Courtesy of the North America Research Group, you may attend and enjoy listening to Liz Nesbitt, author of “Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State.” Dr. Nesbitt recently retired from her Curator position at the Burke Museum in Seattle. She will talk about her book and experiences in paleontology.
VicPS members will have received the Zoom meeting link details via email. If you have not received this info, please contact vicpalaeo@gmail.com ASAP.
On Wednesday, July 10th, at 7:30 pm PDT the Victoria Palaeontology Society presents Jaemin Lee, PhD Candidate, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, who speak on the topic
Understanding ontogeny in Deep Time: 29-million-year-old grasshopper ootheca (egg pod).
VicPS members should check the email they’ve received about this event for virtual meeting connection details, or join us IN PERSON at the Uptown Community Room.
About the presentation:
Reproductive ecology and ontogeny play a critical role in insect dispersal which shapes their biogeographic patterns. Ontogenetic strategies, such as holometaboly, are some of the most important traits contributing to the evolutionary success of insects. However, understanding the non-adult life history traits in Deep Time is challenging due to their ephemeral and soft-bodied nature.
I described a grasshopper egg pod using microtomography from the Oligocene John Day Formation, Oregon, together with Nick Famoso (NPS Paleontologist at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument) and Angela Lin (X-ray imaging core Director at University of Oregon). The specimen, preserving ~50 slightly-curved elliptic eggs and also the ovipositional strategy of laying an underground ootheca, represents the oldest fossilized grasshopper ootheca and also the first known orthopteran eggs in the fossil record. Due to the rarity of fossil insect eggs, systematic praxis have yet been established to systematically study them. However, the number of described fossil insect eggs has rapidly increased in the past decade, and is likely to continue increasing. So we proposed to apply an ootaxonomic system when studying fossilized insect eggs, to establish a standardized systematic practice, which is already practiced in fossil amniote eggs; and an ichnotaxonomic system that describes the ootheca-laying behavior, which has convergently evolved several times among insects.
Check out the research article or this CNN article to learn more!
On Friday, April 19th, at 6:30pm (PDT), the Alberta Palaeontological Society’s April keynote presenter is Dr. Jason Anderson, who will be providing an update on his research regarding Romer’s Gap. Read the meeting abstract here.
VicPS members will have received Zoom meeting attendance details in their email.
You are invited to join the VIPS link for the presentation, The Mary Anning Story “Struck by Lightning”, the amazing true life story about Mary Anning, fossil huntress and first woman of science.
On Sunday, March 24th at 2:00 pm PDT, the virtual meeting link will be posted to the page linked here http://www.fossiltalksandfieldtrips.com/.
This story occurs about 200 years ago at the time of the birth of paleontology, 1799-1847.
The scene is along the rugged south west coast of England in the little town of Lyme Regis in the 1800s. This area is possibly the most popular area in England to collect fossils. Today this 95 mile long stretch of coastline, which is now referred to as the “Jurassic Coast”, has over one million visitors each year.
The cliffs erode at a very rapid rate and every year expose literally tens of thousands of fossils. This is a fossil hunter’s dream.
The Alberta Paleontological Society’s Paleo Symposium takes place Saturday, March 16 from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm MDT ( 8:00 am to 3:30 pm PDT) at Mount Royal University.
Please view the Paleo 2024 Flyer that briefly describes the symposium, and forward this flyer to people who might be interested in attending. The event is open to the general public.
Please make note of the Paleo 2024 Speaker schedule, below, and note that times are all Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).
The Paleo Circular provides more comprehensive information about Paleo 2024 including posters and general information
Monthly meetings and presentations are co-sponsored by the Alberta Palaeontological Society, Mount Royal University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the Canadian Energy Geoscience Association’s Paleontology Division.
Lectures will be presented nearby in the Jenkins Theatre, located in F Wing and accessible from Main Street through a hallway next to Cougars Campus Store.
Poster displays will be presented in Main Street, the main hallway on Level 1 of the Main Building outside the Cougars Campus Store. Campus maps are available on the MRU website at https://www.mtroyal.ca/AboutMountRoyal/CampusesTours/CampusLocations/campus-map.htm.
Visitor rates and parking maps are available on the MRU website at https://www.mtroyal.ca/AboutMountRoyal/TransportationParking/Visitor-Rates-Parking-Map.htm. This map also includes locations of food services on page 2 and vendor hours can be found at https://www.mtroyal.ca/CampusServices/CampusResources/FoodServices/index.htm#Hours.
You can join the lectures at 9 am MDT (8 am PDT)on Saturday, March 16, 2024 either:
Mona Trick is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Paleo 2024
Time: Mar 16, 2024 08:30 AM MDT (07:30 AM PDT) Edmonton
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86167212909?pwd=dFFphGzumBQSSuUSYsZsv2eJydUj4J.1
Meeting ID: 861 6721 2909
Passcode: 059437
Please look for the virtual meeting connection details in the email to all VicPS members.
The Alberta Palaeontological Society has invited us to their next meeting.
We have two keynote presenters this month, the first is S. Amber Whitebone, MSc, PhD Candidate, University of New England. The title of her presentation is “Bone Cells to Big Dinos: Using Liquid Crystal Polarimetry as a New Tool to Learn about Fossil Vertebrates”. I have attached her abstract and biography. [below]
Our second presenter is Dr. Nicolás E. Campione MSc PhD, University of New England. The title of his presentation is “They come from the land down under: Australian Mesozoic dinosaurs”. [see abstract below]
Depending on the volume of questions that we get for each speaker, the meeting may run 15 minutes longer than usual.
Dan Bowden of the VanPS has invited us to a presentation on Sunday, May 4th at 1 pm by Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum. Dr. Caron will speak about his work on the Lower Cambrian Cranbrook Lagerstätte.
Virtual participation details to follow, as the date nears.
The January 2024 VicPS meeting will be virtual only. Zoom participation details have been sent to VicPS members in an email.
The in-person meeting at UpTown Shopping Centre has been cancelled due to a threat of snow.
The topic for the evening is Baja B.C. Revisited, a one-hour segment of video from a 26-part series on the latest research into the origin of the Nanaimo Group/Nanaimo Basin. The series was recorded and aired in 2022/23 by University of Washington professor Nick Zentner. The 26-part series covers 4 different hypotheses for the origin of the Nanaimo Basin, interviewing a variety of experts conducting the research. This series became of interest afte Dr. Shahin Dashtgard’s 2022 presentation to VicPS regarding the challenges of interpreting the Nanaimo Group.
Other upcoming events may be discussed, as time and interest allow:
Welcome to 2024 and another year of exploring Vancouver Island.
VicPS members have been graciously forwarded the Zoom meeting details to attend the AB Paleo Society presentation by Kathleen Rust, titled, “Reading the Fossil Record: how fossils from China reveal the origin and evolutionary history of the last primate in North American before the arrival of humans.”
The presentation abstract and a short bio for Kathleen rust are presented here. Look to your email from vicpaleo@gmail.com for details as to how to attend.
The next VanPS meeting is on Wednesday, December 13 at 6:30 pm at the Burnaby Public Library at Metrotown.
Perry Poon will present, “The Dinosaur World Tour. The Greatest Show Unearthed” (1993 and 1995).
The Dinosaur World Tour began in Edmonton, Alberta, and the exhibit was titled, “The Greatest Show Unearthed”.
The exhibits were the scientific results from excavations by a group of Canadian and Chinese paleontologists from the Canadian Museum of Nature (Ottawa, Ontario), Institute of Vertebrate and Paleoanthropology (Beijing, China), and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology (Drumheller, Alberta) working in the field in the Gobi Desert, Northern China; Canadian Arctic, Baffin Island; and Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta.
The key researchers were Dr. Dale Russell (Curator of Fossil Vertebrates at the Canadian Museum of Nature), Professor Dong Zhiming (Institute of Vertebrate and Paleoanthropology), Professor Zhao Xijin, and Dr. Philip Currie (Head of Dinosaur Research, Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleaontology).
This presentation shows some of the dinosaurs and discoveries from China, Alberta, and the High Arctic that were seen in the exhibit in Edmonton, Alberta (1993) and Vancouver (1995).
This presentation will be a physical meeting and a Zoom meeting. Zoom participation details will be forwarded to paid VicPS members before the meeting as soon as they become available.
