Sorting Through Soil Samples

I was gone for a while on Winter Break and only went to the lab for one day this week, but that's ok because I got to go for 2 1/4 hours. I started out working on picking off the tiny dirt layer from the bones under the microscope, but I quickly realized the jacket it too tall to get the microscope into and close enough to the bones. Next time I go I'll talk to David about cutting off some of the excess jacket so that I can get the microscope in the right place. Instead of trying to continue working with the microscope I decided to work of some of the soil samples from around Ellie. I found many small pieces of bone and shark cartilage. I also found that I had a much easier time tell fossils from dirt, plaster, and rocks. I'm sure that this is because I've been working with fossils for a while, and the last time I worked on soil samples was when I first started at my internship. It's good to go back to things I was doing before and see how much I've improved.

Removing the Dirt

For the week before Winter Break I went to the lab on day 1 for 2 hours, and on day 2 for 2 1/4 hours. For these two days I pretty much only focused on getting the rest of the dirt out of the large Jane jacket. Now I need to work under the microscope with the tiny pick to clean the small layer of dirt that's still on the bones so that I can remove the bones on the right side of the jacket. Once I remove these bones I will keep digging under the bones till I reach the bottom of the jacket. If I find any other bones I will have to clean them as well. I still think the flat bone is part of a pelvis, but when I remove it from the jacket I will know exactly what it is. Towards the end of the second day I realized that the bones I originally thought were two toes are actually part of a vertebrae, as you can see below. I'm very excited to be reaching the bottom of the jacket!