Fossil Cataloging

[Guy Heaton]

Hi All,

With a large and ever growing collection of varied fossils, I was wondering how you guys catalogued your collections ie: what do you think the most effective way of organising a collection is??

[tracer]

do it the exact opposite of how i do it and you'll be fine.

also, pretend that you disappeared today and the collection became your family or friends' responsibility. all info you knew about it is lost. all that remains is what is written, attached, etc. with the collection.

let the fire sale for those who like unknown specimens begin.

time, date, place (actual data points if possible), elevation, formation, associations or observations, photos, and a notation regarding what you had for lunch that day.

digital photos of the things in situ are cool, but i don't know how many people actually keep a thumb drive with their collection.

or you can do like i do, and just make your teenage son responsible for knowing what all the stuff is, and if he doesn't, then oh well...

[Terry Dactyll]

Guy.... Good Question.... I tend to record my carb material 'exposure specific'... once collecting, I record the details of the coal seams present that are worked, take plenty images of the strata and sometimes use google earth for an arial photo of the site showing the boundaries, and any other relivant information I uncover about the area and the fossils I find there, I include within the file.... each find is given a number and from this you can quickly find the ID in the exposure specific catalog.... for fossils with a part and counterpart I use the same number twice followed by an A & B.... so the finds are numerically 'linked', even if they get split up during display... any photos of similar material from other exposures I find during researching my finds are added... as well as enlarged views of very small finds.... so everything can be found together specific to one site within the file...

I took a couple of images...

I havent tackled my ammonites, all that is in my head.... I know it wouldnt take me long to do, so maybe thats why i keep putting it off.... lol....

tracer ... raised a good point relative to sale.... It could also be worth keeping a rough inventory of what things are actually worth as in actual financial value.... so if something unfortunately does happen to you.... whoever is left with your collection isnt exactly easy prey for the chance rip off merchants and fossil vultures, who would come in and try to clean up so to speak... when they google ''sell my fossil collection''....lol

[Xiphactinus]

My method is this:

Number is placed on fossil and card

G10-01 G-Initial of my last name to identify my collection, 10-year found, -01 - 1st specimen of 2010.

On the card I include

Number

Genus and species

description (ie. pectoral fin)

Formation

Age

Any other locality info (as specific as possible)

Doesn't take too long as long as you don't get a big backlog to do. (Which I have. Grrrrrr)

[barefootgirl]

My version of cataloging is wrapping them up and putting them in a big blue plastic bin.

[Guy Heaton]

So I take it good old paper copies in files are the favoured method. Does anyone know of any (Ideally free!!) software packages whereby you can add photos and descriptions and update as required. I don't have much room for papers and files.

[jkfoam]

Guy,

I use a hybrei cataloging technique. By that I mean I catalog some of my collections by location and the rest of my collection by geologic age (Cambrian, Ordovician, etc).

Since I have relatively large collections of fossils from specific collecting sites like Whiskey Bridge, Alabama Ferry Crossing, TX, etc I keep these cataloged and stored seperately. Within these specific locations I calalog by Phylum, then Class, then Order, then Genus. I'm not good enough to get down to Family.

The balance of my collection is cataloged by Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, etc. There is one exception, I have a good collection of the Phylum Cnidaria that I keep seperate because of my personal interest and I refer to it frequently.

IMHO, the most important part of a collection is the fossils label. A fossil without a label is just a rock or a paper weight. The label dosen't have to be complete but at a minimum must include where the fossil came from or was found to the extent it is known. Then any additional information about the fossil can be added to the label, such as Common name, Phylum, Class, etc., also geologic age, formation, and also very important is a reference publication for the identification or a name of person giving the identification.

Also I'd like to add that labels don't have to be fancy or typed. Hand printed labels are good. Just think, in 30-40 years your hand printed labels can add sentiment and maybe value to your collection. For me, if I found a fossil for sale that had a hand printed label by T.A. Conrad, an early 19th century US Cenozoic Paleontologist I would pay all I could afford to acquire it.

Good grief, Im rambling, back to point. My point is that how you catalog will be an individual thing. No one system fits all and how you catalog will evolve over time as your collection grows and changes. Having your fossils labeled will facilitate your cataloging.

JKFoam

[grampa dino]

Why not do it the same way as the big boys

One sheet for one fossil, fill it out with as much information as you can

Without good information all you have is a ROCK

Each fossil has it's own number as on the sheet

Cut and past copy for each ,keep it on the computer and print a hard copy

Edited February 25, 2010 by grampa dino

[Guy Heaton]

All very useful info. I tend to catalogue my collection by this method: Description, Age, Fossil site, then a code number to keep track of where each piece is. I'm trying to shape myself to be more methodical about things so I will definately take on board the good advice I have been given here. Thanks to all!

[32fordboy]

Here is an example of my ID card:

ID # MAMM PROB MAMM MAMM 007 Index # ______0177

Genus/species ________________Mammut americanum

Common name __________________American mastodon

Period/Age Pleistocene/10,000-1,000,000 yrs ago

Rock Unit ________Santa Fe River, North Florida

Collector ____________________ Date ___________

Notes ___________________________juvenile tooth

Info Code __________________________________20

The ID number consists of the first four letters of the Class, Order, Family, and Genus followed by a number. In this case, it is Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammutidae, Mammut. The number means this is the 7th mastodon specimen I have aquired.

The number in the upper right is an index number. This can be put directly on the fossil.

The info code on the bottom corresponds to a numbered info packet about mastodons (nerdy, I know)

I have a book that contains photos of all my fossils, along with the above "card". Each specimen is in the book alphabetically by ID number. That ID number goes into the book's index. For example, the entry in the index for this fossil looks like this: 0177) MAMM PROB MAMM MAMM. The 0177 is not a page number. The MAMM PROB... is the page number.

This ensures that no matter what information I "lose" on the mastodon fossil, whether it be the index number or ID card, I will always be able to recover the information in a few minutes.

The above seems really complicated, but is actually quite simple.

Nick

Edited February 25, 2010 by 32fordboy

[MikeR]

When I first started collecting I used index cards for each specimen. This quickly became cumbersome and I moved to two ledger books, one for specimens and another for localities each cross referenced with numbers. This too I was not fond of but it worked. I have moved about the US quite a bit through job relocations and business travel and although I have collected every geological period with the exception of the Permian, my main focus has been the Cenozoic of the Southeastern US. Any one who has collected in Florida shell pits can tell you how large a collection you can aquire in a relatively short peirod of time.

Then the 90s and the computer revolution occurred making massive data storage pactical even for home computers. The best system that has worked for me is Microsoft Access which is a query database software. I store specimen data in a workbook format with the following fields: catalog number/phylum/class/order/family/genus/subgenus/species/subspecies/author & year/reference/period/age/epoch/stage/group/formation/member/locality number/country/state/county/location/collector/year collected/amount/trade/notes

This seems like a lot of information, however for multiple species from a single site it is mostly copying an entry and putting in the taxonomy of the next species. The true beauty of this is that I can run queries and easily generate tables, for instances a table of the genus Conus with state and country or all species from the Gosport Sand. I always keep my best two of a species with the extras available for trade. If I want to generate a trade list then I select "yes" from the trade field along with any other information or selection criteria that I desire. I also generate labels from the database in small but clear print using a laser printer.

In organizing my collection, I use both taxonomic,stratigraphic and locality methods combined. For instance all Cenozoic gastropods from the eastern US in descending age and the same with bivalves, echinoids, etc. In the gastropod picture below the first four banks of drawers are eastern US beginning from the Pleistocene down to the Paleocene, the next bank are western US from Pleistocene to Eocene, the next European, and the next from various world-wide locations such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Egypt, South America and so on.