It’s that time of year again! Time to talk palaeontology with a 1000 of my closest friends in a convention centre somewhere far, far away! That’s right, it’s the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, this time in Dallas, Texas. This year I tried out an SVP meeting field trip for the first time. We chased dinosaurs and their friends through the mid Cretaceous near Dallas!
theropods
Burgers and Hot Dogs
Sydney Mohr is a friend and colleague of mine whose art you will have seen in the news lately, if you are inclined to read about ankylosaurs. She’s done amazing reconstructions of two ankylosaurs for me in the last year – Ziapelta and Gobisaurus – and so I asked her to take a few minutes and tell us about her process for creating her palaeoart. Also this way I get to show off more of her drawings, so yay!
Sydney decided that this Gobisaurus was named Burger, and that seemed fine with me. Continue reading
Evolving Planet
Today we embark on an adventure, an adventure through time and space (but not outer space or inner space, just regular space). Welcome, to the Evolving Planet.
Snapshots from the Field Museum
Last week I got a chance to visit the Field Museum in Chicago for the first time! It’s a great big museum with lots of cool stuff, so I figured I’d share a few impressions from my lunchtime jaunts through the exhibits. Let’s get started with all the fossil exhibits outside of the main fossil hall (there are several, but some of them are kind of hidden away!).
SUE
5 Questions for Tetsuto Miyashita
Well folks, you get two mini-interviews back to back this week! My friend and colleague Tetsuto Miyashita is a Masters student at the University of Alberta and recently published a new paper on a very interesting specimen of the tyrannosaurid dinosaur Daspletosaurus: Continue reading
5 Questions for Scott Persons
A few weeks ago my friend and colleague Scott Persons published his first ever paper, detailing the results of the first phase of his Masters research at the University of Alberta. The paper received a fair amount of media and blog attention, but I demand attention as well, so here is a mini-interview with Scott about the paper. Continue reading
In search of Cryolophosaurus.
Today my supervisor Dr. Philip Currie and his research associate and wife Dr. Eva Koppelhus embark on a two-month expedition to Antarctica as part of the larger Transantarctic Vertebrate Paleontology Project. And just what the heck are they looking for all the way down there?
This dude:
(Image by my very talented friend and colleague Robin Sissons!) Continue reading
Throw Scotty a bone!
The T. rex Discovery Centre in Eastend, Saskatchewan (home of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum Fossil Research Station) is participating in the Pepsi Refresh Challenge, which could ultimately give them $100 000 for renewing their galleries. The centre is home to Scotty, perhaps the largest (or at least, most robust) Tyrannosaurus ever collected. Continue reading
A visit to the Jurassic Forest.
The University of Alberta has a pretty active Palaeontological Society with undergrad, grad student, and faculty members, and when we can we try to organize palaeo-themed field trips. Lucky for us, this summer Edmonton had a very cool new dinosaur attraction open called the Jurassic Forest, so of course we had to check it out.
Albertosaurus Bonebed Special Volume
And so it is back to ?serious business on the blog. Today I wanted to bring some attention to a major project in the Currie Lab for the last few years, a special volume of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences all about Albertosaurus. The whole glorious volume can be downloaded for free here if you’re coming from a Canadian IP address. Otherwise, your local library may provide access or you can email the very nice authors for a PDF.
Continue reading
pseudoplocephalus 