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I had the opportunity to get a behind the doors tour of Alaska’s Museum of the North while waiting for better weather in Fairbanks returning from a caribou hunt. Dr. Pat Druckenmiller, Director and Earth Sciences curator graciously offered his time for a look at what he and his grad students have been doing as well as a look at the collections room. The highlight is the thalattosaur discovered 2011 in Southeast Alaska. This is a new species and was described by Pat Druckenmiller and collaborator Neil Kelley. The detail of this fossil is striking and was beautifully preparer by JPC from the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, WY. In sharp contrast in size is the partial ichthyosaur found in 1950 and recovered in 2002. Pat said it was significant in that the fossil had stomach contents giving information on diet and what was present when this animal was alive. The lab had too much to describe here but of interest was evidence found with the dinosaur bones of bird fossil bones and tracks. These are significant in that it pushes back the date of bird fossils. Of interest to me was the collection of ammonites and I could have spent several hours if time permitted looking in every drawer. The highlight was two heterotrophs in concretions. The ice age mammal collection is famous at the Museum of the North. For me seeing the mastodon and mammoth lower jaws with their different dentition is interesting with my background as a dentist. Mastodon Mammoth Jaw collection drawer for hadrosaur From museum floor display These pictures show how the materials are archived From the lab From the museum floor displays.

An article you might find interesting…... http://www.alaskapublic.org/2013/09/18/thalattosaur-fossil-discovered-near-kake-may-be-new-species/ I first heard of Thalattosaurus when I read a book about prehistoric reptiles from California, and I didn't know that Mesozoic marine reptiles inhabited the waters off the Pacific Coast of the US until I read about where Shastasaurus has been found. The discovery of a thalattosaur from Alaska shows that North American thalattosaurs roamed the Pacific Coast as far north as Alaska.