AMNH-IP-Columbia University Collection

 Lena here. We said goodbye to Emory and Mohan after that last post, but since I stayed for a couple more weeks, we figured we should do a final post. I've been finishing up the labeling and final touches in our cabinets and cleaning as many new drawers as I can before I leave. Here is a before and after of one of those drawers: Cabinet 1292 Drawer 8 Before Cabinet 1292 Drawer 8 After As we come to a close, it is satisfying to be able to see all our hard work completed, with clean, organized and cataloged cabinets. One of our finished cabinets, complete with specimen labels, drawer labels, and a full list off all families and genus' in the cabinet (attached to the door) On Mohan and Emory's last day, Bushra and Hilary threw a little going away party. It was very nice to be able to hang with some of the wonderful people we've met while being here. We also received some great gifts from Hilary. We each received a AMNH bag as well as a sticker and pin. Honestly, I was alre...

The final week is here, and it’s x-rays galore! But before that, the end of last week was also big. That’s because the amazing Christine Siddoway was in town and stopped by to visit. I (Mohan) and Emory both have her to thank that we are here at all– she’s the one who put this amazing opportunity out on the Colorado College campus. We celebrated her visit with a New York classic: Pizza! (Chicago style.) We also took a quick walk into Central Park to admire the view. No, not the city skyline– the rocks! We found a metamorphic outcrop by a pond with awesome foliations from when it cooled long ago deep within the earth, and pronounced striations raked over it by glaciers in the last glacial maximum thousands of years ago. The fossils we’re preparing may come from all over the world, but our walk in Central Park reminded us that there’s amazing natural history right here in Manhattan as well! It's a rock! (courtesy Christine Siddoway) This week we finished up the cleaning, photographi...

  This week we began to finish up this project as next week will be our last to work on it. While we spent our time finishing up data entry and taking our last pictures of the specimens, we also selected specimens for what will be taking up the majority of our last week, cat-scanning them. This week we had the opportunity to tour the invertebrate zoology dry collection, led by Christine Johnson, a Curatorial Associate. We started with a coral collection from the 1800s. This collection and the room it is housed in recently received a complete overhaul. The room was renovated to support healthier conditions for the specimens as well as placing them in brand new cabinets. The specimens were cleaned, sorted, and labeled, much like the work we are doing now. This beautifully organized collection gave us a peek into what the future of our collection will look like and how important the work that we're doing is. One cabinet in the coral collection Next, we got to see the entomology collec...

This week, we gained a new member to the project. Susan Mac Low is from Davis, California and previously worked as a knitting instructor. She enjoys working with concrete objects and tools. Her experience in this area includes woodwork, origami, knitting, and electronics. She is interested in medicine, engineering, and fiber arts, and wants to become a lab tech in the future. Susan adding labels to specimens This week, we continued our work on cleaning and re-housing echinoderm specimens. We also continued to input the fossils into the museums database, as well as taking photographs, and attaching the images to the fossils within the database. This Monday, we were lucky to learn how to do scientific illustrations by a science illustrator, Patricia Wynn. We learned to measure and follow the proportions of the specimen to begin the sketch, then to add some detail, and how to transfer the sketch using tracing paper. We look forward to practicing the skills she taught us and finishing our ...

  Emus running everywhere! Well, not everywhere, just on the computer. That's because this week we’ve started digitally cataloging the echinoderm fossils in earnest, using a program called Electronic Museum, or EMu for short. The cataloging process ties together all of our previous work up to this point, as we attach our new specimen photographs and type out the information from the old specimen labels. (Not all labels are created equally, as it turns out– I’m looking at you, Corroded Paper-scrap-affixed-to-rock.) The bane of my existence. I dare you to try and decipher it . We got a sneak peek into what the future holds for our echinoderms early this week, when we took a trip to the type specimen room. First, we paid pilgrimage to the dusty hole in the wall where our echinoderms used to stay. Needless to say, they were in deep need of the attention we’ve been giving them.  The old crib. So dusty. In the type room, the situation was much better. A filing cabinet at the front o...

  This week we have continued to rehouse and catalog our specimens, as well as learning how to photograph them. We were taught how to properly light and focus a photo depending on the unique shape of each fossil so we can now begin to photograph the specimens as we catalog. We did two very exciting things on Wednesday, the first being a presentation by Melanie Hopkins entitled, “Introduction to Taxonomy, Nomenclature and Classification as applied to Curation and Digitization of Fossil Invertebrate Collections.” We learned more about type specimens, further explaining our tour of the type room last Friday. We talked extensively about the rules and issues surrounding a specimen being named multiple times, being too hastily named as a different species, or accidentally included in an already existing species. It was overall a very interesting and informative presentation which informed a lot of the labeling issues we have encountered during or last week and a half of rehousing. Melani...

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 Fren...