Echinoderm Project 2023 - Week 1

I am Emory, a new intern in Invertebrate Paleontology at AMNH from Park City, Utah. I recently graduated with my bachelors in geology from Colorado College in Colorado Springs. I have always been fascinated by fossils and the processes that lead to their formation. 

While our work here at the AMNH is rehousing and recategorizing echinoderm fossils, my favorite fossils are trilobites. I have always wanted to work on fossils in a museum, so this internship is an opportunity I couldn't pass up. 

Hi, my name is Mohan Raghunath, and I'm a rising sophomore at Colorado College. I'm super thrilled to be here, and grateful that the Noblett-Witter Family Internship Program made such a cool opportunity possible so early in my collegiate career. I've always loved paleontology (and organizing things), so I can't wait to finally get my hands on some real museum fossils!

My name is Lena Jude. I am a student at SUNY Plattsburgh with a major in Geology and minors in Biology and French. I am from the Lower East Side in Manhattan. I have been obsessed with everything paleo for most of my life, so interning at AMNH is a dream come true.

In our first week here at AMNH, we have learned the process of cleaning and rehousing the echinoderm fossils. Smoke sponges are used to clean fossils and labels before fossils are placed into acid-free boxes and the labels are put in archival slips before being placed in the same boxes. We also learned how to input specimen data into the Collection's Management Database.

A piece of a crinoid stem.


A complete fossil crinoid after being cleaned and rehoused.

During this week, we also toured parts of the museum's collections. We saw parts of Insect Zoology collections with one of their grad students, RJ, with a special peak at RJ's impressive live insect collection.

Mohan holding RJ's praying mantis.

Then, we had a tour of vertebrate paleontology, where we saw many of the large mammal and reptile specimens preserved in the museum's collections. 
A specimen from the large Vertebrate Paleontology collections. 

Lastly, Dr. Hilary Ketchum, a curatorial associate for Invertebrate Paleontology, talked to us about the basics of Linnean taxonomy and provided resources to understand it further.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 5, 2023 at 5:51 AM

    Congratulations interns! I hope you love IP at AMNH as much as I did (and still do!) —Kristin Polizzotto

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 5, 2023 at 9:42 AM

    Looks like a wonderful new crew of fossil wranglers.

    ReplyDelete

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