones" (our idea of what pet products would look like if people kept dinosaurs!)

This display has taken years to develop, because we were always getting sidetracked with our real work! We placed a few items into the case right after we moved it, but then it sat untended for some time. Returning to the case a couple of years ago, we added a lot of interesting pieces and planned to include a title explaining what it was about, but again we of course became busy with projects such as the Biodiversity and Colours in Nature exhibits. Then, this past week, we finally managed to “finish” this display, at least for the moment, adding a title panel and several of the wonderful Haeckel posters that had been included in the Biodiversity exhibit.

This replica pterosaur was beautifully painted by Debbie Thompson.

What is the purpose of this case, and why have we decided to feature the particular items that are in there? As well as providing “eye candy” for those who happen to see it from the elevator on their way to other floors, we wanted the case to introduce the basic research and collecting disciplines that occupy this floor: Zoology, Botany, and Geology/Paleontology. Since it is not climate-controlled, and is subjected to dust, light, and vibration, all the items in it are robust. They are generally replicas or are from the stores of “teaching grade” objects lacking basic data.

This angled view of the case shows how it is surrounded by large mammal mounts (under the plastic, that is a muskox on a cart), with a specimen freezer behind.

Although the choices were limited, we were pleased that we could include some of our favourite sorts of items (an ichthyosaur replica, a box of fake “dino stones”), and examples of things related to some of the research that takes place here (Tyndall Stone fossils, snake skin). Undoubtedly the display will continue to evolve in the coming years as we come upon other suitable exhibits for it!

Around the Museum this morning, people are excited that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez visited over the weekend, enjoying a private dinner aboard the Nonsuch.  I am pleased that they liked the Museum, and that they were particulary interested in Ancient Seas. But there is another piece of external attention that I am just as pleased about, even if it is unlikely to ever attract a story on Entertainment Tonight.  In fact, I would have to say that I am “chuffed.”

A couple of weeks back, my colleague Bob Elias and I were contacted by the editors of the paleontological journal Lethaia, who were wondering if we might have photos suitable for their cover. It was time for a change from the ammonoid that had graced the cover for several years, and since there were going to be papers about fossil corals and reefs in a coming issue, they were looking for a suitable image of a Paleozoic coral.

So Bob and I scouted around to see what we had. I had some very good photos of Manitoba specimens, but they were all colour slides shot in pre-digital times and I knew from experience that it is hard to get a really first-rate image from a scanned slide. So I delved into the collection, pulling out some of those same specimens and placing them onto the flatbed scanner. With the scanner the pixel count is virtually infinite, and after a bit of editing I was able to get images that seemed to work. Bob and I selected a variety of photos from what we had, and sent them off to the editors.

Last week we received a message with this cover mock-up:

There, snuggled into the standard Lethaia cover, is one of the Ordovician tabulate corals from Garson, Manitoba. This is a coral generally identified as Calapoecia sp. cf. C. anticostiensis Billings; the image is of a colony that had been vertically cut and fine polished. The rock unit in which it occurs is the Upper Ordovician (Katian) Selkirk Member of the Red River Formation. This unit, more commonly known as Tyndall Stone, is quarried at Garson and used as a beautiful building stone all over Canada. The coral specimen actually came from rubble heaps at the stone quarry; what could possibly be more representative of this region?

This vertically cut and polished colony of Calapoecia records growth of the coral animals on the ancient tropical seafloor. The horizontal band of sediment to the right of the middle represents an interval in which the animals in part of the colony had died off. This was followed by regeneration as new polyps grew to colonize the "dead" surface (The Manitoba Museum, I-3413).

Maybe this won’t attract hundreds new visitors to the Museum, but it is still nice to have since it will make our existence known to people in very distant places. It is good to see our collections out there; they are so often useful in ways that we have not even thought of!

This spectacular crystal cluster was collected in September, 2009, from the Blue Point Amethyst Mine, by Lyndon Swanson, Greg Hasler, and others. It is the largest specimen Mr. Swanson has seen in ten years owning this mine! (photos: Gerry Benger, Manitoba Geological Survey)

For the past several years, I have been working with the Mineral Society of Manitoba to develop a mineral exhibit at the Museum. This partnership has been a wonderfully positive one; among other achievements the Society has donated to us a gorgeous selenite (gypsum) cluster from the Winnipeg Floodway, which I hope to show you on this page at some point.

So it was not a total surprise when in the fall of 2009, I received a call from my geologist colleague John Biczok (who is also president of the Mineral Society), telling me that they had found another superb specimen for us.  The gist of his call was that,

“We have the biggest amethyst cluster I have ever seen, and it is in the back of a truck. Greg Hasler has just pulled it out of the Thunder Bay amethyst mines and it has mud all over it. Where can we deliver it at the Museum, so that we can clean it up?”

The amethyst was pressure washed at the mine, after extraction from the ground. The Thunder Bay area is home to the most productive amethyst mines in North America. (photo: Cindy Hasler)

Continue reading ‘A.M.E.T.H.Y.S.T.’

The Jaws and Teeth Exhibit, 2007

(photo by Hans Thater)

Since one function of the blog is to focus on our collections, it seems like a good place to occasionally revisit past exhibits, especially those showing items that are normally stored away in the back rooms.

(photo by Hans Thater)

I was particularly pleased by the Jaws and Teeth exhibit, which was curated by Randy Mooi and me a few years ago. We combined zoological and paleontological specimens to demonstrate vertebrate anatomy and evolution, with a particular focus on adaptations for eating.

This walrus skull was front and centre as you entered the room (photo: Randy Mooi).

We loved doing this exhibit. To us, it was an opportunity to explore some of the best aspects of the traditional Natural History museum. And the public seemed to thoroughly enjoy it; we would always see family groups in the exhibit, animatedly discussing the various skulls and comparing their similarities. It really showed us that traditional exhibits can still fulfil an important function in the modern museum!

This case of shark jaws and teeth highlighted the adaptations of one of the most long-lived vertebrate groups (photo by Hans Thater)

Mounted jaws of the Tiger Shark, Galeocerdo, show how the teeth are continuously replaced like objects on a conveyor belt!

This case exhibited the diversity of mammal groups, both living and fossil (photo by Hans Thater).

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A human skull is compared to the skulls of other mammals. The beaver skull on the lower right is from an animal that had a displaced jaw, so that the teeth did not meet and wear normally. Its lower right incisor grew continuously until it met the skull! (photo by Hans Thater)

These are the skulls of familiar creatures such as dog, cat, pig, and pigeon.

The skulls of carnivorous mammals are of great interest, and merited their own case.

Skulls of a polar bear (left) and wolf (photo by Randy Mooi)

Skulls of a variety of "reptiles" and birds. A modern crocodile is compared to one from the Eocene Epoch, showing how little these creatures have changed in the last 50 million years!

(photo by Hans Thater)

Collecting fossils in the Grand Rapids Uplands, August, 2010

Last week, I discovered several very exciting fossils. Some of these are unusual, so unusual that they will certainly end up as the subject of future scientific publications. One of them is only the second known specimen, worldwide, of a particular group for the entire Ordovician Period!

But how, you must wonder, did I manage to make these discoveries? Was I out in the -20 degree weather, scraping the snow from the edge of a quarry in the Manitoba Interlake so that I could get at the rock beneath? Was I taking time away from the Museum, collecting fossils beside some calm tropical sea?

No, it was not as romantic as either of those possibilities. I was in one of the best places to find unusual fossils: looking through the microscope in my little research office. You may have heard of those situations when a large museum discovers an unknown dinosaur in its back rooms, stored away in field jackets from some long-past collecting expedition. But what you might not appreciate is that many of the most important fossil discoveries are made in museum collections, not in the field.

In the paleontology lab, trays of fossils await examination under the microscope.

I had thought about this for a long time, ever since hearing and reading about how Euan Clarkson discovered the conodont animal in a collection in Scotland. Conodonts have been known for over a century as small, fossilized tooth-like structures that are abundant in many rocks from the Paleozoic Era, but until the early 1980s it was not known what they really represented. Euan found the answer when he was looking through drawers full of specimens that had been collected long before from a site near Edinburgh known as the Granton Shrimp Bed. Based on this discovery, he and his colleagues were able to demonstrate that conodonts were eel-shaped fish-like creatures.

Continue reading ‘Voyage of Discovery’

Ed Dobrzanski holding the theropod coprolite

If we think about it at all, most of us tend to consider dung (poop) as a substance to be gotten rid of, not something to be collected and treasured. And that is the case for at least 99.9% of it, but of course the situation is different when the dung is in fossilized form, and when it comes from giant, long-extinct creatures.

Fossilized dinosaur dung, or coprolites, has been studied for nearly two centuries. Dinosaur coprolites can tell us quite a bit about the diet and physiology of the creatures, and of course they also make interesting “conversation pieces.”

The splendid agatized theropod coprolite (V-3106)

The Museum is fortunate to have a few good coprolites in our collection, but the quality of this collection was greatly enhanced by a recent donation from long-time Community Associate Ed Dobrzanski. Ed gave us, from his personal collection, two superb coprolites that he had purchased from a dealer about 25 years ago. These are both from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Utah, the 150 million year-old home of famous dinosaur bones such as those of Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus.

The first coprolite is the dung of a meat-eating theropod, possibly Allosaurus, since it is the most common large theropod found in the Morrison Formation. This example, perhaps rather graphically, carries the shape associated with its original source!

The second specimen is from large plant-eating dinosaur, possibly a sauropod such as Apatosaurus. At first glance, it appears to be a very ordinary, concretion-like rock. However, it has been cut and polished, and the internal structure is revealed as a strikingly beautiful series of agatized blobs and whorls.

The sauropod coprolite, with external surface above and cut and polished surface below (V-3105)

The following is modified from a piece I wrote for the Museum’s newsletter Features, with the addition of several images that would not fit into the print version.

A selection of the bones found at the Ruby Street site (photo: Hans Thater)

Have you ever seen a cartoon that shows the earth cut through vertically, with layer after layer of bones of extinct creatures hidden beneath the city?

Walking through the streets of Winnipeg, I have sometimes imagined the sediment and rock beneath. First the soil, then the old river deposits, beneath them the lakebed clays of Lake Agassiz, and then layer after layer of ancient limestone extending downward toward the Precambrian Shield.

Although we know all of those things are present, we rarely get to see them unless something is brought to the surface by some lucky coincidence. Each of those lucky coincidences can help us to understand the past that is preserved beneath our feet.

Crew working on the sewer excavation under Ruby Street

In November, 1969, workers were excavating a sewer in the Wolseley area of Winnipeg, near Ruby Street and Palmerston Avenue. At the bottom of a 10.7 metre (35 foot) deep trench, a stiff blue clay was found. Above the clay were sand and gravel containing bison bones, along with clams and pieces of wood.

Tipped off by an anonymous phone call, Dr. George Lammers, the Museum’s first Curator of Geology and Paleontology (and my predecessor in this job), visited the site and collected the fossils. Since then, these unusual pieces have resided in the Museum’s collection, where they have provided much information about Winnipeg’s distant past.

Continue reading ‘Beneath the Streets of Wolseley …’

At the Museum, events often take place in cycles. Of course we have the cycle of fieldwork and laboratory research, a cycle of exhibit preparation followed by installation, and, like many other workplaces, cycles in which there are periods with many meetings, followed by blessed intervals with very few meetings.

What you may not appreciate is that there are also cycles in our dealings with members of the public. There are quiet periods when I might handle about one inquiry a week, and then there are those other times when it feels like hardly a day passes without at least a couple of calls or e-mails asking me to identify fossils or explain geological phenomena. And invariably, when the inquiries heat up, so do the donations.

The past few weeks have been a very rich period for both inquiries and donations. I have identified some very interesting rocks and fossils, and we have received the three superb donations shown here. It is unusual to receive objects having this sort of quality and significance; to receive three within just a few weeks is quite wonderful!

An Ordovician starfish (asteroid) from the Stony Mountain Formation at Stony Mountain (about 450 million years old)

Fossil starfish are about as rare as Archaeopteryx teeth!  Of course an Archaeopteryx had a lot of teeth, but very few specimens of those teeth have ever been found. It is the same with fossil starfish. I’m sure that there were large numbers of starfish in ancient seas, but starfish are broken up very easily after death, by waves, currents, and scavengers.

Continue reading ‘Incoming!’