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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 9:53:59 GMT -5
I thought it might be useful to discuss this and get a few perspectives of what is required... .I have done my opencast coalmine sites which were temporary exposures ....Initially I thought of a labelling concept applicable to link fossils to the particular temporary exposure I was collecting at the time... being positive and negatives (nodules) in many cases I opted for an a & b option at the end of the same number.... all these numbers were typed and printed off on the pc then cut out and stuck on the back of the nodules using undiluted PVA glue.... next these fossils needed Id'ing and logging in some way.... I did them in the order as I found them ....I thought I would link this to also providing photos and information about the collecting site, coal seams, even arial photos off google earth all in the same place like an ' Exposure Specific Fossil Log' .... That way nothing gets lost in the future and hopefully it will make some sense to whatever institution gets the fossil collection when i eventually pass it on for research or whatever..... Heres my exposure specific fossil logs with a couple of photos showing the typical arrangement of the specimen Id lists and a couple of photos....... the lists contain the specimen number, the ID name and the coalseam from which the fossil came from above and age of the carb shales....this could be improved on I suppose with more information, but with it all coming from one hole... I think thats enough.... Heres the logs... Attachments:
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 9:55:55 GMT -5
Typical nodule label.... Attachments:
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 9:57:14 GMT -5
Typical open nodule... Rhizodont scale & Neuropteris fern combination.... Attachments:
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 9:58:15 GMT -5
Collection laid out in drawers.... Attachments:
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 9:59:07 GMT -5
Typical ID pages linked to numbered nodules... Attachments:
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 10:00:24 GMT -5
Additional info in log like photos of seams and exposure, arial photos etc.... Attachments:
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 12, 2014 10:02:08 GMT -5
Be great to see any other peoples idea's or from a scinetific perspective what more is required.... I must do my ammonites one day....
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Post by Joe Botting on Jan 12, 2014 13:34:35 GMT -5
Great idea to have a thread on this, Steve.
For starters, your curation looks absolutely superb. For anyone else looking for hints, the critical features are the safe storage (no specimens in contact), careful numbering, and detailed information on where each specimen came from. The photographs make it much more accessible as a collection, but without the careful background information, including logs, on where the specimens are from, even the specimens themselves would mean little.
All this is perfect when the target of the collection is for specific specimens to useful for taxonomic or palaeobiological research. It is particularly critical (combined with detailed notes and illustrations of the sediment sequence), when it's from a temporary exposure - in that case, one has to bear in mind that the information you record may be the only information that future generations will ever have about the site. However, the collection of perfectly curated and preserved specimens is only one aspect of the data used in palaeontology.
Trying to guess what people are going to want to know in fifty years' time (or after publication of the fossils) is near-impossible, but a few things turn up repeatedly. For example, having a list of species present in a bed is very important, but having indications of their relative abundance can be just as interesting (detailed numerical sampling results even more so). Also, collectors often go for just the finest specimens, but there can be a surprising amount of information in others that look a bit grotty. Until you've done the taxonomy, you don't know what the critical features are, so to begin with collecting on mass is the way to go (if you have space for it, of course...). A new taxonomic description can be based on a single specimen, but a hundred specimens are much better.
All of this sort of work, including looking into the taxonomy and trying to reconstruct the life community, is completely accessible to amateurs so long as you have access to a microscope (and sometimes even without). It's often hard to get the specialist literature, as you all know, but it can be done e.g. through contacts in universities, or emails to the authors (if they're still active). After that, it's just a question of not just appreciating the fossils, but really interrogating them. What are the proportions of the fossils of different species, and how might this have differed in the living community? Are there any signs of ecological interactions in the fossils? Does the distribution of a species tell you about their habitat requirements? Do the details and measurements of the specimens match the published ones, or could this be a slightly different species? It's a question of going a step further, and then another...
If you can curate a collection in the way the Steve has, then that's all anyone will ever ask of you. If you can take the subject that next step further, then that increases the pleasure and satisfaction enormously. The remaining issue is how and where to publish what you've discovered. Traditional journals can be difficult to get into, especially if you are 'just' describing a new locality and its fossils content, but the online world opens up all sorts of possibilities. No-one has really begun to make use of those possibilities yet, but the potential is there for a less formal online platform for publishing basic information on your finds...
Thoughts?
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 13, 2014 16:47:46 GMT -5
Joe.... Some interesting points... I dont really know enough about geology to take any useful notes on the sediment sequences but I did take some photographs of the sediment beds above the coal seam where the nodules came from....Very often the nodules were on spoil piles ex situ and you can only try to relate these to the sediments being dug through at the time....abundance of species...from my perspective this information can be overlooked but on reflection I can now see its importance ...and you right assuming we go to find the best specimens and maybe not allocate any value to poorer grade material....very often people these days are more inclined to try to cash in by selling lower grade stuff than produce a more detailed sample for academic study in the future....it may be worth me writing some notes of my experiences at these exposures for the log as a way of expressing how frequent certain fossils tuned up...
I did once try writing something about one exposure I collected Sandyforth Opencast....obviously not a paper as such for publication just some background information to the site....I did post it on one forum and had some good feedback....
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Post by Joe Botting on Jan 15, 2014 6:11:12 GMT -5
Hi Steve, I reckon you've already answered those points yourself - if you're not convinced your sedimentology is watertight, then a series of photos through the beds is absolutely fine. It's surprising how much information can be shown in macrophotographs, provided that you break off the surface where necessary to avoid weathered or bashed surfaces. A circular saw do wonders if you have that capability (few do, though - I don't, for example). It's also worth bearing in mind that a little bit of weathering can sometimes bring out sedimentary structures that are invisible in completely fresh surfaces. The things to look for are changes in grainsize, laminations, ripples, occurrence of nodules (obviously...), and any other aberrations in the beds. It's interesting what you say about a lot of the lower-grade material being sold, and I can imagine people might want to do that in order to make the hobby pay for itself... but it is true that one often finds the most interesting details in the grottiest-looking specimens - let alone the need for multiple specimens in order to characterise the range of variation. These are both very important in palaeobotany, especially, where the range of variation is enormous depending on exactly which bit of a frond you're looking at, etc. A lot of the problems with multiple names given to single plants has been solved by random specimens showing where one form taxon grades into another, or where you have a poorly-preserved cone that contains spores in situ... or even where a little detail or two are obscure in better material. In general, I collect all material I can of a new species, and only get rid of the worst stuff once I've done the taxonomy and can be sure what is useful. For the relative abundance, even a vague indication (abundant, common, occasional, rare) is really, really useful. It can help to define community types, and also population dynamics (e.g. population boom-bust cycles in ammonites or associated faunas). A lot of palaeoecology is taking note of the things you're really not interested in as well as the nice specimens. How many people bother to note which layers have more ostracodes than others? Whether Gryphaea or a different bivalve is dominant at different levels? Obviously you can only do a lot of this stuff if you have the outcrop in front of you, but it all makes the story a lot more interesting... I'm hoping that one day there will be somewhere to put work like your Sandyforth description, even if it is just a very informal piece and not intended for publication. There are all sorts of ways of doing things now rather than just the formal journals (although you'd need those to do any taxonomy), from print-on-demand or e-publishing (amazon's system works well) to digital archives. It's potentially a different way to make some money from it, too - publish a decent site description, and there will be an audience willing to pay for it...  |
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 16, 2014 15:12:40 GMT -5
Joe.... thanks for the tips... I can expand on any logs I do in the future to incorporate an indication of rarity etc .... Different levels in opencasts can simply be areas perhaps where cones gathered or maybe crabs were more abundant indicating small changes in the paleoenvironment... its all pieces of the jigsaw that all add up i suppose....
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Post by Joe Botting on Jan 17, 2014 4:24:23 GMT -5
Joe.... thanks for the tips... I can expand on any logs I do in the future to incorporate an indication of rarity etc .... Different levels in opencasts can simply be areas perhaps where cones gathered or maybe crabs were more abundant indicating small changes in the paleoenvironment... its all pieces of the jigsaw that all add up i suppose.... Exactly, Steve - the reasons for a particular concentration might be taphonomic, but there's usually an ecological signal as well... and both are interesting. I do like jigsaws. ;D Anyone else got any thoughts or comments on how to go about things? Everyone has their own ways of doing things, after all, and we can all learn from your own experiences. |
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Jan 18, 2014 8:39:10 GMT -5
Joe.... I agree...It would be good to get some other peoples slant on this and perhaps this could be an on going thread to add to in the future...We probably re-invent the wheel more than often but its good to consider other options to help produce a more professional approach and perhaps give some scientific value and worth to the time we invest in the pursuit of finding and collecting fossils as a hobby...
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Post by Joe Botting on Jan 19, 2014 12:04:46 GMT -5
I'd definitely like to see this thread kept open - even reinventing the wheel is useful if the discussion helps one to see things in a different light. So come on folks - any other input?
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ryanc
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by ryanc on Mar 27, 2014 17:34:59 GMT -5
Interesting discussion guys. The problem with recording finds for the general fossil collector is that a lot of them are found ex situ so it's very difficult or sometimes impossible to be entirely certain which bed the find originates from. Still a lot of type material from the old days just says Kent or what have you so I guess we have come a long way  Adding GPS data for important finds might be something to consider now that most mobiles have the capability? The population analysis idea is something that I am currently planning to carry out on microfossil samples where its a lot easier (in most samples) to get a statistically robust sample size to support interpretations. Most macro fossil collections are skewed by collector bias and small sample sizes - most people do not want a thousand of the same fossil in their collection (quite understandably!). There's also problems of the un-representative nature of macro fossil preservation - things that are seldom observed intact at the macro level can sometimes be quite abundant in fragments at the micro level. For example I used to collect at some oxford clay sites where you would never see any echinoids - they are only really found at a few specific horizons in the oxford clay as macro fossils yet at the micro level they are abundant in the form of fragments of spines and tiny dis-articulated plates. I'm becoming ever more hooked on the micro-fossils these days - it's also nice to hunt from the convenience of your heated home in the winter Regards, Ryan |
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