Member of the Month - November 2017 - Geschwhat

[Kane]

Those of us who live a bit more north are starting to feel the biting chill of winter's imminent arrival, bringing our collecting season to an end. There is even a really crappy song that was written for a crappy month (something to do with November rain? ). Although the trees are becoming bare, the days colder and shorter, it is also time for announcing our new Member of the Month!

 

By unanimous staff vote, we are happy to declare that November's Member of the Month is ...

 

 

         GESCHWHAT          

Speaking of poopy and crappy in an entirely different way, Lori has been with us for almost three years, being our on-call coprolite expert. If it's fossil poop, Lori would likely be the first to know!

 

Apart from ancient poop, Lori brings to TFF a tremendous amount of good will, whether it is in helping out with IDs, welcoming new members, or delighting us with her quirky sense of humour. I really can't recall many times while reading one of Lori's replies that I didn't end up smiling.  

 

GeschWhat -  Thanks for all you do and contribute here on the Forum!

Congratulations Madam ! Wear this Crown with joy as you earned it!

 

Care to tell us about your journey here to the Fossil Forum, Lori ??  This is your opportunity to tell us about your fossil journey.

 

On behalf of the staff here on TFF, congratulations! 

[Fossildude19]

Congratulations, Lori! 

Well deserved, and overdue. 

Thanks for your contributions to the Forum.  

[PFOOLEY]

Congratulations, Lori. Thanks for showing us that fecal matters.

[ynot]

If it were not for You - I would never have known termite poop is hexagonal. (can't get it out of My mind.)

 

Thanks!

 

And congratulations on the honorarium, it is well deserved!

[FossilDAWG]

Congratulations Lori!  You are unquestionably leader of the pro-coprolite "movement" (so to speak) here on the fossil forum, and we are all better educated for it.

 

Don

[Carl]

Woohoo! Rock on Lori! My partner in poop. Well deserved!

[Bobby Rico]

Congratulations  Lori . I always like the humour and kindest you add TFF both in your post and when replying to others. Very deserving Winner.

 

kind regards Bobby 

[Monica]

@GeschWhat

 

Congratulations, Lori!!!  Thanks for all of your contributions to the forum (and thanks again for the sticky-when-wet poop prize - I still get a kick out of it!).

[DPS Ammonite]

Filicities to our most fervent fossil fish feces fanatic on The Fossil Forum.

 

 

[Fruitbat]

Congratulations!  A well-deserved honor!  

 

-Joe

[Miocene_Mason]

Congrats to the coprolite queen herself! Well deserved!

[JohnBrewer]

Fantastic news and well deserved Lori! I always enjoy reading your posts which are always very informative and I feel there’s often a twinkle in your eyes as you educate us in the wonderful world of fossilised poo. 

 

[jcbshark]

Congrats and thanks for all your contributions 

[Ludwigia]

Congratulations, Lori!

[old bones]

Yay, Lori! Congratulations!  

[Ancient Bones]

Congratulations Lori  !!!

[Nimravis]

.Congrats Lori– well deserved.

[Coco]

Congrats Lori ! Very well deserved to the better of adventuress of the poo fossilized hunters, which never hesitates to put them all on her tongue !

 

Coco

[digit]

Congratulations, Lori!

 

If it were just poop you bring to the table, you'd still be worthy of this honor but you bring a lot more and represent the courteousness, informativeness, and good humor that makes this forum what it is.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Taogan]

Congratulations, a worthy occupant of the throne. 

[gavialboy]

@GeschWhat congrats 

[abyssunder]

Congratulations, Lori, that's a well deserved merit !
Sorry that I'm late.

[GeschWhat]

Wholly coprolite, crapman!  I didn't expect to find this when I logged on. I don't know what to say other than - thank poo, thank poo, thank poo!  

 

In all seriousness, I have learned and continue to learn so much from all of you. I can't believe I have been hanging out with all of you for three years. Thanks for all the pun! You are the best. 

 

 

 

 

[digit]

That'll do for now, Lori. But I'm sure many here are sitting and just waiting to hear your storied past and the fossil forces that lead you to your interest in what those long extinct animals have left behind (in your case emphasis on 'behind'). Please fill us in a little on how you came to be TFF's go-to person for all things coprolitic.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[GeschWhat]

Well Ken, you asked for it. 

 

I grew up in the Ordovician. My grandpa was an amateur geologist, so my earliest memories are looking for rocks with him behind my grandparents’ house in St. Paul. Once we had enough, we would load up the large metal rock polisher, Grandpa would add the grit and we would go look for more rocks. Grandma would only let him run the tumbler during the day because it was loud, and she was afraid it would start a fire while they were sleeping. Between each grit, we would examine the stones and he would let me run my fingers through them to see how smooth they were getting.  Once they were finished, he would select the best ones, put them on top of cotton batting in one of those old plastic card boxes with the clear lids, and give them to me.  

 

Fast forward a little, and the State of Minnesota started construction on highway 35E behind my grandparents’ house. They cut the road, but then there was a lawsuit, so they didn’t finish for years. That is where I found my first fossil. It was big, heavy, and looked like a “C” on its end. There were lines running horizontally along the smooth surface. On the backside there was a tube-like thing running through it. Sitting next to it was a larger tube-like thing. I lugged them down to show Grandpa. He said it was a fossil, but didn’t know what it was. Back then, of course, you couldn’t just Google things. You either paged through books at the library or took a trip to the Science Museum. My parents chose the latter. The museum had a special desk where you could take things to be identified. It turned out I had discovered a cephalopod. They had a huge one mounted on a wall and showed me about where my section came from.

 

Now I was hooked. Not on fossils, but the Science Museum.  Whenever there was a Saturday that I couldn’t play outside, I begged my parents to drop me off at the Science Museum. They always made me go with my little brother, but it was easy enough to ditch him once I was there. Like most kids, my favorites were the dinosaurs (and the Egyptian mummy). I spent hours looking at them, imagining what it would have been like when they roamed the Earth. Then I would go home and have nightmares about T. rex hiding in a cave that was going to eat my mom. I would always save her by lifting her up by her high heel and carrying her away from the cave. But it was still scary! Whew!

In the sixth grade I made my first trip to the old brick yards on a school field trip. We mainly found crinoids, brachiopods and bryozoans. I was convinced that those bryozoans were really skin from ancient creatures and the crinoids were their spines. It seemed so much more glamorous. Kids. Anyway, trips to the museum were then replaced by trips to the brickyards…with my pesky little brother.

 

As I grew older, life started to happen, and I fell away from rocks and fossils.  When I had girls of my own, neither showed too much interest in them. When I took them to the brickyards, they were more interested in the caves than the fossils. I can’t remember what age she was, but my youngest used to go to this nature center on school field trips. They introduced her to scat. I remember her spending hours in the backyard and then coming in with a shoe box of her treasures. Among them, various samples of animal poo. When I asked them what they were, she would proudly explain what scat was produced by what animal and how you could tell what they ate. After listening intently, while doing everything I could to keep from laughing, I suggested it might be better if she kept that collection outside.  I think that was a portent of things to come.

 

I absolutely love kids. As well as sharing the same maturity level, I find their little minds fascinating. Once I retired, I decided what I really wanted was to be an awesome grandma – like my grandparents were to me. The problem is, your kids’ cooperation is needed for that to work. So while grandparenthood alludes me, I borrow kids from family and friends.

Over the years I have noticed one thing most kids seem to have in common is their fascination with poop.  All you have to do is say the word and they start to giggle. Go to the zoo and they are ecstatic every time a tiger or elephant starts dumping a load.  While browsing the internet one day, I discovered coprolite.  Every kid I knew had to have a piece. Of course, at that time, I didn’t know most of what was sold online wasn’t the real stuff. But it was fun nevertheless. I took great care to find the perfect piece of coprolite for each child. To their dismay, even the grown children got a piece. For example, my daughter, Whitney, got a lovely one in the shape of a “W” for her college graduation. I’m sure you can imagine the excitement that ensued when she opened that small velvet box.

 

I used to volunteer on archeological digs with the Forest Service through their Passport in Time program. Unfortunately, the archeologist in my state retired and they quit having them in Minnesota. Wanting to check another item off my bucket list, I applied for a paleo dig through the same program. They had so many applicants, I wasn’t accepted that first year. The next year I applied again. Except this time, I revealed that I had my own private coprolite collection and was good at finding sh*t. I guess that did it. I was accepted and have been going on paleo digs ever since.

 

As it turns out, I really am good at finding…well…you know. I found three nodules grouped together on my first dig. I was in heaven. But when I showed them to one of the paleontologists, he said they weren’t eggs they were concretions.  I told him I didn’t think they were eggs, I was hoping they were coprolites.  He said no, and told me I could keep them. They were very crumbly so when I got them home I coated them with paraloid and put them in my “I thought this was” collection…right next to the perfectly round concretion that I initially thought was a musket ball from the Indian wars. Well the next year we were digging in the same place. I found another possible coprolite that was more poop-shaped. We broke it open and it had the same iron-rich core as the more rounded specimens from the year before. Barb Beasley, the other paleo on the site, suggested I send photos to Karen Chin after the dig. So, I did. Karen confirmed that it and those found the previous year were all coprolites. She also told me to NEVER put glue on fossil poo (not in those exact words, of course).  I returned the poo from the previous year to Barb (because they were found on public lands), and she suggested I start studying coprolites seriously. So, it began. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this is where I learned coprolites and fossil bone will stick to your tongue (most of the time) in the Lance and Hell Creek Formations.

 

Back to the kid thing – I wanted to share all the fun things I learned about coprolites and other fossils with kids. But I needed a way get them interested in the sciency part. My own kids always learned best through laughter. I remember when my youngest was studying carbon, we made up a goofy Dr. Seuss style poem about it.  With that in mind, I started writing. Next thing I knew, I had written a really crappy story. I started giving presentations to homeschool groups, as well as 4-H groups that would come to the dig sites. Not only could the kids touch real fossil fecal matter with their bare hands, they could look at it under the microscope to see what was for lunch. Of course, for me, the best part was the look on their faces when I stuck coprolite to my tongue and then asked for volunteers. Not a bad gig, huh?

 

As I got farther into my studies, I was discovering more and more things I couldn’t identify in my poop (the fossil version). Barb and Karen are so busy, I didn’t want to become a nuisance. Then I discovered The Fossil Forum! Everyone here was so welcoming, helpful, tolerant, FUN…and you guys had @Carl! Whether on digs or here on the forum, I have found fossil folks are truly the best people. Maybe it is because we all share that thrill of discovery and quest for knowledge. All I can say is that it is nice to have a place where others enjoy sharing what they know but don’t take themselves too seriously. It is okay to be wrong here. I guess it is because we all realize we have just scratched the surface. No matter how much we learn, we know little. Best of all, here on the forum, I get to see so many things I have never seen before…and I don’t have to try to find a place to store them!

 

Be well everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to share my story. I have attached photos of my first coprolite finds for your viewing pleasure.