Leaving on a heated train

5 November 2008. Beijing, to Lanzhou, Gansu Province

1525. After a week's restful research in the Institute, I am on the road again.

I am catching a train in an hour or so, heading towards the northwestern province of Gansu. Gansu is at the base of the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

After the 19.5 hour train ride, I will arrive in the city of Lanzhou, where I will find a researcher in the Gansu Provincial Museum, who will then accompany me to the fossil-rich area southwest of the city.

The town I am heading to is Hezheng, a small place with a Muslim majority. The daytime high temperature there is supposed to be somewhere around the 40's degree Fahrenheit. I packed the same clothes I used on the Kunlun Mountain Pass, because snow has already arrived at the base of the plateau.

I will spend a little over a week there examining newly discovered fossil hyena skeletons, and accompanying two graduate students to a few geologic outcrops where they are currently working.

I packed my laptop and cross my fingers with the hope that the Hezheng museum will have a functioning internet connection. They already told me they do, but it's rural China and a flash flood could wash the DSL modem away any second.

Westward!

Jack

P.S. I will be thinking about our new president and the future of the world on the train.

Red Rock Canyon

24-26 October 2008. Red Rock Canyon State Park, Mojave Desert, California

We had a great weekend of warm weather and productive prospecting. The notorious wind of Red Rock Canyon was in total absence this past weekend. This made the work of a fossil prospecting crew of 70+ people easier.

[Fall 2008 Staff. Back row (from left): Collin, Jason, Christy, Mike, Robin, Xiaoming, Vanessa. Front row: Matt, Gary, Jack, Dave, Kamaron]

Among the most interesting finds (to me) were a fossil kangaroo rat jaw and a new microfossil locality. Mike Williams (Department of Vertebrate Paleontology) found the very complete lower jaw of Cupidinimus (probably C. tertius) and Dr. Dave Whistler (Curator Emeritus) found a new microsite from where we collected a test sample for screening.

[Dr. Dave collecting matrix from a new microfossil locality]

Of course, Marlene Heyning did not disappoint us. After finding many fossils (including the carnassial of the felid carnivoran Pseudaelurus) in 2004, she made her mark again on Sunday with an antelope foot bone which she carried back to camp by herself.

[Jack, Marlene, Kam, Gary, and Matt smiling for the camera at the conclusion of the weekend trip. No, that's not my pink bandana; I was just borrowing it because I did not bring my hat.]

With bags full of another weekend of memories, I flew back to Beijing on Monday. My long stay in China has begun.

Jack

Right back where we started from

19 October 2008. Los Angeles, California.

At the conclusion of the 68th annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Cleveland, Ohio, the paleontologists of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology are on their way back home to California and Beijing, respectively.

The meeting was composed of four full days of presentations, from the early marine vertebrates to the more recent large Pleistocene mammals. One of the foci of this year's meeting was climate change, including a symposium on biotic changes during the past several million years of Earth's history, and a special forum on the scientific community and the public understanding of global warming.

On another note, we welcomed the new president of the society at the banquet this past Saturday night: Dr. Blaire Van Valkenburgh of the University of California, Los Angeles, a carnivore specialist, is our new fearless leader.

We are now back in Los Angeles, and with a few days to spare, we are preparing our annual field trip to examine the rocks of the late Miocene Dove Spring Formation in Red Rock Canyon State Park, in the western Mojave Desert. Our leading paleontologists are: Drs. David Whistler and Xiaoming Wang, and Mr. Gary Takeuchi.

We hope to see you there!

Jack