Field Notes

[Kane]

While at a good fossil comrade's home in Quebec, I spied upon his shelves a few svelte volumes of field notes of his time in Morocco. Inside were, of course, notes but also sketches and sundry details about lithology, fauna, etc. In these days of iPhones and the like, it is not all too common to encounter these arguably anachronistic records of our time in the field. To me, these are truly rich artifacts that tell a story that a phone camera reel does not adequately tell. It goes without saying that, should my friend predecease me, I will inherit these little notebooks and enjoy the gritty details of his adventures. 

 

In that tradition, I keep a field notebook, too. I itemize site visits using a log index that makes for a quick reference in a master list of sites, organized by date. This is a peek into how the proverbial sausage is made. Perhaps others of you also scribble notes in a book as well, so I'd be interested to see these examples of our scratch marks. 

 

 

[FranzBernhard]

1 hour ago, Kane said:

so I'd be interested to see these examples of our scratch marks

Fossils 2023 (franzbernhard.lima-city.de)

Franz Bernhard

[Kane]

Nice! I somehow suspected you would be very meticulous given your focus on rudists. Thanks for sharing this! I get a peek into your process, which is so awesome! My German is a bit rusty, but I seem to be able to manage these reports.

[Andúril Flame of the West]

Those are some very cool notebooks that tell a very unique story. I have been considering dedicating a notebook to fossil hunting activities rather than simply taking snapshots. Now that I have seen this post, I think that I am more than overdue to make that transition!

[FranzBernhard]

5 hours ago, Andúril Flame of the West said:

I have been considering dedicating a notebook to fossil hunting activities rather than simply taking snapshots.

You can do both simultaneously: Handwriting a book and gluing in some printed-out snapshots, diagrams etc.

 

13 hours ago, Kane said:

I somehow suspected you would be very meticulous given your focus on rudists.

Thanks for your appreciation.

Best of all, I can easily make a printed photo album from them. Just exporting page per page as jpg and here we go. Have already several of these books, but also some years of backlog... Being up to date with the reports and putting them online is more important for me than having them printed.

 

13 hours ago, Kane said:

My German is a bit rusty, but I seem to be able to manage these reports.

Needs a little bit of typing for these excerpts, I think (not tried), translation of other stuff is just a few clicks away . And some good laughs, of course .

 

Franz Bernhard

[Cris]

I think we should keep this topic alive and discuss it a bit more. I was at the Florida Museum of Natural History's vert paleo lab donating some recent finds a few weeks ago and the topic of field notes came up. Dr. Jonathan Bloch, the curator of vertebrate paleontology there, expressed the importance of proper field notes and keeping them with specimens. There was a good amount of discussion on the topic, with Bloch even mentioning that where he does a lot of research, the individual working there before him did not keep good field notes and so he has a hard time following what they were doing/where they were going. That led me down the rabbit hole of researching how, exactly, to take these notes. Our very own @Boesse wrote an incredible article on his blog entitled Paleontological research tips I: field notes for amateurs and professionals alike. Other posts in that series include:  

Paleontological Research Tips II: field notes, continued 

Paleontological Research Tips III: a complete idiot's guide to taking decent specimen photographs

Paleontological Research Tips IV: the art and science of maintaining a research notebook

Paleontological Research Tips V: manuscript writing, research productivity, peer review, and more

Field notes are something I'm thinking a lot about since that conversation. I plan to improve on this one a lot in the future.

[DPS Ammonite]

Here is what I do:

 

I use a waterproof field note book with pens or pencils. 
 

I number my sites consecutively and give date I found the site or first collected fossils from it.

Description of site relative to roads, drainages, hills, power lines, towns etc along with a GPS location.

 

Description of geology, rock layer names and age.

 

Description of fossils found with mention of great fossils collected or left in situ.

I rarely will give the site a name if obvious.

 

I make mention of most revisits of sites giving a date, site number and what was found.

 

I sometimes make a cartoon drawing of the site with a line around site boundary. I sometimes note adjacent sites.

 

Outside of the note book I copy maps and place the numbered sites and approximate boundaries on them: sort of a spotter map.

 

I transpose the info from my field note book onto sheets of paper stored in plastic sheet protectors all placed in a binder. I also store my maps in the binder.

On my more important fossils I place a site number and usually a date on a spot of white acrylic paint, glued on paper label or on fossil directly with archival pen. Sometimes I just put a loose paper label with a fossil in a plastic zip bag.

 

I organize my fossils in mineral flats with formation and general type of fossil such as brachiopod, bivalve , coral etc. Many smaller fossils are in fold up cardboard box inside the flats. The flats are labeled usually in pencil and placed on strong racks.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by DPS Ammonite