Search the Community

Hey hope y'all are doing well! Seems like I've been absent from here quite some time, huh? Between a rather intense semester at uni, and research work for the GeoCenter museum in Denmark, it's been a pretty darn busy past few months... But I'm back now, with some neat updates about the paleo stuff I've been up to lately Can't wait to browse through all the different TFF threads from the last weeks, too! The biggest thing I got up to - I participated for the first time in a paleontology conference!! It was really fun, I got to meet other up-and-coming paleontologists, took a workshop led by the brilliant Phil Mannion on how to better use the Paleobiology Database - and most importantly, there were some truly excellent talks about all sorts of interesting topics: unusual structures in mosasaur vertebrae, Silurian benthos paleoecology, resolving pterosaur taxonomy... I like to think that my talk was pretty good too, it garnered quite a bit of attention I presented Thoracosaurus crocodile bones from the Late Cretaceous chalk site Møns Klint (Denmark). My main conclusions were that the bones represent the oldest European gavialoid - and reveals that the transatlantic distribution of gavialoid crocs dates back at least to the early Maastrichtian. The Møns Klint specimen is also significant because crocs are simply darn rare in the chalk of Denmark, so new finds are really important to better understanding the paleoecology of the sea that covered Denmark and NW Europe in the Late Cretaceous. For those who are curious, here's a recording of my talk Hope you enjoy it!

Registration has opened from the 7th International Conference on Trilobites & Their Relatives in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is a four day conference (including a mid-conference field trip), plus pre- and post-conference field trips. The pre-conference field trip is to the Upper Cambrian of Wisconsin, and the post-conference field trip is to the Ordovician-Devonian of New York. The latter looks like it will visit some very enticing spots (unfortunately it is quite expensive!). The mid-conference field trip will visit several classic Cincinnatian sites, including possibly the famous Mt. Orab Trilobite Farm. I registered for the conference and hopefully can spend a few extra days collecting the Cincinnatian. Hopefully I'll see some of you there! https://www.cincymuseum.org/7th-international-conference-on-trilobites-and-their-relatives/

Just wanted to share this bit of good news with you guys - I was accepted, some time ago, to present at a paleo conference The conference, Progressive Palaeontology 2021, is organised by the Palaeontological Association and is hosted (online) by the University College London (my uni!). It runs from tomorrow until the 19th. Although registration is now closed, some talks will be uploaded to Youtube (it's possible for presenters to ask to have their talks stay up on Youtube, publicly, even after the event has finished). Now although the conference is mostly for master's and PhD students, I thought I'd still go ahead with trying my hand at getting into the conference. I'm so delighted I got accepted! For those who are curious, this is the title and abstract of my talk: Historical material of cf. Thoracosaurus from the Maastrichtian of Denmark provides new insight into the K-Pg distribution of Crocodylia Crocodylia is one of the distinctive groups that survived the K–Pg mass extinction event. New material from Late Cretaceous–early Palaeogene deposits is therefore important to understanding shifts in crocodylian distribution and ecology. This paper describes and assesses a fragmentary mandible of a marine crocodylian from the lower Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) of Møns Klint (Denmark). Based on features including narrow rami and curved, slender, and conical teeth, the specimen is referred to cf. Thoracosaurus (Gavialoidea). Although collected in 1968, the material has not yet been described. However, given its importance to crocodylian palaeontology, the specimen warrants further attention. This research aims to systematically present the palaeobiogeographical significance of the fossil material, assessed using digital palaeolatitudinal reconstruction. The Møns Klint specimen represents the oldest gavialoid record in Europe, with all other material deriving from upper Maastrichtian and Danian deposits. This indicates that Gavialoidea were present in the European Chalk Sea throughout the Maastrichtian, rather than being a latest Maastrichtian arrival. Furthermore, the Møns Klint ‘Thoracosaurus’ represents one of the only lower Maastrichtian gavialoids, the other two being from Mississippi and New Jersey (United States of America). The specimen thus extends the palaeogeographical range of lower Maastrichtian gavialoids across the proto-Atlantic and by ~7º in palaeolatitude. This reveals a transatlantic distribution of Gavialoidea dating back to the earliest Maastrichtian, providing further evidence for distributional communication between vertebrate faunas of the Western Interior Seaway and of the Chalk Sea. These factors therefore make the Møns Klint Thoracosaurus specimen particularly valuable to understanding distributional patterns of K–Pg crocodylians. I'm especially pleased that after several years, some of my research on the marine fauna from the late Cretaceous chalk of Møns Klint is finally getting "out there", into the academic/public world. A small step of progress for my Møns Klint Fossil Research Program! It'll also of course be great to see many talks on fascinating aspects of paleo research, exchange with paleontologists, and participate in workshops!! I'll make sure to post on TFF the recording of my talk once it's made publicly available Really can't wait for this, I'm so excited!! -Christian

Calling all preparators... The Association for Materials and Methods in Paleontology is having its annual meeting April 19-22 in Austin, Texas. This is open to the public and will be of benefit for anyone who is interested in fossil preparation, conservation, collections management, or related areas can usually pick up some new tips, methods, ideas, and understanding of how and why preparators do what they do. http://paleomethods.org/2017-Annual-Meeting/Annual-Meeting.html