The Halfway Mark- Learning and Improving

The internship is halfway over and there have been quite a few exciting projects and finds in the first 10 weeks. One day, while conserving and cataloging specimens, a furry find was made. Inside a slide, right next to the specimen, was a larval skin of a beetle! How the larval skin got into the slide and how the beetle got out remains a mystery. This is a great example of why the conservation work we are doing with old collections is so important. 

There have been some really nice scans done of microfossils as well. Thanks to the Microscopy and Imaging Facility, we have started 3D printing some of the clearest CT scans here at the museum. It has, however, been a bit of learning curve.

Before you can even think about printing a 3D model, you must first spend time enhancing and editing the 3D image. Here at the American Museum of Natural History we use a program called VGStudio MAX. When a CT scan comes through you hope that the image is clear and that there is little to no sediment infill in the specimen. Even with a perfect scan, it still takes about 2 hours to have a printer-ready specimen. When the scan comes back with infill or "background noise" it can take anywhere from 4-8 hours to edit the image. At first every scan takes 5+ hours and the software can be tricky to get used to. Everyone is different, but I felt comfortable using VGStudio MAX by week 4.

Once you have edited your image, you are ready to start setting up your printing process. One factor we had to look at was which orientation we should print the specimens out for the clearest image. As seen below in the first attempt at printing out AMNH-FI 97614 Hopkinsina magnifica, the bottom model looks a lot nicer and smoother than the one on top.

Another problem is sizing. Because each specimen and scan is different, the scaling settings must be customized depending on the fossil. AMNH-FI 107593 Asterorotalia pulchella printed out too small and had to be redone so all of the details could be seen properly. 

Sometimes everything can be programmed correctly and the printing still go wrong. There were issues with the printer's plastic filament while printing out AMNH-FI 64208 Anomalina pacoraensis which led to this incomplete 3D model.

However, after a few mishaps and mistakes, we are starting to have a nice collection of 3D printed microfossils. 

From Top to Bottom: AMNH-FI 19954 Anomalina mantaensis, AMNH-FI 107593 Asterorotalia pulchella, AMNH-FI 97614 Hopkinsina magnifica

All smiles after printing out this unique foraminifera! 

Week 4

Locating Publications in the Research Library

Many of the projects we have worked on are associated with at least one published paper (or in some cases Columbia University masters thesis papers). It is our to job to locate additional publications that use our specimens and make note of them in the database.
Most times we can find  publications online using the electronic resources that are available to us, but sometimes the publications are only available in print at the research library. Luckily for us the library is just downstairs from our lab.

Large collaborative effort ahead

This week we wrapped up some of our smaller projects and are moving on to one larger task.

Courtney worked on the project on her own last summer and cataloged over 500 specimens. At the end of the summer it was assumed that the project was completed, but we have located 8(!) more original storage boxes that are directly related to a publication by A.S. Warthin (1930). Each of the original boxes can hold up to 100 vertical slides.

original condition of the Warthin collection

In addition to the sheer number of slides, each slide holds an unknown number of specimens. Many of the slides are missing their specimens because they were housed without cover-slips. We need to properly store the slides to prevent further deterioration of the specimens and to assign catalog numbers so that they can be added to the fossil invertebrates database. Some of the specimens are types and will need to be photographed. We have our work cut out for us next week but we are up to the challenge.

Ostracods of the Week

We proudly present to you the ostracods of the week.

Cavellina fittsi paratypes from a 1929 Columbia Masters' Thesis

Rebecca takes full credit for the superior aesthetics of this image, which required extensive rearranging in Photoshop. You can see a wide variety in the size of specimens here. Ostracods are arthropods (like lobsters and ants), so they grow in a fixed number of growth stages, or instars. This can make it difficult to classify ostracods, because different instars of the same species can be mistaken for separate species. 

Collections tour

 This week we had a tour of the ornithology department's collection.

 Nicollette even got to hold a bald eagle.

We have reached the halfway point of this project. It seems as though we started just a few days ago and we still have much to learn about updating collections.

Until next time,
The IP-microfossils team.

Week 2!

Hello Again!
We are entering our third week of the microfossils project and are gearing up for a foram and ostracod filled summer! Here is a recap of what we have been up to:

Our first week was all about getting acclimated to the process of cataloging and entering information into the AMNH fossils database. (See our previous blog for more details about our first week and to get to know the 6 interns.) We also had to adjust to being at the museum, which is a lot bigger than one would expect. We work on one of the longest hallways in the city which stretches from Columbus Avenue to Central Park West!

The Invertebrates hall way...

Needless to say, getting lost in the museum was a regular occurrence over our first few days. By the end of the week we were officially registered as interns of the AMNH.

Trial and Error!

While week one was about getting acclimated, week two was all about trial and error.  It’s a challenge to make sure that all six of us are following the same protocols, but as problems arise, we quickly develop effective solutions. We have been using our experiences to update the guidebook that will outline the most effective process of cataloging the microfossils collection in the future. 

We have had a few hiccups, but altogether we were able to rehouse and catalog over 400 unique specimens this week! We each worked on one or two projects and spent time entering information into the fossils database as well as taking photomicrographs.

Rebecca working hard on the database

As a part of this project, we have also been using the CT-scanner to make 3-dimensional reconstructions of some of our most pristine samples. With help from the lab manager, we generally scan the samples for 1.5hr intervals. Then, final reconstruction and creation of working images varies from sample to sample. We haven't yet figured out how to make the final 3D PDFs accessible to the public, but hopefully we will find a way to include these in an online database.

In other news...

Nicollette thinks this Ostracod is especially photogenic and has nominated it to be microfossil of the week. As there are no contenders and we are still  processing our first few photographs, this week's fossil of choice will be Healdia gillae.

A photogenic ostracod

All in all it's been a busy week

Until next time,
The microfossils team.

A Warm Welcome to the Wonderful World of Microfossils! Week 1

Hello, blogosphere!


This year's crew of NSF-funded microfossil collections interns would like to take a minute to introduce ourselves before diving into the nitty-gritty of our first week on the job. We will regularly update this blog throughout the summer, as we work our way through revitalizing AMNH's long-neglected microfossil collections.


Now, meet the team:

Courtney is a graduate student at Western Illinois University pursuing a degree in museum studies. This is her second summer working on the Invertebrate Paleontology rehousing project and is excited to be back. She will be returning to the Midwest after this summer to start an internship at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, NE. After graduating she is hoping to work in natural history collections and is looking forward to what the future holds.

Nicollette is a Bronx native who is no stranger to invertebrate life forms.  While she studied geology at Oberlin College, she had the fortune of studying bivalves, gastropods, and even fire ants. Becuase she has never studied invertbrates that can't be seen with the naked eye, Nicollette looks forward to working in the microfossil lab this summer. Nicollette is especially interested in applying the fossil record to the study of paleoclimate and change over time. She loves the intersection of science and society and hopes to be a part of the discussion of climate change in the future. This fall, she will begin her Masters in geoscience at the University of Arizona (Bear down!).

Katherine (Kat) is a rising senior at Mount Holyoke College, currently studying Geology and English, as well as performing with the Mount Holyoke Symphony orchestra as principal cellist. She is from Laguna Niguel, California - a small town in Orange County - and is excited to get the feel of living in a real city. From the age of 5, she has wanted to be a paleontologist, and her passion for fossils hasn't wavered since. She hopes that the AMNH microfossil internship will bring her one step closer to her goal of being part of a vertebrate fossil prep team.

Shaun recently graduated with a B.S. in Geology from University of Houston and has a strong passion for geology and computers. He has also been working on georeferencing collection data to modernize the museum's databases. He is originally from Houston, TX.

Farallon is very happy to be a part of the microfossil intern team. Next fall she will be going into her third year in the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara, where she also does research on apicomplexan octopus parasites in the Kuris Lab. She is from New York City, where she lives with her family and four cats.

Rebecca just graduated from Oberlin College, where she studied geology (officially) and a smattering of other subjects, including Javanese music. Originally from Downingtown, PA, Rebecca is excited to explore the "real world". This summer of microfossil curation is actually her second position at AMNH. She's glad to be back. Future plans may include a stint in the National Parks, a fellowship in Indonesia, or anything else that comes her way.

The interns are supervised by the wonderful Bushra Hussaini, whose knowledge of the collections makes this enormous project much more manageable. We also are grateful to Lindsay Jurgielewicz for her help in coordinating the internship, Linda Scalbom for direction in the collections management process, and Ellen Thomas for her microfossil expertise.

After going through the inevitable paperwork that comes with a new job, Bushra gave us a tour of the invertebrate paleontology collections, which include the subset of ostracods and forams that we are working with. We were then each given our own projects. These were overwhelming at first, but we soon settled into a rhythm of writing out new labels, cleaning off dusty old slides, databasing, photographing, and cataloging specimens.

The picture below shows the sorry state some of these slides were in after almost a century of storage. The cardboard of the slide decays and falls into the well with the specimen, and must be cleaned out very carefully with a small paintbrush. The ostracod pictured below is about half a millimeter in length.

Also in our first week, we went on tours of the vertebrate paleontology and anthropology collections. We were able to see some of what goes on behind the scenes at the museum. Preserving collections as extensive as those of AMNH is no small feat; we were able to see the care and thought that goes into collections management (not to mention the shelves full of triceratops skulls, a dinosaur brooding a nest of eggs, an incredibly well-preserved 2,000-year-old Andean carpet, and countless shelves full of incredible anthropological artifacts).

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