The letter from Cliff Nelson to Warren Addicott.
 

As undergraduate work-study students recataloging the United States Geological Survery (USGS) Menlo Park Invertebrate collection at the UCMP, we've come across the names Nelson and Addicott time and time again in extensive database entries or on the original, yellowing locality cards paired with each specimen. The names of the paleontologists and geologists responsible for collecting these fossils in the Menlo Park collection are largely unknown to us, but found immersed within the aging drawers of the invertebrate fossils were several curious and antiquarian documents that have brought these names to life. One recently discovered letter, written by UC Berkeley alumnus Cliff Nelson records his activities in the collections during the summer of 1974.

In the letter, Nelson discusses his dissertation work that focused on migration patterns of Neptunea, a large sea snail indigenous to the North Pacific. While studying the migration traces of Neptunea through the North Pacific and to the North Atlantic and California Current, Nelson proposed to elevate Neptunea beyond the level of subgenus. His dissertation interpreted Neptunea as a genus, with the inclusion of 56 named species — half of which are extinct. The letter goes on to explain Nelson's use of the Menlo Park collection and the late nights he spent scavenging through the collections, searching for invertebrate specimens to support his dissertation.

The letter also delivers some insights on other individuals who played an important role in Nelson's research. Warren Addicott, the recipient of Nelson's letter (and another popular name found often in the Menlo Park Collection), obtained his doctorate at UC Berkeley in 1956 and led a distinguished scientific career at the US Geological Survey. The letter concludes with Nelson's gracious thanks to Addicott for his help with his dissertation and an acknowledgment to Dr. Stearns McNeil, another familiar name associated with the Menlo Park collection and the USGS.

After receiving his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1974, the year the letter was written, Nelson went on to publish over fifty articles in refereed journals and books. His work primarily focused on the history of scholarship, ideas, and institutions in natural sciences. Currently, Nelson works as a geologist and historian at the USGS. In 2011 he received the Friedman Distinguished Service Award from the Geological Society of America's History and Philosophy of Geology Division.

Letters such as this one help us discover the identities of the names we come upon so frequently. This is just one of many documents that shines light on the Menlo Park collection and allows us to reconstruct the UC Museum of Paleontology's historic and scientific past.

USGS gastropod specimens (Family Neptuneidae) studied by Nelson during the course of his doctoral study at UC Berkeley. Left: A specimen from USGS Cenozoic Locality M863 Pliocene, Gubick Formation of Alaska, Colville River. Right: A specimen identified by Nelson as Beringius beringii; from USGS Cenozoic Locality M860 Pleistocene, Gubik Formation near Point Barrow village, Alaska. Both specimens were collected by John O'Sullivan pre-1960.

Another in a series of blog posts relating to the museum's "cataloging the archives" project

Ask children what their favorite dinosaurs are, and it's almost guaranteed that Triceratops (refer to them by their nickname, Trikes, and you'll earn tons of street cred) will be on the list. The three-horned, frilled wonder is one of the most recognizable creatures of the Cretaceous. Many a visitor has walked by the Triceratops display here in the Valley Life Sciences Building's Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library. Over time, the display has grown, not only to include more skulls, but to tell a bigger story. Now there are three skulls in the display, each with its own interesting history, but when taken together the tale reaches almost epic status (okay, "impressive" status).

 

The largest of the skulls is UCMP specimen 113697, also known as "Ruben's Trike." While on a UCMP field expedition to Montana and neighboring states in July, 1970, paleontology graduate student John Ruben (now a professor in the Department of Zoology, Oregon State University) discovered the skull in the roughly 68-million-year-old rocks of the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana. The Hell Creek is one of the most fruitful formations for Trike discoveries, and if you've done field work in the Upper Cretaceous of Montana and haven't come across some part of a Triceratops, you're doing something wrong.

John Ruben (black hat) at his "Ruben's Trike" locality, V75046, where the skull, UCMP 113697, was found, McCone County, MT.

The medium-sized Triceratops skull, UCMP 136306, is also known as the "McGuire Creek Trike" since its discovery in badlands of the Hell Creek Formation exposed in the vicinity of this creek drainage in McCone County, Montana. Weathered fragments of bone or "float" from the skull were first sighted by paleontology undergraduate Wayne Thomas in the summer of 1984 on a UCMP field research trip. Further excavation by UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin and crew that summer confirmed Wayne's discovery was a nearly complete juvenile Triceratops skull. The find was exciting in itself, but it also helped fill in some holes in the understanding of Triceratops growth from baby to adult (known as ontogeny) and generated new research by Goodwin, his colleague Jack Horner from the Museum of the Rockies, and their students. For more information on Trike ontogeny, stay tuned for a future blog entry centered on this exact topic.

The smallest of the Trike skulls, UCMP 154452, was found in the Hell Creek Formation (see a trend?) of Montana by long-time UCMP field associate and collector, Harley J. Garbani, in 1995.

When Harley came across the specimen, he first identified it as a possible pachycephalosaur because the tiny brow horn so closely resembled the horns and knobs seen ornamenting the back of the skulls of pachycephalosaurs, or "dome-headed" dinosaurs. Being a very young individual, likely less than a year old, the skull showed features not seen before on a Trike, was very delicate, and in many pieces. Trying to determine what some specimens are from many fragments can be a tedious and insanity-inducing ordeal (ask any fossil preparator).

After corresponding with, and providing pictures to, Mark Goodwin and Professor Bill Clemens, the specimen was correctly identified and also keyed Goodwin into finding a near identical isolated postorbital or "brow" horn from the skull of another baby Triceratops in the UCMP collections.

Left: HJG 1030, the Baby Trike Site. Photo by Bill Clemens. Top right: A portion of Harley Garbani's field notes. He crossed out "Dome-Head" (i.e., pachycephalosaur) after learning it was a baby Triceratops! Bottom right: An excerpt from a letter that Harley wrote to Bill Clemens. He knew he had something important, and very quickly corresponded with the right parties to learn why. Image courtesy of Bill Clemens.

Top left: Photo of a table top covered with the bones of the baby Trike skull discovered by Harley Garbani. Bottom left: Reconstruction of baby Trike. Photo by Dave Smith. Right: Assistant UCMP Director and dinosaur paleontologist Mark Goodwin working on the baby Triceratops skull. It was prepared, molded, and cast so that an accurate reconstruction (on exhibit in the Biosciences Library) could be made available for research and display. Images of Mark Goodwin and skull bones courtesy of Bill Clemens.

Harley’s discovery was a game-changer since it was, and still is, the smallest Triceratops skull and by inference, the youngest yet known. Together, these three skulls tell a story about skull development and growth in a dinosaur that was named by O.C. Marsh of the Yale Peabody Museum over 120 years ago!

UCMP paleontologists are still discovering new things about this very popular dinosaur. Fossils are often known for whatever novel thing they can tell us, but sometimes a seemingly small and, at first, very fragmentary fossil becomes significant when studied in the context of other fossils and when you hear the story behind its discovery. These Triceratops skulls are interesting on both counts!

My visit to the Regatta Facility

The UCMP houses one of the largest fossil collections associated with a university in the world, so it is no wonder that some of the fossils need to be stored off-campus at the UC Regatta facility, located nearby in Richmond. This large warehouse is home to multiple campus-wide museum collections, including a variety of enormous whale skulls, huge ichthyosaur skeletons, and cyclopean bones of mammoths and dinosaurs from the Museum of Paleontology.

The Regatta facility is also the current location of the fossils that have been recovered from the 4^th bore Caldecott Tunnel project, and so I recently paid a visit. From the somewhat daunting pile of boxes, I selected several big, heavy ones labeled “vertebrates” and “invertebrates,” as well as some lighter, flat containers labeled “plants,” to take back to the UCMP in Berkeley. And the next day, I went to work.

Left: a newly-opened box of fossils from the Caldecott Tunel 4th bore; Right: my workspace in the UCMP fossil preparation lab

Removing the lid of the first box revealed a pile of small bundles enveloped in toilet paper and neatly packed away in labeled plastic bags. After unwrapping a few of these small packages, I began to get an idea of the variety of fossils and rock samples that come from the Caldecott tunnel. Most of the fossils I’ve seen so far are small, ranging in size from a tiny tooth several millimeters long, to some about as large as a fist. Many are broken or incomplete. But though they may not be visually impressive, they are rich in history. Not only will these fossils elucidate what the environment and climate of the East Bay was like in the middle Miocene Epoch, 9-16 million years ago, but they also provide clues about what happened to these organisms after they died. It is interesting, for example, that most of the invertebrate fossils are natural molds or ‘impressions’ in pieces of rock, while the vertebrates are preserved mainly as pieces of bones and teeth. Did they live in different habitats? Did they die in different places? How were these fossils preserved? These questions remain to be answered, and we’ll have to wait until further evidence comes in as I unpack and examine more material!

The plant fossils, however, are another story. Their preservation is quite good, and there are many leaves that can be seen very clearly, complete with anatomical details, on small slabs of rock. They are also especially interesting because they are particularly good indicators of the ancient climate of the San Francisco Bay Area, and provide a comparison of current and past geographic ranges of particular species. We will turn to this subject soon when I interview UCMP paleobotanist Diane Erwin…

UCMP paleontologist Mark Goodwin examines a foot bone of an ancient camel

A drawer full of unpacked Caldecott Tunnel fossils

About once a month, I drive from Berkeley to Walnut Creek to pick up specimens for my thesis (dead birds for a study of the evolution of development in Aves), which necessitates a pass through the Caldecott Tunnel. Each time, I heave a sigh and try to shore up my patience as traffic before the tunnels slows to a stop. However, this bane has recently metamorphosed into an object of great interest, for it has come to my attention that the construction here is also uncovering of one of Earth’s most alluring treasures: fossils!

The construction workers are burrowing through rocks that are 9 to 16 million years old. Here, the hills have yielded thousands of fossils of all types of organisms, from plants, to vertebrates and invertebrates, to microfossils (very tiny plants and animals). They, in turn, provide clues to the past flora, fauna, and paleoenvironment of the Bay Area. Who knew that such a wealth of fossils could be found so nearby?

This semester, I am fortunate enough to be a Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) in the UC Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), a position funded by the California State Department of Transportation (known locally as Caltrans) as a component of a new partnership with the UCMP. The plan, in short, is for Caltrans to deposit the fossils recovered from the 4th bore Caldecott Tunnel construction project in UCMP, and for UCMP to clean, catalogue, and curate them. For further details on the UCMP/Caltrans project, please see Mark Goodwin’s article. As the GSR for this project, it will be my job to prepare the fossils by cleaning the dirt off, gluing together what is broken, and properly curating them in the museum.

Scanning the Prep Lab from left to right. Click on the image to see an enlargement.

When I was a little girl with aspirations to become a scientist and study fossils, I was a volunteer paleontologist at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in southeastern California. It was here that I first discovered the appeal of fossil preparation, and the wonderful feeling of reward that comes after many hours of meticulous work. Thus, I am quite excited about the work that I will do over the next few months!

I’ve just completed a scrub-down and organization of the UCMP fossil preparation lab in anticipation of this work, and the boxes of fossils will be arriving soon! As I proceed, I will report on the exciting finds that come to light as each box is opened, and the tale these fossils recount about the paleontology and geology of the East Bay hills.

Another in a series of blog posts relating to the museum's "cataloging the archives" project

The UCMP archives contain five large scrapbooks containing museum-related newspaper clippings dating from 1948 to 1989. The earliest clippings in the oldest scrapbook concern UCMP paleobotanist Ralph Chaney's 1948 trip to central China to see for himself, Metasequoia, a tree thought to have been extinct since the Miocene. The existence of this living fossil had just been publicized in a paper by Hu and Cheng¹. The San Francisco Chronicle made a big deal about Chaney's trip, sending one of their own writers along, who filed a series of reports.

Left: Metasequoia is a deciduous conifer and was leafless when Chaney first saw it in March of 1948. See an enlargement. Middle: Chaney photographing the tree pictured at left in 1948. See an enlargement. Right: Chaney took this photo on a later visit when the tree was in leaf. See an enlargement. All three of these images are from Chaney's lantern slide collection.

But it was a later clipping from the October 20, 1953 Daily Californian that caught my attention. It concerned an interesting relationship between Chaney and Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Here's an excerpt:

"Chaney, on a routine trip to Tokyo and the Far East in 1949, personally presented the Emperor with five Dawn Redwood [Metasequoia] trees, which were planted on the grounds of his estate in Tokyo.

"Chaney had known the Emperor from past visits to Japan, and said yesterday he was inspired to make the gift when he heard that Hirohito was very interested in the tree.

"In 1949, when Chaney was in China, he procured five seedlings of the recently discovered tree and delivered them to the Emperor.

"Chaney received occasional news of the progress of the trees, and made a point of stopping to see them whenever he was in Japan. When Crown Prince Akihito visited the campus recently, he presented the professor with a progress report of the trees sent from Hirohito."

Then, while looking at digital photos of Chaney's lantern slide collection — volunteer photographer Dave Strauss has photographed Chaney's entire collection of lantern slides and glass negatives for the museum — I noticed one of a Japanese gentleman standing next to what looked like a Metasequoia sapling. Hmmm …. So I went online and studied a number of photographs of Hirohito. I am now convinced that the image is of the Emperor himself with one of Chaney's saplings!

Left: The article from The Daily Californian describing Chaney's gift to Emperor Hirohito. See an enlargement. Right: Emperor Hirohito with one of Chaney's Metasequoia seedlings. See an enlargement.

And then a clipping from the May 6, 1969, University of California Clip Sheet provided this progress report: "By now, the Japanese have planted 100,000 dawn redwoods, all descended from Chaney's seedlings."

You never know what cool story you're going to find in the archives!

See other blog posts in this series:

   • Cataloging the archives: Geology camp 100 years ago

   • Cataloging the archives: Unearthing a type

   • The Amber Files: Words from the University Explorer

   • The Amber Files

See newsletter articles about the archive cataloging project:

   • The Mellon Foundation CLIR grant

   • Cataloging the archives: Update I

   • Saluting our volunteers [primarily about our volunteers working on the cataloging project]

Or search UCMP's archival collections yourself!
 

¹Hu, H.H., and W.C. Cheng. 1948. On the new family Metasequoiaceae and on Metasequoia glyptostroboides, a living species of the genus Metasequoia found in Szechuan and Hupeh. Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology New Series 1(2):153-161.

Cal Day is the one day of the year when lucky members of the public can tour UCMP's collection. But this year, on the night before Cal Day, UCMP hosted a special event to take some of our closest friends behind the scenes.

Excitement is in the air. Also, a T. rex tail!

This invitation-only event included sneak previews of Cal Day exhibits, tours of the collection, the paleo art of William Gordan Huff, and fossils recovered during the construction of the Caldecott Tunnel's fourth bore.

UCMP-affiliated faculty curators, scientists, students, and educators were on hand to present a night that our guests won't soon forget. After some mingling and introductory remarks from Director Charles Marshall our visitors were whisked into the collection to enjoy a glimpse of the exciting work happening at UCMP.

Charles in action.

Ken Finger serves up some local fossils, fresh from the Caldecott Tunnel site.

Renske Kirchholtes and Robert Stevenson explain the story of Metasequioa to our guests.

Theresa Grieco showed off monkey fossils and talked about her upcoming trip to Olduvai Gorge (photo by Silvia Spiva).

Pat Holroyd revealed some of the hidden treasures of UCMP being uncovered thanks to our latest archiving grant.

Dave Lindberg neatly demonstrated how our vast collection provides an essential historic baseline for the natural history of California.

Anna Thanukos took visitors beyond the collection through the museum's many education and outreach projects.

Ash Poust dazzled onlookers with phytosaurs, pareiasaurs, and other impressive fossils from our broad collection.

Brian Swartz led the group from the sea to dry land with close-up looks at some of our fishy ancestors.

Diane Erwin pieced together a climate change puzzle using UCMP's California plant fossils.

This exciting, unique UCMP experience produced many smiles and set the tone for the Cal Day to come.

For more photos from the evening see this album on Facebook.

Find out how to become a Friend of UCMP.

Looking at UCMP's modern offices and collections space, one might not appreciate that the paleontology tradition at Berkeley stretches back more than one hundred years.  But now the CLIR/UCMP Archive Project is bringing this history to light. Some of the oldest supplemental locality files I have come across this semester contain class reports and geologic maps prepared by a Cal field geology class in the summer of 1911. Led by Bruce L. Clark, who eventually became the first director of the UCMP, the class camped on the south slope of Mount Diablo in and around what is today Mount Diablo State Park. The scientific goal of the one-month course was to reconstruct the tectonic history of the area through mapping of exposed rock units and collecting of marine invertebrate fossils that are indicative of geologic ages and past environments.

Here are some of the photographs from student Irving V. Augur's report along with the original typewritten captions:

Also in the archive are students' field notes and maps, such as the ones below by William S. W. Kew. In his notes, he recorded the orientation of rock layers (e.g., strike of N60°W and dip of 60°S for Locality 27) and scientific names of fossil invertebrates that had been collected at various locations on the mountain (e.g., Dosinia whitneyi is a clam).

[Fossils from Mount Diablo: top, a Cretaceous clam, specimen number 199004; middle, an internal mold of an Eocene heart urchin, Schizaster lecontei, specimen number 199000; bottom left, Miocene sand dollar, Astrodapsis sp., specimen number 199001; bottom right, a Miocene scallop, specimen number 199002.]

And yes, the fossil clam, sand dollars and scallop pictured above are the specimens collected by the students of the field course 100 years ago. Some of the fossils brought back are currently stored in the Campanile on the Berkeley campus, while others have found their home in the UCMP's research collections in the Valley Life Sciences Building.

After a month of surveying, the students examined these data to figure out the ages of rock layers as well as the arrangement of rocks beneath the surface of the mountain. Here is an exquisitely drawn diagram by Auger.

So what makes Mount Diablo geologically interesting? If you look closely at Kew's map with color-coded rock formations, you will notice that, as one climbs up the mountain, the underlying rock layer becomes progressively older from the Miocene (faint purple and yellow) to Eocene (red), Cretaceous, and Jurassic (green and orange)—which is a bit counterintuitive, isn't it? Furthermore, Auger's inferred cross-section through the mountain suggests that the strata are almost vertically oriented.

In his class report, I. V. Augur wrote:

"The general structure of Mt. Diablo region was for some time a point of disagreement, the reason being that while on the north side evidence of the strata dipping away from the mountain suggested an anticline, evidence on the opposite side did not bear out the assumption, since the general dip was in the same direction and the succession of beds reversed. Prof. J. C. Merriam, however, after a careful study of the structure and faunal relations, pronounced it an overturned anticline, which structure has been generally accepted by geologists who have examined the territory under discussion" (Augur 1911, p. 2).

After a century of additional research, the interpretation of the mountain's geology has changed. Experts today think that Mount Diablo is largely a product of a series of thrust faults (follow this link to see a simplified animation). Specifically, the Jurassic-Cretaceous rocks (which now form the upper portion of the mountain) have been uplifted along the fault zone in the last few million years, bending the more recent Eocene to Miocene rock layers on the southwest side of this zone (the lower portion of the mountain that was mapped by Kew and his classmates).

So the old class reports are uniquely valuable for giving us glimpses into the development of scientific ideas through the eyes of students. The detailed observations recorded in the class reports reveal that the field camp was really a group research project involving students.

An excerpt from I. V. Augur's report

A table of fossils colleted (from W. S. W. Kew's report)

An excerpt from Kew's report with comments (in blue) by the instructor (Clark?)

As one flips through these reports, it is worth keeping in mind that, in 1911, the theory of continental drift was still being formulated by Alfred Wegener. More locally, this is back when John C. Merriam and colleagues from Berkeley had been tirelessly digging up asphalt-covered fossils from the tar pits of Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, and an undergraduate student by the name of Charles L. Camp was busy catching reptiles and amphibians (such as this arboreal salamander) for the newly-founded Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

After 1911, Clark continued to teach and conduct research in the Mount Diablo area for many more years. This not only contributed to greater understanding of regional geology but also led to a fortuitous discovery in 1927 of one of the most significant Miocene mammal localities in California, the Black Hawk Ranch Quarry. Also notably, some of the students from the field camp went on to become respected geologists—Kew, for instance, pursued his doctoral degree in the Department of Paleontology and produced important works on fossil echinoderms (sea urchins, sand dollars, and their relatives).

To learn more about the geology of Mount Diablo, check out Doris Sloan's Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region (University of California Press) and take a hike on the interpretive Trail Through Time on a sunny day. I end with a few images from my recent excursion to the mountain with my colleagues. Considering the extent of Clark's and his students' survey effort, we may have crossed their footsteps at some point as we climbed Eocene marine sandstones (below left), traversed meadows dotted with California Poppies (below center), and stood by outcrops of ancient radiolarian chert (below right).

Special thanks to Dave Strauss for photographing Kew's map, David K. Smith for information on the geologic history of Mount Diablo, and Renske Kirchholtes and Emily Lindsey for the trip to Mount Diablo State Park!

More stories from the CLIR/UCMP Archive Project

Cataloging the archives: Update I

Cataloging the archives: Unearthing a type

This semester, the UCMP has been excited to host a visiting photographer, UC alum Dave Strauss.  A self-described "computer guy" for the last 42 years, he is also an avid naturalist, hiker, and mountain biker.  Dave finds inspiration at the UCMP through the opportunity to use his talents to communicate evolutionary and historical knowledge to the broader community.

A juvenile Triceratops specimen gets its moment in the spotlight.

Collaboration with Dave has provided many opportunities to contribute to science.  He has confronted technical challenges photographing unwieldy Triceratops fossil fragments with Assistant Director Mark Goodwin, to photographing tiny tadpoles just beginning to grow their skeletons with graduate student Theresa Grieco.  He is also assisting with the CLIR/UCMP archive project, documenting and digitizing historical records, particularly more unusual items like lantern slides (for examples of lantern slides depicting California geology, click here).

Dave's willingness to experiment with lighting, lenses, and artistry has paid off - he has helped at least 7 different researchers get great images for their work.  He finds he is learning more about photography as his paleontology collaborators push the boundaries of optics and camera technology with unusual requests, and he is able to quiz them about the most current research projects going on in the UCMP.

You can find some of Dave Strauss's work, including images from the UCMP collections, at his website.

Dave examines the fineness of detail captured in preparations of Xenopus tropicalis tadpole jaws.

This semester, one of the foci of the CLIR/UCMP Archive Project has been cataloging what are called “supplemental locality files.” These files contain materials (other than field notes) that are relevant to UCMP collections, such as polaroid pictures of fossil sites, letters of correspondence involving UCMP scientists, and environmental impact reports for land development proposed in areas with known fossil sites. As such, they are unique records of how collections came to be, and how collections have since been used for research, education, and protection of paleontological resources on public lands.

My work on the project is (1) to improve the preservation of these materials by rehousing them in archival-quality containers and (2) to make entries in the UCMP collections database to link the archive and collections records. The latter makes it possible for anyone interested in, say, the holotype of Cretaceous plesiosaur Hydrotherosaurus alexandrae to look up what archival materials exist in the museum that are related to the specimen (by following the “Link to Archives” in the specimen record or administrative locality record; alternatively, the search function of the Archon database can be used).

In this example, the supplemental locality file includes photographs (below) and corresponding negatives of the excavation site taken in 1937, photographs of prepared specimens, William Gordon Huff’s reconstruction of the animal, and type-written captions for the photographs that were perhaps prepared for an exhibit. When combined with field notes, pictures of excavation sites like these often carry important information on how skeletal remains were buried, which in turn can provide insights into the habits and habitats of long-extinct animals (learn more about this topic). Beyond their scientific values, these pictures preserve vivid images of field work in the early 20^th Century, enticing those of us who study paleontology today to ponder on the history of the discipline and personal development of yesterday’s workers whom we hold in high esteem (read about Samuel P. Welles).

You can see a replica of the Hydrotherosaurus skeleton at the City College of San Francisco.

Stay tuned for more exciting “digs” from the Archive Project!

[Larger versions of the photos below can be seen on CalPhotos.]

Left: A scraper pulled by a mule was used to remove fragments of shale from the surface and expose fossil-bearing layers of rock. Center: The holotype of Hydrotherosaurus alexandrae was recovered in the Panoche Hills of Fresno County, California, in 1937 by a joint party from Fresno State College (now CSU Fresno) and UC Berkeley. Right: Samuel P. Welles (left) and Lloyd Conley extracted a block containing the neck of the plesiosaur. Welles, then a graduate student, later described and named the plesiosaur after UCMP benefactor, Annie Alexander.

Center: A caption associated with this photo reads ‘We put the heavy blocks on a sled to get them out of the deep canyon ...’ Left: ‘... then, with a tractor up on top and a long cable going through a pulley which was anchored to a large sandstone dike, we gradually worked the sled down the main canyon.’ Right: Albert Branch (left) and Welles are surrounded by plaster jackets containing fossils.

Left: The UCMP holotype skeleton of Hydrotherosaurus alexandrae, specimen number 33912. The 30-foot skeleton was prepared by two WPA workers over 18 months and was put on display at the Golden Gate Exposition in 1940. Right: William Gordon Huff's reconstruction of Hydrotherosaurus alexandrae.

Polished amber in the Museum of Amber in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. (Photo by Alejandro Linares Garcia (CC BY-SA 3.0))

"More than 300 years ago, Sir Francis Bacon spoke of amber as 'a more than royal tomb' for tiny insects. Twentieth century scientists may quite agree."

But how do insects end up as amber fossils?  What else is found in amber?  How are these amber fossils prepared for study?

The answers to these questions can be found in one of the hidden collections of UCMP's archives — the 1561st broadcast of "The University Explorer." This show was narrated by Hale Sparks, former head of broadcasting for the University of California, during which time he ran two educational radio shows — "Science Editor" and "The University Explorer."

Mosquito encased in Miocene-aged amber from the Dominican Republic. (Photo by Didier Desouens (CC BY-SA 3.0))

The October 6, 1957 broadcast of the program, entitled "Forever in Amber," featured Berkeley entomologist Paul D. Hurd, Jr. It follows the path of an ancient insect as it becomes entombed in amber, uncovered, prepared, and studied. The narration moves from the famous Baltic amber deposits to Berkeley's own amber research efforts in Chiapas, Mexico, and from the struggles of a small fungus gnat caught in sap to the thrill of a scientist's discovery.

"These insects, which were so remarkably preserved in the fossilized tree gums of the prehistoric forests, are now clearly visible to us in amber. They often appear to be virtually alive."

A complete transcript of "Forever in Amber" can be found online here or as a pdf.