The government is still shutdown.

National Fossil Day is still going to happen!!! Though you can't check things out on the National Parks Service website, you can still check with your local museum to see what's happening. Here are links to just a few of the fun activities going on around the country tomorrow:
Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, OH http://www.cincymuseum.org/events/fossil-week
American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY http://www.amnh.org/plan-your-visit/school-or-camp-group-visit/getting-started/programs-for-school-groups/drop-in-events-for-school-groups/national-fossil-day
Field Museum, Chicago, IL http://fieldmuseum.org/happening/national-fossil-day
Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT http://www.museumoftherockies.org/Calendar/tabid/62/ItemId/1845/d/20131015/vw/3/Default.aspx

Check out your local museum's website to see if they have anything fun planned for tomorrow!

It's coming!

National Fossil Day 2013 is just around the corner!

See if your local museum is doing anything special to celebrate! If they've got nothing planned, then plan your own special activities. Learn about your state's official fossil or organize a fossil drawing contest!
http://nature.nps.gov/geology/nationalfossilday/overview.cfm

Moroccan Marrellomorphs part 2

It took me forever and a day, but here are the closeups of the marrellomorph I mentioned back in February:

Besides the sheer aesthetic beauty of the specimen, it has lovely preservation of gill-like appendages on its trunk.

Here's a closeup of the bottom left photo: 

Moroccan Marrellomorphs

It's a wintry morning here in Connecticut, so I decided to add a little bit of desert sunshine to the world. I have been unpacking a new shipment of Moroccan fossils that we just received, and I came across this little beauty:

I know the picture isn't great, but I don't have a full camera set up out there. Maybe soon I'll take some close up shots with the microscope so that you can see its gills!

Selling science

A colleague of mine recently posted this article about the commercialization of fossils and its detrimental effect on the science of paleontology.