PALEONTOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE
MONTANA
July 2016 - August 2016
My practical experience in paleontology was first obtained in the year of 2016 when I volunteered as an intern for the Judith River Dinosaur institute. I was coming to the end of my degree at Plymouth university and needed to collect data for my final year thesis. As an enthusiastic undergraduate I was still unaware of the politics within paleontology and therefore was oblivious to academia's standpoint on commercial paleontology.
During my 5 weeks in Montana, I spent every other week out in the field and the weeks in between in the "Dino Lab" working on my thesis and learning how to prep dinosaur bones using microblasters. The data for my final year thesis was gathered by taking a large dorsal vertebra of what would later be thought to belong to a large haplocanthosaurid, to Billings Hospital to be CT scanned.
The weeks spent out in the field saw me camping beneath the foot of the little snowy mountains, digging such dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Haplocanthosaurus from the Morrison formation rocks. I learnt valuable paleontological skills including proper bone mapping and data recording, the proper excavation of fossilised remains and jacketing the bones for transportation.
Upon my return to the UK it later came to my attention that the JRDI's reputation was somewhat questionable but, regardless of the JRDI's complicated history I am still nonetheless very grateful to the vital experience JRDI provided me.
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PORTUGAL, LOURINHA 2017
One of Europe's richest nest sites
In 2017, following my internship the previous year in America, I successfully passed an interview and was accepted as a volunteer for a week of paleontological excavation in Portugal, Lourinha. The lead paleontologist was Professor Rui Castanhinha who was working with G.E.A.L at the museu de Lourinha.
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During our time here, our primary focus was to clear the overburden which was obscuring access to the Jurassic beds located on the coast of Lourinha. These geological strata known as the Lourinha Formation date back to the Late Jurassic and are recognised worldwide as a unique area for its abundance of embryonic remains. However, during my time here no embryonic remains were uncovered, as the entire week was spent clearing the overburden which was heavily underestimated.
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Time not spent out in the field due to the carry capacity of the vehicle, was spent back in the preparation lab at the Museu de Lourinha with lead lab technician Carla Tomas. Here we were taught how to use air scribes to carefully remove stone from delicate fossilised egg shells.
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