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Miocene Whale Recovered From & for Display at VA State Park


SailingAlongToo

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So, I had promised to post some photos as the preparation of the skull progressed, and I forgot. @MarcoSr posted some of the current status above in his December 6th update.

 

Here are few photos from this past January when we started matrix removal. It was a nasty cold weekend with the rivers and banks iced over, so we all decided to get our "fossil fix" by meeting up at Westmoreland State Park and beginning the long and laborious preparation job.

 

The 1st photo shows the jacketed skull waiting for some serious TLC. The Park was nice enough to store it in their Maintenance Shop since it was their off-season, which gave us a great place to work on it. I was going to crop the photo but the jacket sitting in front of the door really shows the scale. You can compare this photo to the photos from last month that MarcoSr posted. 

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2nd photo shows us getting down to business, slowly removing matrix with small tools. Dental picks work really well.

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3rd photo shows Mel (in red hat) and @bmitchell887 (Brian in tan) looking at a photo of a baleen whale skull on the phone screen while Dr. Wilson (in multi-colored hat) and @Daleksec (Trevor in gray hoodie) continue working. I'm wearing black in the background. Mrs.SA2 is taking photos and video since she was still recovering from her broken arm and dislocated elbow at this point.

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Another shot of Dr. Wilson and Trevor working. Notice how we "normal" people are all bundled up and Trevor is wearing shorts? Mrs.SA2 is in the green coat with black hat. I think Mel and Brian were trying to decide what they wanted on the pizza at this point.

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Another photo of the work progressing. Interesting fossil fact, Brian and Dr. Wilson got engaged on a fossil hunting trip with Mrs.SA2 and I along the Potomac River a few years ago. Cute couple and a lot of fun to hang out with.

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Here is a photo from mid-March on our third prep day. Mel is in the red hat again, Brian in the blue t-shirt, Trevor in the blue hoodie and Dr. Wilson in the blue ball cap.

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More from mid-March in next post.

 

 

 

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As that March day progressed, 3 ear bones, multiple cervical vertebrae and upper and lower jaw pieces started to be uncovered. Here is Trevor doing the detailed, delicate work. I'm pretty sure fossil prepping will be his profession one day soon. 1 of the ear bones is just below the bristles of his brush. Vertebrae are at the end of the brush handle. You can see jaw/snout running down the middle of the jacket.

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This photo shows the bones as they became exposed. We applied PVA to prevent them from crumbling as they dried.

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Quite a bit of matrix has been removed in this photo and we were ready to move the jacket to the Visitors' Center so the public could watch us finish the prep work. Vertebrae are exposed in the top, left of the jacket with several ear bones exposed on the left side.

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Here is the jacket loaded in the truck for transport to the Park's Visitors' Center. Mel and Trevor rode with it to make sure it didn't move or fall out.

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The Park set up a place for us to finish working on the skull right in the middle of the Visitors' Center so the public could watch. Since we are so messy they even put down some carpet. 

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In early May, it was time to bring the skull inside for the rest of the prep. Here is Michael (in uniform), Mel in red, me (in tan shirt facing camera), Trevor (behind door in green) and Ranger Steve (sunglasses in right window) carrying the skull through the front doors.

Congratulations go out to Michael who just graduated from the VA Park Ranger Academy last month. He now has a gun, badge, truck with blue lights and ticket book. I pity the trespassers and poachers that run afoul of him. 

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Finally, setting it down on the temporary display table. Ranger Steve is on the right and came in on his day off to help us finish the move.

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Looking good!

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Vertebrae, ear bones, base of skull, snout and mandible are all at least partially visible at this point.

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Right after we moved the skull into the Visitors' Center, Mel moved out to their ranch in Nebraska for the summer. Turns out, he's still out there now and has permanently moved to South Dakota to play with dinosaurs in addition to their Oligocene and Eocene fossils on the ranch.

 

Over the summer, Mrs.SA2 and I would go up to the Park and work on the skull, then send Mel photos, so he could tell us what to do next. Here she is on Memorial Day in all her "pinkness".

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Our friend Cathy (of Mid-Atlantic Fossil and Nature Adventures and also current President of the Delaware Valley Paleontological Society [DVPS]) was with us. She is the 1st female President in the clubs history. Cathy is shown discussing the VA Miocene with 2 of the Park's "educators" so they can pass it on to the visitors. Nicole, 1 of our favorite Park Educators is on the right. You can see photos hanging on the rope that show the process of excavating the skull from the cliffs and getting it to this point. 

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Can you say ear bones? What about bulla and periotic?

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MarcoSr's post from December 6th shows the most current status as he and Dr. Weems worked on the skull for 3 days.

 

Cheers!

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  • 5 months later...

This is a quick update.  Chantel and Tracie removed the last of the bones from the whale excavation hole a few weeks ago.  The first picture below shows the original excavation hole with my sons Marco Jr. and Mel.  The second picture, a year and a half later, shows the final bone removal.  The whale skull excavation had to be stopped several times during the excavation process due to unsafe conditions.  The whale skull was finally removed after about 6 months.  You can tell by the size differences in the hole how much of the cliff sloughed away during the time period of the excavation.  The time period was unfortunately made much longer by poachers who on two separate occasions broke open the jackets of the remaining bones.  The poachers shattered into a thousand pieces what was a perfect atlas vertebra which would have helped with the specimen id.

 

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I visited Rob (Dr. Robert Weems), who is continuing to prep and restore the whale specimens at WSP,  yesterday and took some pictures of the whale.  Here are pictures of two bones, a humerus and an ulna, that were recovered in the last bone removal.  The humerus is important because it is diagnostic and will help with the whale id.  Dr. Weems had to do a lot of work to restore the humerus.  With most of the preparation complete and Dr. Weems able to see the full skull, ear bones, axis vertebra, humerus etc., Dr. Weems is now uncertain as to the whale id.  There are differences with all of the described baleen whales of the time period.  The differences could be the result of species variation or this specimen could be a new species.

 

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Picture of the humerus, ulna and radius together taken by Dr. Weems.

 

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Picture of the bulla taken by Dr. Weems.

 

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Dr. Weems has done a lot of work to restore the back of the skull.  See the below pictures.

 

 

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The rest of the skull has been prepped but needs a lot of work to fully restore it.

 

 

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A picture of one of the many vertebrae.

 

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Hopefully Bobby @Boesse will take a look at the specimen this summer and help with the id.

 

Marco Sr.

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"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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@eannis6 did you go see the skull while you were at Westmoreland?

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Pretty wild to read through the entire thread again, when the original excavation took place, Tracie and I were down river...who knew that 1 1/2 years later we would be assisting in the removal of what was left. Chantel and Tracie had the easy jobs as @bmitchell887 and I had to supervise! :heartylaugh: (Glad Tracie isn't on here to read that last sentence)

 

Cool story about this last excavation, Chantel found a a beautiful cowshark tooth laying tight to the humerous...it took her a good amount of time to remove it in one piece. A won't reveal what happened to it (air pocket Brian, air pocket! :DOH:), I'll just say that I'm glad that I wasn't the guilty party. 

Rob :D

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  Quite the project this.  A really interesting read too.  Love all the pics.  Looking forward to finding out what species this is?

 

RB

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Cool story and find. Thanks for sharing. 

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On 6/14/2019 at 5:11 PM, SailingAlongToo said:

@eannis6 did you go see the skull while you were at Westmoreland?

I would have loved to, but I actually did not know it was found!

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

@MarcoSr update time, mate.

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe" - Saint Augustine

"Those who can not see past their own nose deserve our pity more than anything else."

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8 hours ago, Ash said:

@MarcoSr update time, mate.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of much further progress.  Dr. Robert Weems wanted to consult with a few other Paleontologists like @Boesse before he restored the rest of the skull to confirm that he had everything positioned properly (bone pieces were pretty fragmented in places and could have moved around in relation to each other) and to hear other opinions on the ID of the specimen.  Dr. Weems is pulled in many directions with many projects.  Just recently in December I helped him with a new Pleistocene footprint project, the beginning of a vertebrate fauna study project for zone 1 of the Paleocene in Virginia, and with a bony fish update to the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation fauna of Virginia.

 

Marco Sr.

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"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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Paleontology is a patience game. Cheers for the update :)

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe" - Saint Augustine

"Those who can not see past their own nose deserve our pity more than anything else."

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was out there on November 2 and saw what looks like the same boat in the photos stopped at the beach at Stratford hall for maybe a minute then continued down river. I was walking the beach with my wife looking for fossils on the beach. We found a small meg that day that’s how I remember what day it was I have several pictures of us there that day that are dated. Small world I remember wondering what those people were doing on that boat.

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@FreshWaterSharK

Which beach were you walking on when you saw that boat? It's out there a lot "doing something or another" for the property owners and various organizations.

 

Nov. 2 was our "beach clean up" weekend. We hauled 3 boat fulls of bagged trash, old fishing gear, 3 barrels, 7 tires and a  bunch of other non-degradable stuff off the beaches along 3 properties.

Don't know much about history

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We were at Stratford hall first(that’s where we saw the boat) I think there was a wedding there at the plantation house but there was only two other combers on the beach. I found the meg under some sea grass on the side of a piece of drift wood. We then went to westmoreland state park and found a few small teeth picking around on the public beach. 

image.jpg

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On 1/13/2020 at 7:40 AM, MarcoSr said:

 

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of much further progress.  Dr. Robert Weems wanted to consult with a few other Paleontologists like @Boesse before he restored the rest of the skull to confirm that he had everything positioned properly (bone pieces were pretty fragmented in places and could have moved around in relation to each other) and to hear other opinions on the ID of the specimen.  Dr. Weems is pulled in many directions with many projects.  Just recently in December I helped him with a new Pleistocene footprint project, the beginning of a vertebrate fauna study project for zone 1 of the Paleocene in Virginia, and with a bony fish update to the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation fauna of Virginia.

 

Marco Sr.

I have corresponded with Rob a little recently, and was contacted by someone else about the whale who works for the park; I had a busy week and responded a couple days after the fact and have heard nothing since.

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As an update, Dr. Weems stated the following to me in an e-mail today:  " now quite sure that this is Mesocetus siphunculus.  The only good bone for comparison is the humerus, but that seems to be a dead ringer for the humerus that was found with the type lower jaw in the 1890's ".

 

When species are named based upon limited diagnostic bones like Mesocetus siphunculus with only a diagnostic humerus and lower jaw, it can be really difficult to try to determine if other specimens are from that species.  Now there are a lot more diagnostic bones associated with Mesocetus siphunculus because of this specimen.  If the poachers who broke open the jackets twice in the cliffs had destroyed or taken the humerus, Dr. Weems might not have been able to ID this specimen.

 

Dr. Weems still plans to place the maxillary fragments in place and then plaster them into a restored front of the skull.  Also, he plans to mount the humerus, radius, and ulna on a board for exhibit.

 

Marco Sr. 

 

 

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"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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Great thread to read through. Congrats on saving a rare and unique fossil and thank you for sharing the story with us.

-Dave

__________________________________________________

Geologists on the whole are inconsistent drivers. When a roadcut presents itself, they tend to lurch and weave. To them, the roadcut is a portal, a fragment of a regional story, a proscenium arch that leads their imaginations into the earth and through the surrounding terrain. - John McPhee

If I'm going to drive safely, I can't do geology. - John McPhee

Check out my Blog for more fossils I've found: http://viewsofthemahantango.blogspot.com/

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This is what the skull looked like yesterday. As @MarcoSr and @Boesse said above, Dr. Weems is waiting on a couple of other folks to examine it. Next step is putting the puzzle back together.

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Don't know much about history

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