Stories tagged History and Nature of Science
Danse Macabre: Artwork Inspired by the Black Plague.Courtesy Wikimedia Creative CommonsHalloween is coming up soon and what better way to scare the tar out of everybody than with another Black Plague story.
Researchers from Germany and Canada have now determined that the pathogen existing today that infects the human population with bubonic plague is the same one that caused the horrific pandemic known as the Black Plague (aka Black Death) during the Middle Ages,
In the 14th century (1347-1351) the the plague devastated much of Europe. It was brought on by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and thought to have originated in China. Rats, infested with fleas carrying the bacteria, spread the fatal pathogen via the trade routes and across Europe, wiping out one-third of the human population. This is a conservative estimate; some claim as much as 60 percent of the population was eradicated!
Whatever the case, imagine even a third of all your acquaintances, friends, and relatives suddenly dying from what one 14th century chronicler described as “so virulent a disease that anyone who only spoke to them was seized by a mortal illness and in no manner could evade death.”
And it was an extremely horrible death, to say the least, as Michael Platiensis makes clear in his writings from 1357:
“Those infected felt themselves penetrated by a pain throughout their whole bodies and, so to say, undermined. Then there developed on the thighs or upper arms a boil about the size of a lentil which the people called "burn boil". This infected the whole body, and penetrated it so that the patient violently vomited blood. This vomiting of blood continued without intermission for three days, there being no means of healing it, and then the patient expired.“
[Above quoted in Johannes Nohl, The Black Death, trans. C.H. Clarke (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1926), pp. 18-20]
The Black Plague was the second of three great waves of plague that raged across Europe during historical times. The first, known historically as the Plague of Justinian, took place in the 6th century and affected the Byzantine Empire and much of Europe. The last major wave, known as the Great Plague of London, killed about 100,000 of the city’s population in 1664-65. In the two centuries that followed, waves after wave of the plague continued to devastate the European population although on a lesser scale. These outbreaks although sometimes as virulent, were often more isolated regionally or within a city and kept Europe’s population from rebounding for a good century and a half.
The plague presents itself in three ways: bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic. All three infections are caused by Y. pestis. With bubonic plague, the lymph nodes become painfully swollen into what are termed buboes – hence the name bubonic. Scepticemic plague, the rarest of the three forms, infects the blood. Both bubonic and scepticemic, if left untreated, result in death between 3-7 days after infection. Pneumonic is the most contagious since it infects the lungs and is easily spread through the air in a spray of water droplets. It’s also the most lethal and usually kills its victims in one to three days. Each form can present itself on its own or can progress into all three. It’s thought the Black Plague was mainly a combination of the bubonic and pneumonic forms. (The practice still used today of saying, “Bless you” after someone sneezes is a holdover from the 14th century plague) The only defense against the pandemic was avoidance of fleas and the fatally sick. Not easy to pull off when rats and the afflicted were widespread. Infected families were generally quarantined, their houses marked with a red cross, and left to fend for themselves.
The plague had a tremendous effect on European life in the Middle Ages. The Hundred Years’ War actually paused briefly in 1348 for lack of soldiers. The plague had wiped out too many of them. Economically, wages rose sharply because the workforce was also greatly reduced. Shop owners suffered because no one dared step outside the confines of their own homes, so supplies rose and prices dropped. The removal of the rotting corpses required relatives either doing it themselves and further risking infection, or paying premium prices for some other poor schlub to do it. The dead were buried as quickly as possible, often in mass graves.
In the recent research which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Johannes Krause and his colleagues extracted DNA from the tooth enamel of five corpses from one of these 14th century mass burial sites in London (under the Royal Mint!). Using the latest technology to sequence the DNA fragments, the researchers from the University of Tubingen in Germany, and McMaster University in Canada, decoded a circular genome called pPCP1 plasmid that comprises about 10,000 positions in the Y. pestis DNA. When they compared it with the genome of the pathogen’s current strain, the genetic information appeared to have changed very little over the past six centuries. (It should be noted that the researchers suspect the pathogen that occurred in the 6th century may have been a now-extinct strain of Y. pestis or one completely unrelated to bubonic plague.)
So, that means the very same nasty contagion – the one that terrorized and devastated so much of Europe for so many centuries in the Middle Ages - is still with us today. Luckily, the bubonic plague can be held at bay with antibodies if treated in time. But what happens if Yersinia pestis mutates into a strain against which current antibodies are useless? If that doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, I don’t know what will.
Happy Halloween!
SOURCES and LINKS
Scientific Computing story
The Black Plague by Dr. Skip Knox, Boise State
Plague symptons and signs – in case you get it
Nifty Black Death quiz – thanks Liza!
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Painted Bison Hide, Dakota, in the collection of Museo di Scienze Naturali Encirco Caffi, Bergamo ItalyCourtesy Museo di Scienze Naturali Encirco Caffi, Bergamo ItalyIf contemporary star quilts and painted bison hides are rooted in the same tradition, that means women were (and still are!) important producers of ceremonially painted arts in Dakota communities in 1823.
Ethnographic accounts prior to the 1970s often left women out of the picture regarding the production of art. Specifically, western anthropologists suggested ceremonial and “high” art was the work of men, when in fact women were the primary tanners and painters of hides.
Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine edited an important volume, "The Hidden Half, Studies of Plains Indian Women" in 1983. One article discusses the development of star quilts from hide painting traditions. This isn’t a new story—centuries-old forms and designs are adapted according to new materials, tools, and ideas—however, this dialogue is helping me consider the two painted bison hides and the importance of women in the Beltrami story.
Star Quilt, Dakota; Collection of the Science Museum of Minnesota A91:13:1Courtesy Science Museum of Minnesota
Designs on the Beltrami painted hides consist of radiating concentric circles, sometimes called headdress, sun, or star designs. Contemporary star quilts usually employ an 8-pointed star motif. According to ethnologies and Dakota oral histories, the 8-pointed star represents Venus, or the Morning Star and carries various meanings including immortality and death. Red painted bison hides historically wrapped the dead, and Dakota people still use star quilts during funerals. Today, people gift star quilts to denote passages in life like marriage and the birth of a child, and to honor a person.
Are the two traditions related? Why did Beltrami receive two painted hides? What do you think?
Back in 1823, Italian explorer Giacomo Beltrami did.
Giacomo BeltramiCourtesy Wikemidia Commons
Before famous explorers like George Catlin (1830), Seth Eastman (1830), and Nathan Sturges Jarvis (1833) visited Minnesota and assembled cultural and artistic collections relating to Minnesota’s indigenous people, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami navigated the Mississippi River—mostly solo and protected primarily by a red silk umbrella. Beltrami’s reasoning—correctly it turns out—was the red umbrella would be so exotic he would not be mistaken as a tribal member to the warring Dakota and Ojibwe nations.
Beltrami tagged along on the official US reconnaissance mission to map the "Northwest" (currently the state of Minnesota). Beltrami and Maj. Stephen J. Long disagreed during the journey, and in Pembina they parted ways. Beltrami took off with three Ojibwe guides in a birchbark canoe to search for the source of the Mississippi River--his goal all along.
Within five days they'd been ambushed by neighboring Dakota Indians, one of the Ojibwes was wounded, and they were running out of supplies. The Ojibwe guides tried to convince Beltrami to walk to Red Lake with them, but he refused to leave his canoe and his collections.
So there Beltrami sat alone, a foreigner in the wilderness with a canoe, a rifle, and a red umbrella. Unable to master paddling solo, he dragged the canoe after him with a tow line and propped the umbrella in the bow--basically to make onlookers curious before they shot at him.
Why is this story relevant to science? Beltrami wasn't just an explorer, he was a collector. He amassed over 100 American Indian objects through diplomacy, exchanges, barter, and purchases. He consciously and thoroughly documented where he purchased the pieces and whom he purchased them from, leaving us with a rare resource that has the potential to expand our understanding of the cultural exchanges and personal interactions that occurred between Beltrami and Minnesota’s Indigenous people in 1823.
This 188 year-old ethnographic collection is the basis for my research for the next year. Stay tuned to Science Buzz for more research findings.
Oh, and that red umbrella? It's in the collection too! 
Beltrami's red umbrella, Museo di Scienze Naturali Bergamo, ItalyCourtesy Tilly Laskey
Publication Party for "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America" by Shawn Lawrence Otto
You are Cordially Invited
Publication Party, Public Reading, and Book Signing Event
for
FOOL ME TWICE: Fighting the Assault on Science in America
by
SHAWN LAWRENCE OTTO
Introduction by Don Shelby
Emcee Jim Lenfestey
"A gripping analysis of America's anti-science crisis."
—Starred Kirkus Review
“In this incredible book, Otto explores the devaluation of science in America.”
—Starred Publishers Weekly Review
You know you want to read it. Click here for more infoCourtesy Shawn Lawerence Otto
Tuesday October 18, 2011 at 7PM
Target Performance Hall, Open Book
1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis
(click here for directions and free parking)
This event is free and open to the public
sponsored by
the Loft Literary Center
the Science Museum of Minnesota
no reservation required, but click here to RSVP to help us plan
Beer, wine and light refreshments served
Books for sale at the event
Free book by drawing. To qualify: A) post about the event on Facebook B) tweet at the event with hashtag #FoolMeTwice and mention @ShawnOtto
According to their website, National Fossil Day is a "celebration organized to promote public awareness and stewardship of fossils, as well as to foster a greater appreciation of their scientific and educational value." This year the celebration is set for October 12, and like last year, I'll probably be doing several posts regarding fossils and the event itself over the next couple of weeks. So with that in mind, here's my first contribution.
Skull of Amia uintaensis (bowfin): Large and well-preserved fossil fish from Fossil Lake deposits shows fine detail, including scales and skin. The full fossil is 49 inches in length. Science Museum of Minnesota collection.Courtesy Mark RyanTucked in a corner of the Dinosaur and Fossils Gallery here at the Science Museum of Minnesota is a display of fossil fish from the famous Green River Formation. The display offers visitors a look at some of the most well known fossils in the world. Visit a rock shop, natural history store, souvenir shop, or museum just about anywhere and you’ll find fish fossils from the Green River Formation for sale. Literally millions of fossils have been extracted from the formation, so it’s no surprise at all to find some in our paleontology gallery. The display represents only a fraction of the Green River fossils in the Science Museum of Minnesota collection.
Fossil Butte: The butte stands in Fossil Butte National Monument and represents the ancient deposition remains of the center of Fossil Lake in western Wyoming. Limestone and mudstone layers near the top of the butte are rich in fossil fish and other fauna and flora from the Eocene Epoch.Courtesy Mark RyanThe sources of this splendid array of extraordinary fossils are the deposits left by three freshwater lakes that existed around 50 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch. These ephemeral bodies of water existed across 17 million years of time, and not all at the same time. Lake Gosiute was the largest in area with a diameter of about 200 miles. Lake Uinta had the most surface area and was the shallowest and existed the longest. Fossil Lake was the smallest and the shortest-lived – but the deepest. The lakes existed in a subtropical environment flush with all sorts of animal life from insects to mammals. More than 20 species of fish populated the waters while crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles basked along lake shores lined with lush forests of palm and fig trees. Birds and bats flew through the sky. Ferns sprouted in the shadowed woodlands of oaks and maples that grew up the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Fir and spruce trees existed in the higher elevations. Fossil remains from this past life are found in all of the basins where the three lakes once existed, but Fossil Lake, as its name implies, produces the most abundant Green River Formation fossils, especially fossil fish.
Fossil Butte: The rich fossil deposits were first discovered by workers for the Union Pacific Railroad.Courtesy Mark RyanRailroad workers helping expand the Union Pacific railroad in the mid-1800s first discovered the fossil deposits near the town of Green River, Wyoming. The discovery soon drew the attention of scientists. A geologist named Dr. John Evans collected some of the first fossils from the region in 1856, and Philadelphia paleontologist, Joseph Leidy, soon after described for the first time, Knightia eocaena, the most common fossil fish found in the formation. Edward Drinker Cope, another paleontologist, also collected from the deposits and wrote several important papers starting in 1870.
Heliobastis radiens: A stingray found in the Green River Formation deposits. Science Museum of Minnesota collection.Courtesy Mark RyanThe fossils on display at the Science Museum include Amia, Knightia, Diplomystus, and the exquisite stingray Heliobatis all preserved in buff-colored slabs consisting of soft lamination of mudstone, limestone, and volcanic ash. There’s also a slab of garfish, and an unlabelled predator named Priscacara next to the large palm frond on the wall near the entrance. Lance Grande (a graduate of the University of Minnesota and paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago) is considered the leading expert in the fossil remains found in the Green River Formation. His book Paleontology of the Green River Formation (which I referenced heavily for this post) is considered a classic, and contains photos of many specimens found in the Science Museum’s collection.
The two main fish-bearing units in the strata are the 18-inch Layer and the Split-Fish Layer. The formation is considered a laggerstatte (which means storage place) where nearly an entire ecological system is finely preserved in the fossil record. Several lagerstätten exist around the world but the Cambrian-aged Burgess Shale in British Columbia, and the Late Jurassic-aged Solnhofen quarry in Germany are probably the two best known.
Green River Formation: Strata of the famed fossil-rich formation visible in Fossil Butte National Monument. The butte represents deposits from what was once the center of Fossil Lake that existed 50 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch in what is now western Wyoming.Courtesy Mark RyanThe deposited remains of what used to be the center of Fossil Lake today form a high butte in western Wyoming that towers a thousand feet above the Visitor Center at Fossil Butte National Monument. The monument was established in 1972 and is located 9 miles west of Kemmerer, Wyoming in the extreme southwestern corner of the state. Despite its somewhat isolated location, it’s well worth going out of your way to see.
Abandoned workers' shelter: Historic Quarry at Fossil Butte National Monument.Courtesy Mark RyanMy brother Pat and I visited the area on one of our recent geo-trips out west. We first stopped at the Fossil Butte visitor center where, not surprisingly, some extremely rare and high quality Green River fossils were on display, including insects, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, birds, bats, and other mammals. Finely preserved fossils of leaves, cattails, flowers and fruit are also on display. We watched a short film explaining the area and the fossils found there, then Pat and I headed out to a nearby abandoned fossil quarry within the park for a bit of exploration on our own. We parked in the designated lot just off the highway, grabbed our packs and some water, and began our ascent to the Historic Quarry. The climb along the 2.5 mile hiking trailwas no picnic – it took about an hour to get to the top, but information signs dot the trail to guide and inform you as you go along. 
Historic Quarry: Pat Ryan stands level with the fossil-rich 18-Inch Layer located in the abandoned quarry at the top of Fossil Butte.Courtesy Mark RyanAnd the view of the wide Wyoming landscape is breath-taking. The main trail eventually runs parallel to the butte and along that stretch is an a-frame shack used by workers who excavated the quarry back when it was still operating. Every once in a while we’d come upon a slab of rock that had fallen from the fossil layer above. You could tell this by its buff color, plus one we examined contained the partial remains of the head of a Diplosmystus. The regular hiking trail took us about 600 feet above the highway, but to get to the 18-inch Layer we had to take a spur trail another couple hundred feet up above that.
The 18-Inch Layer exposed at Fossil Butte's Historic Quarry: Fossils from this layer of the Green River Formation are exhibited in museums all over the world.Courtesy Pat RyanThe 18-inch Layer contains some of the best preserved fossils in the world, and is composed of limestone, oil shale, and volcanic ash. The lacustrine (lake) deposits are laid out in alternating pairs (varves) of light and dark layers each representing an annual cycle of sedimentation. Overall there’s about 4000 years of deposition represented in the layer. Three feet beneath the 18-inch Layer (but not exposed at the Historic Quarry) is a second major fossil unit named the Split Fish Layer (or sandwich layers). This unit is about 6-1/2 feet thick and is so called because when the rock is separated, the fossils themselves split between the top and bottom layers diminishing the quality. When the layers of the 18-inch Layer are separated the fossils are found on only one sheet and protected under a layer of matrix that has to be expertly removed. The Split Fish Layer fossils usually need little if any preparation. According to Fossil Butte museum curator, Arvid Aase, there actually exists several so-called split fish layers, three of them above the 18-inch Layer, along with what are called a mini-fish layer and gastropod bed.
The fossilization process that occurred in the Green River Formation is unique in that the lakes contained a nearly perfect and ideal environment for preserving the delicate remains of its biosphere. A constant rain of calcium carbonate suspended in the waters insuring that any dead creature or plant lying on the bottom would be covered and protected from bacteria or the elements. The deeper waters were probably anoxic – meaning lacking oxygen – which aided in further protecting the remains. The fossils are wonderfully preserved, showing fine skeletal details, scales, skin, and even feathers in some cases, all preserved as delicate carbon traces of the once living entity.
Knightia eocaena: The most common genus of fish found in the Green River Formation. Remains are sometimes found in mass mortality layers such as shown here. Science Museum of Minnesota collection.Courtesy Mark RyanIt’s thought that algal blooms sometimes occurred in the lakes during the warmer seasons resulting in mass mortalities of thousands of fish. Large slabs containing more fossil fish than you can count are still being mined from the area.
When I’m working my Tuesday afternoon shift in the Dinosaur and Fossils gallery at the museum I often carry with me a Green River Formation fossil of a leaf to share with visitors. I’ll scratch the matrix with a key or fingernail to allow visitors to experience the oily odor that that emanates from within the rock. Actually the odor is from kerogen a bituminous organic compound in the rock that serves as a source for oil shale, considered a substitute for crude oil. The Green River Formation contains the largest oil shale deposits in the world greatly exceeding the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Be aware that since the Historic Quarry trail is part of Fossil Butte National Monument, collecting of any kind of fossils is prohibited within its borders but fortunately several commercial operations in the area allow you to enter a quarry for a fee and dig up your very own fossils to take home. I’ve never done this so I can’t vouch for any of these commercial dig sites but I am including some links below for some of the more well-known ones in the area.
But even if you can’t make it out to Fossil Butte National Monument this year, you can still come the Science Museum of Minnesota and see our collection, or visit a natural history museum in your own area. Chances are they’ll have some fabulous Green River Formation fossils on display to share with you.
SOURCE and LINKS
GRF info at the Virtual Fossil Museum
Collection and preparation of fossil fish
Historical Geology of the GRF
Ulrich Quarry Fossil Gallery
Warfield Fossil Quarry
On this day (July 26) in 1879, in a desolate region of southeastern Wyoming, Arthur Lakes, a fossil collector engaged by Yale paleontologist O. C. Marsh to oversee his interests in the dinosaur bone beds at Como Bluff, wrote the following passage in his field journal:
"Men came back with report of discovery of very big bones at a spot between Quarries 8 and 9. Heavy thunderstorms hailstones fell the size of hens eggs. Telegraph wires broken.“
– Arthur Lakes journal entry July 26, 1879.
![Quarry 10 at Como Bluff, Wyoming: The bones of the famous "Brontosaurus excelsus" (Apatosaurus excelsus) were discovered here in 1879. The low ridge making up Como Bluff extends for about 7 miles, and has produced abundant dinosaur, reptile, fish and mammal fossils from the Late Jurassic period.](/sites/default/files/images/2010_como_bluff_078.jpg "Quarry 10 at Como Bluff, Wyoming: The bones of the famous "Brontosaurus excelsus" (Apatosaurus excelsus) were discovered here in 1879. The low ridge making up Como Bluff extends for about 7 miles, and has produced abundant dinosaur, reptile, fish and mammal fossils from the Late Jurassic period.")
Quarry 10 at Como Bluff, Wyoming: The bones of the famous "Brontosaurus excelsus" (Apatosaurus excelsus) were discovered here in 1879. The low ridge making up Como Bluff extends for about 7 miles, and has produced abundant dinosaur, reptile, fish and mammal fossils from the Late Jurassic period.Courtesy Mark RyanThe men mentioned were Bill Reed and Edward Ashley, two other Marsh workers at Como. The new dig site would soon be designated as Quarry 10, and the big bones those of a huge sauropod Marsh would later christen Brontosaurus excelsus. As most of you know by now, the genus name, Brontosaurus, which is Greek for “thunder lizard” would later be demoted to a mere synonym of the previously discovered Apatosaurus.
![Apatosaurus vs Brontosaurus sacra: Figure illustrations created under the direction of O. C. Marsh show distinct differences between the sacra of Apatosaurus ajax (left) and "Brontosaurus excelsus" (right). Marsh thought they signified different genera, but didn't realize that the Apatosaurus represented a juvenile specimen and the Brontosaurus an adult one. A quarter-century after their discoveries, Elmer Riggs determined the two dinosaurs were of the same genus. As it grew in size, additional vertebrae of Apatosaurus fused in the sacrum to reinforce its pelvis.](/sites/default/files/images/marsh_sauropoda_plates.jpg "Apatosaurus vs Brontosaurus sacra: Figure illustrations created under the direction of O. C. Marsh show distinct differences between the sacra of Apatosaurus ajax (left) and "Brontosaurus excelsus" (right). Marsh thought they signified different genera, but didn't realize that the Apatosaurus represented a juvenile specimen and the Brontosaurus an adult one. A quarter-century after their discoveries, Elmer Riggs determined the two dinosaurs were of the same genus. As it grew in size, additional vertebrae of Apatosaurus fused in the sacrum to reinforce its pelvis.")
Apatosaurus vs Brontosaurus sacra: Figure illustrations created under the direction of O. C. Marsh show distinct differences between the sacra of Apatosaurus ajax (left) and "Brontosaurus excelsus" (right). Marsh thought they signified different genera, but didn't realize that the Apatosaurus represented a juvenile specimen and the Brontosaurus an adult one. A quarter-century after their discoveries, Elmer Riggs determined the two dinosaurs were of the same genus. As it grew in size, additional vertebrae of Apatosaurus fused in the sacrum to reinforce its pelvis.Courtesy Mark RyanBrontosaurus’s species designation, excelsus, means “to exceed in number” and refers to the number of vertebrae in the dinosaur’s sacrum. Marsh’s Apatosaurus ajax had only three fused vertebrae in its sacrum, Brontosaurus had five. You can see what I mean in the side by side comparison of the figures Marsh had made of the fossil remains. That difference led the Yale professor to think he had two separate kinds of animals on his hands. But in truth, and as paleontologist Elmer Riggs declared in 1903, the two dinosaurs were actually the same genus. Although larger, the Apatosaurus, it turns out, was an immature specimen, while "Brontosaurus" was an adult one. It seems, as this very large type of dinosaur grew even larger, two more vertebrae fused into the sacrum to help reinforce the pelvis.
!["Thunder Lizard" at the Peabody Museum: "Brontosaurus excelsus" (Apatosaurus excelsus) stands above other denizens discovered at Wyoming's Como Bluff. After its discovery its original name was determined to be scientifically invalid, it remains part of the Yale dinosaur's official record.](/sites/default/files/images/peabody_brontosaurus.jpg ""Thunder Lizard" at the Peabody Museum: "Brontosaurus excelsus" (Apatosaurus excelsus) stands above other denizens discovered at Wyoming's Como Bluff. After its discovery its original name was determined to be scientifically invalid, it remains part of the Yale dinosaur's official record.")
"Thunder Lizard" at the Peabody Museum: "Brontosaurus excelsus" (Apatosaurus excelsus) stands above other denizens discovered at Wyoming's Como Bluff. After its discovery its original name was determined to be scientifically invalid, it remains part of the Yale dinosaur's official record.Courtesy Mark RyanThe sauropod first discovered on this date at Como Bluff is now known as Apatosaurus excelsus. But even though his extracted bones have stood quietly for 80 years at Yale’s Peabody Museum, the Thunder Lizard’s original name remains embedded in our culture. Since “Brontosaurus” is considered an invalid scientific name, it shouldn't be italicize when used but rather bracketed between quotation marks. Personally, I still prefer the name “Brontosaurus”, which Marsh used to describe the sound he imagined the huge dinosaur made while walking across the Jurassic terrain. And doesn’t the original name seem even more fitting since the great Thunder Lizard’s very first entry into human consciousness took place during a heavy thunderstorm?
SOURCES & LINKS
More about paleontologist O. C. Marsh
Apatosaurus ajax information
More about the Apatosaurus/”Brontosaurus” confusion
Apatosaurus (“Brontosaurus”) defined
"Brontosaurus" at Yale's Peabody Museum
The Route: We will be entering at entry point #16 Moose/Portage River and exiting at entry point #43 Bower Trout Lake. The route was designed to expose us to a wide range of use areas within the BWCAW.Courtesy The Great Pack OutIn honor of National Public Lands Day (9/24/2011), my brother and I are going to spend two weeks paddling over 120 miles across the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) documenting and collecting all the trash that we find. My brother and I have been paddling in the BWCAW for 23 years and over the last few years have noticed an increase in the amount of garbage we encounter on portages and at campsites. So we started wondering how much trash is actually out there. Is it isolated to the highly used areas near the edges or endemic to the entire BWCAW? In doing some research on the wilderness we discovered that the BWCAW comprises less then 1% of the U.S. National Wilderness Areas yet receives greater then 10% of the recreational activity. What effect does this recreational density have on the quality of the wilderness?
No one really knows. Studies have not been completed. That’s why my brother and I have decided to check it out. We are going to paddle the BWCAW from west to east documenting, collecting, and packing out all the trash we encounter along the way. We will inventory and catalog everything we find and create trash density maps to aid wilderness resource managers focus education and clean up efforts. Who knows, maybe we will inspire others to clean up the BWCAW next year on National Public Lands Day and every day.
Check out our blog for updates and we'll check in following the trip to report our findings.
Camp Carnegie in Wyoming in 1899: Arthur Coggeshall, sitting far right and donning suspenders, poses for a photograph taken near the Carnegie museum's Sheep Creek quarry in Wyoming. Crews from the American Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum met on the High Plains during the quarrying of Diplodocus carnegii. Standing, left to right: W. D. Mathew, R. S. Lull, H. F. Osborn, W. J. Holland, (unknown on wagon - possibly Willie Reed), Jacob Wortman (with pipe), W. H. Reed. Sitting left to right: Walter Granger, George Mellor, Ira Schallenberger, and Coggeshall.Courtesy Mark RyanBack in the summer of 1899, on the Fourth of July, the first bones of a long-dead dinosaur were discovered in the wilds of Wyoming that would soon fire the imagination of the world and popularize dinosaurs in a way that wouldn’t be equaled again until the release of Jurassic Park nearly a century later. The dinosaur would soon bear the name Diplodocus carnegii in honor of Andrew Carnegie, who financed its discovery through his Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Carnegie’s dinosaur would eventually be nicknamed Dippy, but Arthur S. Coggeshall, a major player in its discovery suggested a better name: the Star-Spangled Dinosaur. Coggeshall had a good point. Not just because the celebrated sauropod had been found on Independence Day, but in the ensuing years, Dippy would become one of the greatest ambassadors not only for the growing science of vertebrate paleontology but for the United States itself.
The story of Dippy actually began seven months before in November of 1898 when a full-page error-ridden article appeared in a New York newspaper proclaiming “The Most Colossal Animal Ever on Earth“ had just been dug up in Wyoming. The headline caught the eye of steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie and he suddenly decided he wanted the dinosaur (named in the article as Brontosaurus giganteus) for his recently opened Pittsburgh Museum. So in the margin of the paper, Carnegie scribbled a note to William Holland, curator of the museum that read: “can you buy this for Pittsburgh?”
Holland immediately contacted the man mentioned in the article and offered to buy the dinosaur skeleton flat out. The discoverer, Bill Reed of the University of Wyoming, explained that the news story was grossly distorted and riddled with inaccuracies. There was no skeleton, no Brontosaurus giganteus, only a fragment of the end of a very large thighbone he had found in the nearby Freezeout Hills. But Reed, who probably knew the fossil fields of Wyoming better than any man in the state, offered his services to locate and dig up the rest of the skeleton in the next spring after the snow melted.
By the time spring arrived, Reed had resigned his position at the University of Wyoming and was under a one-year contract with the Carnegie museum. This is where Arthur Coggeshall comes into the picture. He and another man, Jacob Wortman, were working in the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology of New York’s American Museum of Natural History; Coggeshall as a preparator (a person who prepares fossils for study and display) and Wortman, as a curator. The AMNH was one of finest museum institutes in the country and the Carnegie museum’s main competitor. Coggeshall - at just 25 years old - was considered one of the best preparators of his time, and Wortman was no slouch either. But both men were lured away by Holland (and no doubt Carnegie’s money) and soon joined Reed in Medicine Bow to set out and find dinosaurs for the Carnegie Museum.
The trip to the Freezeout Hills northwest of Medicine Bow was miserable. The horse-drawn wagons, laden with a ton of tools and supplies slogged across the High Plains and had to be unloaded and loaded several times to cross makeshift bridges or ford swollen streams. They eventually reached the site where Reed’s colossal fossil had been dug up, but after nearly two months of searching not much fossil additional material was found, certainly not enough to fill Andrew Carnegie’s museum.
Discouraged the men headed eastward about 30 miles where Reed said he knew of other prospects in the dinosaur-rich Morrison Formation. They arrived in Sheep Creek Basin and set up camp there on July 3, 1899.
The Titans of Paleontology in 1899: Paleontologists from the American Museum drop in on paleontologists working the Carnegie quarry at Sheep Creek in Wyoming. Jacob Wortman crouches next to the Diplodocus bones exposed on the quarry floor. The rest of those present are (L-R) Bill Reed, Albert Thompson, William Holland, Henry F. Osborn, W. D. Mathews, Walter Granger, and R. S. Lull. Arthur Coggeshall may have taken the photo.Courtesy Mark Ryan
The next day their luck suddenly took a change for the better. The exact story of the find gets a little confusing. In a 1951 retelling in Carnegie Magazine, Arthur Coggeshall claims he made the initial discovery.
"It was then that the heartbeats of the writer really became loud,” he wrote, “for it was the best prospect any of us had discovered in over two months of hard and disappointing work, and we did so want to make good with a dinosaur for Mr. Carnegie."
Two other accounts (one by Wortman in 1916, and one by paleontologist C. W. Gilmore in 1936) claim Bill Reed found the first remains, and I think the priority of these claims give them more veracity – especially since Wortman was there. But history like anything else has a way of evolving through time and memory.
Whatever the case, they had finally found a dinosaur, and over the summer the skeleton was exhumed, packed up, and shipped back to Pittsburgh. By coincidence, a flock of scientists from around the country and Canada were roaming the state that summer as part of an event called Fossil Fields Expedition sponsored jointly by the Union Pacific Railroad and University of Wyoming. The railroad offered scientists and academics free passage to Laramie, and Wilbur Knight of the UW gave guided tours to many of the state’s geological and paleontological locations where they could take in the scenery and collect rocks and fossils. Many involved in the expedition stopped by the Carnegie’s Sheep Creek quarry to watch the progress there. Paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History were also in the area digging up their own dinosaurs at the nearby Bone Cabin Quarry. Some of that crew (including Wortman’s and Coggeshall’s old boss, Henry Fairfield Osborn) made the ten-mile trip for a visit and friendly exchange.
When the field season ended, the Carnegie team returned to Pittsburgh to start the process of preparing the fossils. Over the winter it became apparent that some bones of the Diplodocus were missing so further expeditions were mounted and remains of three more specimens of Diplodocus were gathered from Sheep Creek and the Big Horns region of Wyoming to complete the skeleton.
As Coggeshall and Reed prepared the bones, paleontologist John Bell Hatcher (who had been hired as curator to replace the short-lived Wortman) made an exhaustive study of the fossils and determined the remains were those of a new species, which he named Diplodocus carnegii in honor of the museum’s benefactor. Mr. Carnegie’s friends soon nicknamed the dinosaur, Dippy.
The process of preparing and mounting a dinosaur skeleton for display, especially one that’s 84 feet long is an onerous task, requiring thousands of man-hours and several years to complete. As the Carnegie’s preparator-in-chief, Arthur Coggeshall devised new methods for fossil preparation, and for mounting large dinosaur skeletons that are still used today. He innovated the use of pneumatic hammers and sandblasting in the laboratory for extracting fossil bone from hard rock, and for mounting the Carnegie sauropod, he fashioned a curved steel rod upon which all the vertebrae were assembled. Then, as other bones were added to the skeleton, additional steel was used - as inconspicuously as possible - to reinforce and attach them to the vertebral column.
A dinosaur for Paris: Arthur Coggeshall (sitting at left with legs crossed) poses with workers and William Holland (on Coggeshall's immediate left) at the Paris museum during the mounting of the cast of Dipolodocus carnegii, c. 1908.Courtesy Library of CongressBut even before Dippy went on display at the Carnegie museum (for which a new wing was being built), the Diplodocus became a sensation worldwide. King Edward VII while visiting Andrew Carnegie at his Skibo Castle in Scotland saw a drawing of the Diplodocus and coveted one for himself. Carnegie obliged the king by having Coggeshall create molds for an exact plaster cast of the dinosaur. Italian sculptors were hired to fashion a few of the missing bones. Since the dinosaur wing of the Carnegie museum was still under construction, Coggeshall and two assistants used his ingenious steel framework to set up and then disassembled a test-mount of the king’s cast in the Pittsburgh Exposition Building. The cast elements were then packed up and shipped to England in 1905. Holland and Coggeshall accompanied the 30 some crates of disassembled bones and supervised the mounting of the king’s dinosaur at the British Museum. On May 12th, under much hoopla and fanfare, Andrew Carnegie himself was on hand to present his namesake dinosaur to the king of England and the world.
This became the first of several casts that Carnegie would donate to the heads-of-state in several European and South American capitols. The original skeleton was finally unveiled in Pittsburg in 1907 when the newly finished Dinosaur Hall was opened. After that Arthur Coggeshall spent the next five years traveling to foreign cities across three continents to mount exquisite copies of Carnegie’s pride and joy. Coggeshall and Holland were feted and celebrated in each city and bestowed with special honors and awards as they erected and presented each beautiful cast of Andrew Carnegie’s own dinosaur. As hard as it is to believe today, these replicas of italicizedDiplodocus carnegii presented millions of people their first chance ever to see a dinosaur, and in each city, hoards of the public clamored to see them.
In 1909, Carnegie paleontologist Earl Douglass discovered the extremely rich bone-bed in northeastern Utah that would eventually become Dinosaur National Monument. By then Coggeshall had added Curator of Public Education to his title, and besides supervising the preparation and mounting of the skeletons, he also documented the new dinosaur site by taking many of the historic photographs of quarry work being done there.
Soon after, Coggeshall left the Carnegie and turned his attention to science lecturing and museum administration. Now come’s the kicker to this story. In 1928, Coggeshall became the director of the St. Paul Institute of Science in St. Paul, Minnesota, the precursor to the Science Museum of Minnesota, the very entity for which I’m writing! Coggeshall served as director for just one year, but in that short time he helped redirect the institute toward becoming a more modern organization. While in Minnesota, he also gave several hour-long educational lectures in and around the state. Known as The Coggeshall Lectures, his subjects included paleontology, archaeology and other natural science topics and were often illustrated with glass slides or motion pictures. Some titles, such as “Turning Back the Clock Ten Million Years” and “Hunting Big Game in the Rocks”, were based on Coggeshall’s work in paleontology.
Arthur Coggeshall went on to serve as director to the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, and then the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara, California. He died in 1958, but his many innovations in fossil preparation and mounting large dinosaur exhibitions are still used in today’s museums. His most memorable accomplishment, the Star-Spangled Dinosaur called Dippy is still on view at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh as well as in museums on three continents. Not a bad legacy for a guy with a public school education from Bridgeport, Connecticut.
SOURCES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story
From Trophies to Treasure
Dippy unveiled (previous Buzz story)
History of Dinosaur National Monument
Science FridayCourtesy Science Friday Today,
"Of the orchid genus catasetum, Charles Darwin wrote: "I never was more interested in any subject in all my life than in this of Orchids." The male flowers in this genus evolved an unusual pollination program. They propel a package of pollen onto the backs of visiting bees. The bees endure the blow (which would be like a 150-pound person getting hit with a few bowling balls) in exchange for orchid aromas that the bees use to attract mates.
Buzzketeers, it's a big problem.
A ginormous, hulking, frozen, messy problem.
See, here in St. Paul, we've had a very snowy winter. (As of today, it has been the seventh snowiest winter on record. And the snow season isn't over yet.) When the City plows the streets, they have to put the snow somewhere. And one of the places they put it is the parking lot of the St. Paul Saints Midway Stadium, on Energy Park Drive.
The result?
Mt. Midway: Looking NNW from the few open parking spaces off Energy Park Drive. See those little bamboo fronds at the peak? Who needs Hawaii?Courtesy Liza Pryor
The 550-spot parking lot is completely -- and I mean COMPLETELY -- covered with snow. It's 30, even 50, feet deep. And it goes from Energy Park Drive north to the train tracks, and from the stadium west to the end of the property. It's impressive, peeps.
It goes on...: and on...and on...I'm standing on the snow pile, with the peak with the tree to my left (west) looking north toward the train tracks.Courtesy Liza Pryor
And here's the problem, friends: the St. Paul Saints season opener is May 8th. And there's no way all this snow is going to melt before then. Baseball needs its parking lot back.
So how can we get rid of the snow? Trucking it away isn't an option, and minimal use of fossil fuels is a good thing. Buzzers, it's time to go all Mythbusters here and submit your ideas. If you've got a good one, you might get to see it in action.
