I'm back to the Forum - with updates about Danish crocodiles :)

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

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!

[RuMert]

Glad you're back Good presentation

[FossilNerd]

Welcome back! 

I just listened to your talk. Very interesting! Thanks for posting.

[Manticocerasman]

Welcome back Christian 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Interesting presentation! Learned some things I don't know yet

 

Good to have you back, Christian! 

[jpc]

Nice job on your presentation