8 minute read
The Alf Museum
NEWS FROM
The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology
Peccary Trips Return
Nearly 90 years of tradition continued when the Webb School of California and Vivian Webb School classes of 2024 and 2025 traveled to the Mojave Desert for fossil-hunting adventures known as Peccary Trips. From simple beginnings with Ray Alf and a handful of students in 1936, generations of Webbies have experienced fossil collecting near Barstow.
The trips – on hiatus in 2020-21 because of COVID-19 – featured the Class of 2025 taking a traditional ninth-grade excursion in October 2021 followed by a make-up trip for the Class of 2024 in spring.
During the overnight experiences, students learned how to collect fossils, got to know their fellow classmates and explored the night skies with Webb’s telescopes. Students discovered fossil horse teeth, camel bones and a nearly complete horse lower jaw. They also applied knowledge learned in Webb’s Evolutionary Biology class, getting to see concepts such as stratigraphic superposition in person. The fossils, which are collected under permit from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, are prepared by students and added to the Alf Museum’s permanent collection for research and educational purposes.
Paleontologist Dr. Julie Meachen recognized as Alf Award recipient
Dr. Julie Meachen, a world renowned expert on Ice Age animals, was recognized at the 2021 Peccary Dinner as the seventh recipient of the Raymond M. Alf Award for Excellence in Paleontological Research and Education.
The annual award honors a paleontologist who has made major contributions both in original scientific research as well as in education and outreach at the K-12 levels.
A professor at Des Moines University, Meachen has significantly advanced understanding of many extinct carnivores, ranging from dire wolves to sabertoothed cats. Additionally, she has mentored high school students from her area in original scientific research, with many of the students continuing into STEM studies in college and for their careers. Meachen was nominated for the Alf Award by a colleague.
The award includes an honorarium of $1,000.
“These students get training that they wouldn’t normally get in a high school classroom, which makes them more scientifically literate to better understand what’s going on in their world,” Meachen said during her acceptance speech at the virtual Peccary Dinner.
“Julie Meachen sets a high bar for research achievements, and I am always excited to see her science on everything from cave fossils in Wyoming to ancient wolf puppies,” Alf Museum Director Dr. Andy Farke said. “Her integration of high school students into this research process is so important, not only to produce more science, but also to foster scientific thinking in future leaders.”
Summer Peccary Trip Sees Success
After a year hiatus, a crew of Webb students and faculty joined the Alf Museum for the 2021 Summer Peccary Trip. During the two-week adventure in Wyoming, students camped in the amazing outdoors of the American West, explored Yellowstone National Park, visited famous fossil museums and discovered thrilling new traces of longvanished life.
Paleontological explorations focused on Cretaceousaged rocks in western Wyoming, from about 90 million to 66 million years old. The first major stop was near Cody. A preliminary trip in 2019 identified some rocks in the Mesaverde Formation, roughly equivalent in age and paleoenvironment to previous museum field areas in southern Utah. The rocks outside Cody have not been extensively explored by other paleontologists, so they present opportunities for important discoveries.
During their time in the Cody area, the peccary crew collected remains ranging from tyrannosaur teeth to turtle shells.
After a week near Cody, the crew turned south to collect a turtle shell from near Rock Springs. The fossil was discovered by several students on the 2019 trip, but there wasn’t time to collect it then. The 2021 crew hiked to the site with hammers and chisels, carefully extricating the fossil embedded within a 50-pound block of sandstone. The site was over a mile and a half from the nearest road, so it took teamwork and muscle to get the extinct turtle back to the vehicle.
For many of the students, it was their first time visiting Wyoming. In addition to fossil collecting, the group also took time to experience Yellowstone National Park, as well as the hot springs in Thermopolis. Sightings of pronghorn, bison and elk made for a memorable trip. Additionally, after a year of pandemic closures, this was the first major inperson Webb experience for many of the younger students. It provided an important opportunity for them to learn Webb traditions and bond with their fellow Webbies.
Since the return from Wyoming, fossils collected during the trip have been cleaned by student volunteers and museum staff. Students in the museum afternoon volunteer activity are sorting through matrix for small fossils, and others are cleaning and stabilizing a dinosaur leg bone and turtle shells. The most surprising discovery happened as the turtle from near Rock Springs was cleaned. Initially thought to only be a partial shell, careful work by preparator Jared Heuck uncovered a nearly complete set of limbs and tail! It is probably one of the most complete fossils yet found in rocks of that age from that part of Wyoming. This and other fossils from the 2021 Summer Peccary Trip are being studied by students in the Advanced Studies in Paleontology class.
Webb students on the trip included members of the Webb School of California and Vivian Webb School classes of 2024 (Emily Berg, Emily Black, Aiperi Bush, Camile Casper, Ray Kan, Fia Lin, Taya Sibichenkova), 2023 (Emilia Bordage, Valeria Gonzalez, Aidan Helgeson, Isabella Saeedy, Julia Tyck, Zac Wang) and 2022 (Logan Causley, Nathan Choi, Joseph Ferrari, David Hastings, Emma Holliday, Yvonne Kan, Blake Suttner). They were joined by Webb faculty Will Allan, Kristen Brown, Carissa DeRanek and Linda Silva, in addition to museum paleontologists Dr. Andy Farke, Billie Guerrero, Jared Heuck and Bailey Jorgensen.
All fieldwork was completed under permit from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management-Wyoming. The fossils are accessioned at the Alf Museum. The museum plans to return to Wyoming for its 2022 Summer Peccary Trip.
Museum Research Updates
The collection is the core of the Alf Museum, driving research by museum staff, Webb students and outside researchers. The Advanced Studies in Paleontology class continues to be a major engine of scientific productivity for the museum – the only institution in the world that has a major paleontology collection on a high school campus.
After a career spanning 30 years at Webb, Director Emeritus Dr. Don Lofgren is wrapping up long-running projects with students. Many of the specimens under study were collected on decades worth of Peccary Trips in the Barstow Formation of Southern California as well as several areas in Montana. Specific projects include Eocene and Oligocene lizards and snakes from Montana and a new species of fossil mammal from the Goler Formation of California, among others. Many of the projects were on track to be submitted for publication in spring 2022, all with student and alumni co-authors.
Read more about Webb’s 2021-22 student paleontology research projects on page 47.
Museum Director Dr. Andy Farke has set a primary research focus on fossils collected during the 2021 Summer Peccary Trip to Wyoming. Students are working on fossil turtles, birds, dinosaurs and sharks to identify the specimens and compare them with discoveries from other areas. Additionally, Farke recently co-authored a paper with Canadian paleontologist Rachel Nottrodt, who documented unusually excellent preservation of the ankle region in an ornithomimid (ostrich dinosaur). The fossil was collected over 20 years ago in southern Utah by a team that included Webb students. The research is published in the peerreviewed journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
Learn more about Webb’s paleontology program.
TikTok: Natural History in a Minute
Sharing stories about the natural and ancient world is all part of the game for natural history museums. The Alf Museum is no different, starting all the way back in the days of Ray Alf sharing stories “from the stars to civilizations.” With the growing world of digital media, sharing stories with our audience has never been easier, but no less important. This is especially true now, during a pandemic that has unfortunately limited in-person story telling.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Alf Museum has been at the forefront of creating fun and engaging digital avenues for audiences to learn about paleontology. These audiences find us everywhere from Fossil Friday Chats on our YouTube channel to fossil photos on our Instagram feed.
There was one place, though, that we hesitated to tread, and that was TikTok.
At first glance, this newer social media site may seem like a place for younger millennials and “zoomers” to dance to the latest trends or vlog about their lives. But, it’s far more than that. TikTok has become a hub for storytellers to share their stories to millions of people around the globe. Its accessibility has allowed for so many to open their phone to learn about different cultures, rising artists, and even how to best clean their house. Once that potential was realized, the Alf Museum team knew that it would be another great place to share stories from the world of paleontology. Since uploading our first TikTok, we have gained a small, but dedicated (and growing!) following of learners, curiosity seekers and fossil enthusiasts. Our Fossil Friday videos have helped to share amazing specimens and discoveries from our collection and, in turn, have brought us many fantastic questions from our followers that we are more than happy to answer in our Museum Q&A videos. There have even been some more fun videos where we show the lighter side of paleontology. All are usually watchable in a minute or less!
TikTok has been another fantastic foray into digital media for the Alf Museum team. Being able to engage with our audience in a new and exciting way has brought a renewed joy to us as science storytellers. We love to provide avenues for knowledge seekers and the curious to find answers to their questions, and we can’t wait to share more stories from the world of paleontology.
