May, 2008
Editor: Greg Hand
May is one of those five-Friday months that results in separate meeting dates for the Dry Dredgers and our colleagues to the south, the Kentucky Paleontological Society. This year, the Dry Dredgers benefit by securing the services of KPS President Dan Phelps as our speaker. Dan will present "The Quest for Brachiospongia."
TIME: 8:00 PM
DATE: Friday, May 23, 2008
PLACE: 201 Braunstein Hall (Old Physics Building)
University of Cincinnati campus
Click here for driving instructions the meeting room.
Click here for pictures of previous meetings.
Dan is well known to the Dry Dredgers. He is a member of our club as well as presiding for the Lexington group, and he was very much in evidence at this year's GeoFair. He has discovered a layer of the rare sponge Brachiospongia in an outcrop of Middle Ordovician Lexington Limestone (Curdsville Member) in east-central Kentucky. Brachiospongia is a hexactinellid sponge with a central circular area and radiating "arms." Dan and other KPS members are helping to excavate specimens. It is likely that these specimens are the oldest Brachiospongia ever found, and one specimen is about 15 inches in diameter, which would make it the largest ever reported.
"I spent years searching for specimens before I ever found one," Dan said. His clues included reports dating from the 1850s and 1860s involving the famous paleontologist O.C. Marsh at Yale. As noted, May allows Dry Dredgers to visit with KPS. We have a joint picnic/field trip coming up in June (see details below) but you can also attend the May 30 KPS meeting featuring Frank Bodkin, who will talk about Wickliffe Mounds archaeology. Wickliffe is a Mississippian culture mound site in far western Kentucky. The Kentucky Paleontological Society meets 7:30 PM at the Lexington, Kentucky, Mines and Minerals Resources Building, Room 101, Rose Street, on the University of Kentucky campus.
Beginners class will meet at 7:15 PM Friday, May 23 in Room 301 Braunstein Hall, one floor up from the meeting room. The topic is crinoids, and the presenter is "Mr. Crinoid," Jack Kallmeyer.
Education Chair Greg Courtney reports that new Dry Dredger videos have been uploaded to YouTube, including April's complete lecture by Alycia Stigall, "Tracking Species Through Space and Time," as well as several videos featuring the 2008 Geofair exhibit cases, educational displays and activities. Greg has also posted videos of past beginners classes. To view, point your browser to http://www.youtube.com/ and enter "cincinnati fossils" or "dry dredgers" in the search window.
A colloquium at hosted by the University of Cincinnati Department of Geology will feature Allen West at 3:00 PM Friday, May 23. Dr. West, an author and retired geophysical consultant to natural resource companies in North America, South America, and the Middle East, will discuss "Diamonds, Mammoths, and the Younger Dryas Comet."
This graphics-rich talk presents the story of how 26 scientists from 18 institutions around the world uncovered one of the worst catastrophes ever to affect modern humans. The scientists conclude that an enormous shower of cometary debris fell on the Northern Hemisphere 12,900 years ago, producing massive multiple explosions with more force than all the world's nuclear arsenal combined. After the smoke cleared, much of North America and Western Europe had been dusted with diamonds, microspherules, iridium, and fullerenes filled with helium-3. In a geologic heartbeat, millions of large animals mammoths, mastodons, American camels, American horses, and saber-toothed tigers were blasted into extinction after having survived for millions of years.
So far, members of West's group have been filmed for two National Geographic documentaries ("Explorer" and "Time Team"), a History Channel program("10,000 BC"), a Discovery Channel show, three PBS shows, and two more upcoming specials for NOVA.
MAY FIELD TRIP
Our May 24, 2008 field trip will be to an old favorite site in Ohio. A lot of fossils can be found there, but it will take an experienced eye. This is a great opportunity for experienced members to help teach newer members on the ins and outs of surface collecting, including knowing what to look for, and how to look for it. Plan on picnicking at the site, and bring sun block. Let's start the summer off with a great weekend!
PCS TRIP REPORT
By the time you read this, some of our members will have (hopefully) made a trip to the PCS Phosphate Mine in Aurora, NC. The access ramp washed out several times earlier this year, but repairs were underway at press time. If the trip does take place, there will be a report and fossils from the site during the May meeting.
PENN DIXIE TRIP UPDATE
The weekend of June 21-22 is set for our annual trip to the Penn Dixie site near Hamburg, NY. Jerry Bastedo (Executive Director of the Penn Dixie Paleontological and Outdoor Education Center) recently confirmed that an initial pit will be dug prior to our arrival by Dan Cooper, the Dry Dredger's most prolific trilobile collector.
DREDGERS REVIVE JUNE PICNIC WITH KPS
In continuing our spring field trip series on sites we haven't been to in a while, we are reviving our traditional June field trip/picnic. This will be a joint field trip with our nearest neighbor paleo club, the Kentucky Paleontological Society to the favorite locality.
We will have a picnic lunch and then after eating, we will head on to outcrops with Ordovician corals and other marine fossils and to an outcrop with Silurian trilobites. You must have eye protection, a chisel, and a sledgehammer to collect the Silurian trilobites. If time permits, we will go on and collect Devonian fish bones at another outcrop in the area. See you there!
Detailed driving instructions are printed in the May bulletin that is mailed to your home and on the electronic bulletin emailed to your email address. If you are not a member and would like to attend any of these field trips, you are welcome. Email Bill Heimbrock at billheim@cinci.rr.com and he will send you instructions on how to get there. If you would like to become a Dry Dredgers member, mail your dues using these instructions.
A Sea without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region by David L. Meyer and Richard Arnold Davis is featured on the Web site of Indiana University Press and is available for pre-ordering at Amazon.com. The hardcover volume of 296 pages, offering an introduction to the rocks, fossils, and ancient sea-dwelling animals of the Cincinnatian. will be published by Indiana University Press officially in January 2009, according to the online sources.
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