Field Trip

The graduate students of the department are responsible for inviting a seminar speaker once a semester. Besides the hour-long seminar they present, they stay for a few days to chat with students and faculty, and we also get to take them on a field trip. I had heard about this fossil site last semester, and the field trip last weekend with the seminar speaker was my first opportunity to go. Essentially, it is a small sinkhole (well smaller than I would have expected) in a limestone quarry not far west of Gainesville, but is supposedly the one of the most productive fossil sites in the U.S.

After a basic introduction, we were handed screw drivers and instructed to dig. It is hard to see depth in the picture above, but it is mind-boggling to think much dirt (within the perimeter of the yellow sandbags) has been moved simply by digging with screw drivers. (Well the ground water has been exposed by blasting.) Just in our morning of excavation, we found giant sloth, turtle, fish, armadillo, and amphibian bones. I worked on helping to dig around a giant sloth claw in order to create a plaster cast (picture to the right). There is a whole sloth on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History, which is the size of a VW Bug, so it is not surprising the claw is as big as my head. Wouldn't it be great if these things were still extant?

And then we canoed a bit on Lake Wauburg (owned by the university) so our guest could see a gator and not miss out on the true Florida experience. We were also lucky enough to see two bald eagles. It was good to get outside last weekend (despite the cold weather), as I'm going to be holed up in my office this weekend working on a Sigma Xi grant proposal.

Canoeing on Lake Wauburg

Juvenile bald eagle

Lone cormorant