Then on Friday, we took a trip out to Thomas Farm. Thomas Farm is a sinkhole that holds a lot of fossils from the Miocene Era. We did get to do a little bit of digging in an area where they would dump sediment back from when they were digging from 1950s. I got to collect a few fossils of a species of white rhino that used to live in Florida at a time way before humans.
At the dig site, we basically moved the bags of sand and fossils back to Dickinson Hall, and it was a pretty physical process, and it didn't help that it was like record humidity that day. Each bag weights somewhere around 15-20 pounds. We had to load the Van up with these bags from a shed stationed outside of the sinkhole/dig area. Then we had to move more bags, from the dig site, up to the shed to replace the ones we just took. Then we left, and drove to a storage location where more bags were kept. We unloaded the bags from the site, and moved them into the storage unit. Then we loaded the Van back up with the bags that were already in the storage unit. Finally, we drove back, and unloaded those bags at Dickinson Hall. Needless to say, it was a work out!
Wow, sounds tough! I definitely could not do that, but it sounds like it will be worth it in the end...Screen washing sounds fun though...but then again I like very rhythmic activities, they relax me.
ReplyDeleteHow is your project coming along? I heard you talk about it the other day when we met with Taylor, but I haven't seen you blog about it very much...
Hey Dina, my project is coming along, I'm still doing research for several of my topics right now. I have to take a day tomorrow and go around the collections departments and measure the bones, so that will be interesting.
Deletethat's pretty cool that you got in a workout while on the job, getting paid $20/hour to exercise is pretty awesome, haha. I think screenwashing would be pretty cool, and it's weird that I didn't see y'all at the museum on Thursday...maybe I had already left.
ReplyDeleteI know right, I don't mind getting paid to work out! Yea too bad, We got there around 2 I believe.
DeleteShane, I feel you with the humidity! I walk to my classes in the morning and check the humidity on my phone and it is always somewhere around 93-95%. I can't imagine how lugging around sand bags in that humidity feels like! I have to say though, I am a little jealous that you got to go out in the field, even if it was very hot.
ReplyDeleteI know, I think it had to be some kind of record high that day! But yes, it was really cool, and interesting.
DeleteWOW digging for ancient Florida rhino fossils sounds SICK. As for the physical labor, that all sounds very familiar. When I worked in the husbandry department at the Florida Aquarium last year, I was on the wetlands team, which is notorious for being dirty, physical work. There were a few days in a row that we had to move about twenty 80 lb bags of soil up 3 floors. After we did that, we thought we were done. My biologist thought that was funny and handed us rakes and soil tillers. We had to rake and till the exhibits, all of which have trees with branches that are about shoulder height (so everything had to be done in a hunched-over position). Then we had to lay the soil out... I feel your pain.
ReplyDeleteHi Katherine! Yes, it was really cool seeing the dig site, and seeing the fossils in the dirt, and being able to take some home. Its really cool knowing they are from a time before humans as well. Wow that sounds harder then what we did this time, I have tilled before, that is pretty hard work!
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