Hi from Southern Alberta

[Bandit]

Because I've seen it on other forums, I'm thinking that the moderators have been taxed recently with a huge influx of people joining the group. I apologize to them for adding to their work because I should have done this long ago instead of just visiting from time to time.

 

My areas of interest in Paleontology are very diverse but focus on Paleoanthropology and the evolution of mammals in general, especially the epochs after the Cretaceous extinctions when the mammals began to enter the niches vacated by the dinosaurs and went through an incredible adaptive radiation, quickly evolving into new and larger forms. I also love doing field work and the many hours of prospecting that goes with it. When you enjoy the search and the discovery, the sweat and blood that comes with the excavation process is easy to survive. And finally, my real love comes with doing the work in the lab. Watching a specimen slowly being revealed when the jacket is cut away and the matrix is being removed, or seeing a delicate Green River specimen gradually being exposed using nothing more than an insect pin in a pin vise, the preparation, casting and mounting process with display as the end game. These are what I find the most challenging.

 

My education is also diverse and relatively extensive. I have a diploma as a Biological Lab Technician plus diplomas in Museum Sciences (Cultural Resource Management), Visual Arts/ 3-D Design and Database Design. I have a Bachelor's Degree that's a Double Major in Physical Anthropology and Archaeology and a Master's Degree with specializations in both Vertebrate Paleontology and Geology. It goes without saying that I have a love of the Arts and Sciences.

 

I've worked for a number of museums over the years creating docent programs, collections management policies and designing and building public and educational displays. According to somebody at the Smithsonian I appear to be the world expert on Cetacean skeletal anatomy because I've mounted more Whale skeletons than anybody else on the planet. That one makes me chuckle because although I've found numerous errors in the literature available on whale skeletons and articulated a half dozen skeletons...I don't study the beasts beyond having an appreciation for their fossil relatives. I started out as an amateur collector and grew up among the galleries at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. I have field experience in both Archaeology and Paleontology and was one of the first employees of the Tyrrell Museum (now the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology) and had the privilege of having worked on the museum's first field crew excavating a T-rex in the Crow's Nest Pass area of Alberta near the town of Lumbreck. That specimen later came to be called Black Beauty and toured the world as the star of a traveling exhibit. I worked for the Tyrrell from their inception year in 1982 and after their opening in September 1985, through to the end of the summer in 1986. I maintained my contact with the museum and a number of the original employees and still count them among some of my longest and dearest friendships. I also worked doing some preparation and lab work in the Vertebrate Paleontology lab at the University of Alberta.

 

So that's my background. I don't know if people actually read these but I guess I'll see.

 

I've been visiting this forum from time to time when I'm doing research on something or trying to identify one of the many specimens I have yet to catalogue into my collection. Paleontologists by nature are pickers and hoarders and can't help picking up and keeping a fossil or neat rock when they find one. I'm no different and over my  55 plus years of collecting I've accumulated a fairly large collection. My project for this winter is to translate all my written catalogues into a digital format. While I'm doing this I'm updating information about the changing taxonomic relationships and the changes in status and names of some of the formations, adding photographs and with the use of Goggle Earth fine tuning my location information. You gotta love that Google Earth...it's allowed me to find a few nice prospecting areas that I never knew existed. So, while I'm doing all this I'm hoping to find help with and some critical analysis in regards to some of my identifications. Thought it would be fun to share some of this knowledge I've accumulated and to learn from others.

 

See you on the forum...

 

Gary S.

[grandpa]

Hello Gary and welcome to TFF from Austin, Tx.

[dinosaur man]

Hi Gary and welcome from Dunnville, Ontario, and awesome I would’ve loved to work on the Crow’s Nest Rex aka black beauty

[Top Trilo]

Welcome to the forum from Colorado, 

10 hours ago, Bandit said:

So that's my background. I don't know if people actually read these but I guess I'll see.

Reading these backgrounds are one of my favorite parts. Sometimes when not much action is happening on the forum I'll just look at the member of the month section and read how they got into fossils. 

[BadlandTraveller]

Welcome to the Forums Bandit, always nice to have a fellow Albertan join. 

 

Can't wait to see some of your collection.

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Forum, Gary!  

No worries on new joins. Not really much work here.   

 

I look forward to your participation. 

[JohnJ]

Welcome, Gary. 

[Ludwigia]

14 hours ago, Bandit said:

 

So that's my background. I don't know if people actually read these but I guess I'll see.

 

I must say, you do have a very interesting background, and yes, I did read it all Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to your contributions.

[Pagurus]

Welcome to the forum. It looks like you've got lots of great memories to look back on and lots of new adventures to look forward to. Thanks for joining.

[FossilNerd]

19 hours ago, Bandit said:

So that's my background. I don't know if people actually read these but I guess I'll see.

Yes. We read them.  

19 hours ago, Bandit said:

Thought it would be fun to share some of this knowledge I've accumulated and to learn from others.

 

We are all about knowledge sharing here. Sounds like you will for right in! I look forward to your contributions. So... Hello and welcome!  

[Gizmo]

Welcome aboard! 

[Bandit]

Thank you everybody for the welcome. I too look forward to posting and getting input from everybody. Now I've got to go outside and dig myself out of the 5 foot snow drifts lol...

[Ludwigia]

1 hour ago, Bandit said:

Thank you everybody for the welcome. I too look forward to posting and getting input from everybody. Now I've got to go outside and dig myself out of the 5 foot snow drifts lol...

It's at times like this that I'm glad I moved to southern Germany

[Mark Kmiecik]

Hello from Illinois.