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Hi there! My family found a fossilized whale brain in California. We have been sharing this item with the museum community for scientifc reserach. We recently started a blog where scientists and general folks can learn and comment about this amazing world heritage fossil. Please check it out: BROKEN LINK> www.whalebrainfossil.com< BROKEN LINK We are not selling ads or bloging for any profit. This is simply a scientific information site to share with the public. Your comments are welcome. We are working on an extended documentary with a production company. Keep checking back for new video footage if this is of interest to you. We are meeting with world class marine biologists next week to do an assement and comparison with "fresh" whale brains. Forgive my lack of science termanolgy.. Our goal is for this brain to ultimately be permanent property of the History Museum of Los Angeles. Thanks and I look forward to reading more of your posts! Fossils are amazing and I am enjoying this learning process. Needless to say, my son is now facinated with digging in the backyard! Respectfully, SLOfossil

How are dinosaur tissues preserved in deep time? by Tracey Peake, North Carolina State University, PhysOrg, May 1, 2023 The open access paper is: Anderson, L.A., 2023. A chemical framework for the preservation of fossil vertebrate cells and soft tissues. Earth-Science Reviews, no. 104367. Yours, Paul H.

Great open access paper about the Devonian Gogo Formation Lagerstätte, Canning Basin, West Australia. Trinajstic, K., Briggs, D.E. and Long, J.A., 2021. The Gogo Formation Lagerstätte: a view of Australia's first great barrier reef. Journal of the Geological Society. Yours, Paul H.

Well the soft tissue preservation of some Triarthrus etoni allowed scientist to figure out some of the legs were gills https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/14/eabe7377

Last year I got a call from my friend Gary. I have collected with him a few times and I have volunteered to help him with educational activities that he runs for middle and high schoolers many times over the years. He was wondering if I could go on a paid dig with him to a quarry near Rome, NY famous for triarthrus trilobites with soft tissues preserved. The deal was we each pay a fixed price, but we get to keep up to five trilobites each. Prepping could be provided for an additional fee. Other fossils we find were free to keep, but the dig owner reserved the right to keep exceptionally large or rare finds. After finding out more about the quarry and realizing it was home to the "gold bugs" I committed to go. It took about 3 or 4 months before Gary, the quarry owner and I finally were able to coordinate an open date to go, but that just made the anticipation build even more. We drove the 260 miles and met up in a pre-arranged parking lot. The quarry owner is a famous fossil hunter and now makes his living purely finding, prepping, buying and selling fossils. Despite that he has donated many prize fossils to museums and universities including new species and has been included on several academic papers such as this one. We'll call him Mr. M. (M for mysterious) We got to the quarry and unloaded our tools. Mr. M was a fountain of information about trilobites. The history of the quarry is fascinating all by itself as well. A quick Google of Beecher's trilobite beds will give you plenty of additional data about the place and the history behind it. This is the section that Walcott dug in before he later discovered the Burgess Shale. So, after a quick geology lesson we got to work. Gary found a beautiful example within 5 Minutes of starting, and he was up to about 4 before I found my first one 3 hour later. But I had paid the blood price to the fossil gods with the sharp shale. So I was rewarded with trilobites!!! I have a lot more to show, but it will have to wait for later.

I found this in the layers well above the trilobite bed at the Beecher's Bed Quarry in NY. It appears to be a segmented worm. I welcome opinions. Its about 5 cm long and 2 mm wide. The photos of the ends are taken through a microscope.