This fabulous slab of Eocene fossils was for sale at Expo! |
This giant trilobite reconstruction was offered at the Live Auction. | 
This Tsintaosaurus was set up by Michael Sincak's business: Treasures of the Earth. |
Q & A session after Bill Desmarais' Expo workshop! |
John Catalani prepares to give his Expo workshop talk. | 
The Fossil Guy's EIPP display table. |
Tiffany Adrain's Cataloging Collections workshop. |
Expo attendees line up to try and 'stump the expert' with their various specimens. | 
Don 'the Fossil Guy' Johnson talks about 'Laura the Kid Dinosaur' during his presentation at Expo 32. |
| The Blackhawk Gem & Mineral Society's Annual Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Show was held Sunday, April 25th, 2010. |
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The show was held at the Waterloo Center for the Arts, 225 Commercial St. Waterloo, Iowa 50701. The theme was 'The Lapidary Arts: Cut & Polished Nature's Beauty Revealed' - but there was much more to see & do!
| University of Iowa Museum of Natural History
announces spring series of 'Fossil Guy' presentations! |
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The summaries below are only partial ones - be sure to visit the Eastern Iowa Paleontology Project's Events web page for full details on this latest lecture series!
Saturday, April 3: 'Beast Foot! Predatory Dinosaurs Large and Small' |
Get introduced to a variety of meat-eating dinosaurs during this educational program!
What were the first dinosaurs like? When and where did other carnivorous dinosaurs live?
What caused some meat-eating dinosaurs to become some of the largest predators to walk the earth,
while others remained as small as a chicken? How did the raptor dinosaurs use their sickle or 'killing'
claw on each foot to kill their prey? What can we learn about dinosaur hunting behavior from the fossil evidence?
Did some dinosaurs hunt in packs? The answers to these and many other questions can be heard at this talk!
See all sorts of cool displays as well!
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Saturday, April 10: 'Exposing Ancient Anatomy: A Look Inside Prehistoric Beasts' |
What can we discover about the anatomy of extinct creatures from fossil evidence including bones,
footprints, eggs, skin impressions, coprolites and stomach stones? How can we use the anatomy of modern animals to
learn more about prehistoric beasts? See detailed models of Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor, Triceratops, the 3-toed
horse Mesohippus, the woolly mammoth, and the giant extinct shark Megalodon that show possible reconstructions of their
skeletons, muscles, skin, and even internal organs! All these topics and many more will be discussed!
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Saturday, April 17: 'The World of Laura the Duck-billed Dinosaur' |
See and touch fossil bones of 'Laura the Kid Dinosaur'
and learn about the world in which she lived!
Laura was a young Hypacrosaurus,
a type of crested duck-billed dinosaur that lived
75 million years ago in Montana.
Learn about what makes Hypacrosaurus special including how it chewed its food, how it grew, and how it cared for its young.
Fossils, replicas and models of duckbills and other dinosaurs that lived with Laura including tyrannosaurs, horn-faced
dinosaurs, raptor dinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, and ostrich-mimic dinosaurs will be on display. Much more will be discussed
at this presentation!
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| The Cedar Valley Rocks & Minerals Society's Annual Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Show was held Sat & Sun March 20 & 21, 2010. |
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The show was held at the Teamster's Union Hall, 5000 J Street SW, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It included an array of programs on Dinosaurs and other aspects of the theme.
All sorts of goodies could be seen at the show! |
Demonstrations included:
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A little something for everyone! |
There were also silent auctions and plenty of kid friendly activities, including a fossil pit, pebble pit, and a dino dig sand pit.
Michael Sincak's 33' Tsintaosaurus display! |
There were numerous displays set up, including:
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First Crack Geodes had these on display in the '08 show! |
| Burpee Museum Paleofest 2010 |
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These youngsters had something to claw about at Paleofest in 2008! |
EIPP sponsors at Paleofest in 2006. |
An Allosaurus goes 'head to head' with an EIPP sponsor at Paleofest in 2006. |
| Thanks to all who helped the Eastern Iowa Paleontology Project
bring 'Laura the Kid Dinosaur' back to life! |
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• Laura was a juvenile Hypacrosaurus stebingeri, a crested duck-billed dinosaur, and she lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 75 million years ago.
• Laura's fossilized bones were discovered in July 2004 on private land north of Dupuyer, Montana in the Two Medicine Formation. David Wolf and crew of Two Girls Fossils in Houston excavated her bones during the 2004 and 2005 dig seasons.
• The recovered skeleton is over 90% complete, with a skull that is about 50% complete. This makes Laura's fossil skeleton one of the most complete of all dinosaur skeletons!
• Laura's fossil skeleton was brought to Eastern Iowa by the EIPP sponsors. Laura may have been a male or female dinosaur. She is named after EIPP President Don Johnson's daughter.
• Laura will be 11' long and 5' high at the hips when mounted, would have been about 4 years old and weighed about 750 lbs. when alive, and had only a hint of the plate-shaped head crest of the adults.
• Laura's species is only one of a handful of dinosaur species that are known from eggs, nests, embryos, hatchlings, and all stages of development to adulthood.
The EIPP is partnering with Cycad Productions Ltd. (CPL) of Watermill, New York, to bring 'Laura the Kid Dinosaur' back to life! Roby Braun, CPL President, will be sculpting a 1:4 scale detailed life restoration of Laura using measurements from her fossil skeleton. Roby has over 30 years' experience developing exhibits featuring full-scale ancient life restorations worldwide! Roby is donating $7,000 of this $8,000 project in the form of research, design, sculpting, molding and casting fees as well as some material costs. He will also keep a journal of sketches and photographs of this project and make it available to the EIPP. The EIPP will use this journal and the Laura life restoration for educational purposes and to promote our future dinosaur exhibit. Roby and his company will become EIPP Sponsors in the 'Lifetime Donor' category. Now we are merely awaiting completion of the reconstruction by Cycad Productions! Thanks to all who participated in this effort!
MAPS decided to support this project at our meeting in December of '09, and will be listed as a donor with Laura's traveling display! To keep tabs on this incredible educational opportunity, please check out EIPP's website, or you can contact EIPP's President (who also is a member of MAPS!), Don Johnson.
Don will be at Expo 32 this year, so stop in and see some of the EIPP's wonderful displays!
'Morphological variation in Lystrosaurus', by PhD candidate Jessica Camp;
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and 'Phylogenetics of the Early Ordovician pliomerid trilobites
Protopliomerella, Pseudocybele, and related taxa: Unravelling the base of the cheiruroidean radiation'
by MS candidate Neo Buenger-McAdams.
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Trowbridge Hall is just off of Market Street (a one way going down the hill towards the river), and the IMU Parking Ramp which is adjacent to Trowbridge can be accessed off of Madison Street.
'Paleontological evidence for rapid fluctuation in the global sea level'
was presented by Dr. Ben Greenstein - Professor and Geology Dept. Chair at Cornell College.
Location: The Norton Geology Center on the Cornell College campus in Mt. Vernon, Iowa on Saturday, January 9th, 2010, at 1PM.
Dr. Greenstein's bio on the Cornell website
Above - Dr. Greenstein near Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay, Western Australia
Old man winter did not force a cancellation of the January meeting this year, and Dr. Greenstein gave a very interesting talk on Jan 9th, focusing on his research regarding the last interglacial sea level highstand which occurred approximately 130,000 years ago. This was the last time in Earth's history that sea level was higher than it is currently. Dr. Greenstein's talk was a particularly timely topic, considering the current concerns with increasing rises in mean sea level as Earth's climate warms due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Greenstein was gracious enough to allow MAPS to record his talk, and once there is time to edit & upload some or all of the talk, links for those interested in seeing some or all of the talk will be posted here.