Keenan's Blogiddy Blog

Originally post - Smithsonian NMNH Reposting from a link that Matt had brought up in Facebook. Freakin' awesome if you tell me. =P Natural History Highlight Giant Fossil Scale Tree In June, 2005, the National Museum of Natural History received one of the largest plant fossils ever collected - 3.9 m (13 ft) long and 3.7 m (12 ft) high, and weighing more than 16 tons. Fossil preparators are now working in our Mall-side parking lot to reduce the size of the block. You can see them from the Mall steps, if you look down into the parking lot on the side towards the Washington Monument. Once the specimen is light enough that the Museum's floors can safely support it, the fossil will be brought inside for additional preparation and display. Dr. Schabilion admiring the fossil tree before it is shipped to the National Museum of Natural History. The fossil comes from a coal mine on the Rus family farm located near Pella, Iowa. The Rus family donated the fossil to the Univers...

Happy New Year! As time progresses, the finds and fun gets better and Mother Earth keeps on giving. I celebrated 2012 by going rock hunting, in January! We've had record highs in warm temperatures in the Maritimes so I grabbed the opportunity by the horns and headed down by Johnson Mills (Cape Maringouin) to test out my newly acquired field GPS. Surprisingly, for January 2nd, there was no snow on the ground. There were traces of ice around pools and other bodies of water, but not much to give you clues that we were smack in the middle of Winter. The other thing too is that it was a comfortable 7 degrees Celcius, which has to be a record high. Driving on the dirt road felt like driving on ice, as the car kept zigzagging all over the place. By the time I got there, I had reached low tide. I had brought my Tiley hat and raincoat as there was possible rain in the afternoon forecast. Camera in hand, I ventured down the road and onto the icy beach. When I got on the beach, I looked...