UCMP’s summer adventures (cont.)(page 5 of 7) |
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morphology of the limpet, Lottia scabra, using skills she learned from the “Geometric Morphometrics” summer short-course that was partially supported by UCMP. Nick Pyenson primarily worked in the vertebrate collections, curating and conserving holotype sirenians (sea cows and manatees) and other Pacific Coast  Liz Perotti and her assistant Stacy Peterson use a flame to clear a section of the rock surface of all organisms. This provides a clean surface for the placement of experimental concrete plates which differ in roughness. The plates will help determine whether surface roughness of a rock is an important feature for intertidal organisms. (photo by Jonathan Fram) |
marine mammals. However, in late July, Randall Irmis and Jenny McGuire accompanied Nick to Sharktooth Hill, a Middle Miocene marine mammal bonebed near Bakersfield, California (see the May 2005 UCMP News). The goal of this trip was to get a clearer picture of the environment of deposition and how the bonebed was formed, which in turn will provide a better basis for understanding the paleoecology of this unique assemblage of sharks, cetaceans, pinnipeds, terrestrial mammals, and other vertebrates. Nick then did some work at Bakersfield’s Buena Vista Museum before traveling south to San Diego, where he and Tom Deméré looked at Sharktooth Hill mysticetes from the San Diego Natural History Museum’s collections. After staring at whale earbones for several days, Nick recuperated by spending some time surfing in LaJolla,  Nick Pyenson and Jenny McGuire (she was everywhere this summer!) ponder the geology at Sharktooth Hill. (photo by Randy Irmis)
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