Financing the Skeleton Crew - Carboniferous Bones Need a Home

Teeth and Fangs ( other   posts )  These Bones Need A Home   1000 Fossil Freaks Care - Become A Fossil Freak One of the rarest prizes discovered at Blue Beach, Nova Scotia Canada is this innocent-looking elongate bone. Along with the slab it was attached to, this is a portion of the lower jaw of a Basal Carboniferous tetrapod. It was the first tetrapod jaw ever found at Blue Beach. It was collected in 1999, loaned to colleagues in 2003 and still remains unreported.  For fifteen years this important find has been been buried in obscurity by scientists who haven't got around to describing all the fossils they have. We too are guilty of the same, because h ere at our small museum thousands of fossils have accumulated and there's over a hundred years worth of research awaits. Tetrapod jaw fragment (about 1.5 cm long) with 3 marginal teeth spaced at regular intervals, a narrow dorsal shelf, and a conspicuously striated surface where the dentary encloses

JOIN THE FUN - FOLLOW THIS POST TO FIND OUT WHO'S A 'FOSSIL FREAK' (all names will be up-listed here on '1000 Fossil Freaks Care' post after your donation is made) THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT - ENJOY THE FUN 'FOSSIL FREAKS' I LOOK FORWARD TO ADDING YOUR NAMES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Check out our website: Blue Beach Fossil Museum Follow us on Twitter: Blue Beach Fossils Join our Facebook Grp: Blue Beach Fossil Museum THE GREATEST 'FOSSIL FREAKS' ARE: 1.)  Gena Yeo 2.)  Dr. Anne Warren

THESE BONES NEED A HOME LET'S BUILD A PALEO-CENTRE Learn More Here Blue Beach, Nova Scotia has yielded the earliest collection of tetrapod tracks on Earth, with more than 2000 specimens in the study sample of the Blue Beach museum. Here is less than half of those laid out in the driveway for viewing. Prior to this only 3 examples have been described in the scientific literature. Blue Beach is now understood to produce the most significant track discoveries of the decade. We have discovered several new morphotypes, and are clarifying some of the mysteries in how early tetrapod ecosystems worked. This is one example of the acceleration of discovery  at Blue Beach. Our friends and colleagues were pleasantly intrigued by the preservation of the 350 myo footprints found at Blue Beach, Nova Scotia. New Mexico paleontologist, Dr. Spencer Lucas (left) and Nova Scotia's Natural Resources paleontologist, Dr. John Calder (right) discuss aspects of variability and clarity

THESE BONES NEED A HOME BECOME A FUNDING CHAMPION Click Here to Learn More Preserving a Beast Rhizodonts were enigmatic ‘lobe-finned’ fish that grew up to 8 meters in length and weighed in at several tons. They were large ambush predators whose behaviour and feeding strategy was much the same as that of today’s crocodiles. These huge fish could crawl on their powerful front fins, gulping air into primitive lungs and even, presumably, would chase its prey onshore. This remarkable feat doesn’t seem so surprising when one looks at the skeletons of their fins. Rhizodonts possessed  arm bones . Rhizodont cleithrum (left) and clavicle (above) Rhizodonts have recently been resolved as 'basal members of the Tetrapodomorpha’ which means  changing towards four-leggedness . They were part of the evolutionary history of vertebrates when land-animals separated from their fish-ancestors.  From fins into limbs – they’re the start of the movement. But, because of poo

A Little Fish with an Unfriendly Bite   The Palaeoniscoid     (photo art: Nasty palaeoniscoid by Maniraptora) Here is a beautiful example of a lower jaw, with sharp teeth, of a 350 million year old palaeoniscoid fish from the Lower Carboniferous of Blue Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada. The specimen actually came from the small unnamed creek that follows the access road and drains into the Minas Basin at Blue Beach.   T his part of the creek is a rare location to find such a specimen, but lo and behold, that important fossil was just sitting there. Historically, nothing of importance has ever been found in the creek - all the good stuff comes from the beach itself. This specimen is preserved 3-dimensionally in a prominent clayshale bed. Very few intact skeletons are known from the Blue Beach locality, and most of those now known are recent finds being made by the Blue Beach Museum, and by some of the visitors it attracts. Here we see the scales and dorsal fin of

(Photo credit: Gerald MacKenzie) Earliest Carboniferous tetrapod tracks from Blue Beach (Nova Scotia, Canada) are found on more than 80 stratigraphic levels within the deposit. These 'track-bearing' layers of sandstone/siltstone/shale are exposed along several kms of shoreline, and are constantly revealed by the erosive force of twice-d aily tides in the Bay of Fundy.  (photo credit: Christopher Mansky) Most of the footprints are preserved as 'undertracks', meaning they are from 'lower levels' than the ones' traversed by these creatures. Very few finds represent the 'actual track level' of the trace-maker, so most of the footprints display incomplete footmarks at best, and may be difficult to recognize until one becomes accustomed to the peculiarities of track preservation. Todays' example is an undertrack from one of the better layers, and shows nearly-complete foot morphology.  (Photo credit: Christopher Mansky) The p