#MuseumWeek Retrospective!

Last week's #MuseumWeek tweetstorm was an awful lot of fun, especially following the #SciArt event just a few weeks earlier. I thought I'd share a couple of photos and thoughts for each day's theme – I didn't manage to post something for each day on Twitter, but I'll fill in some thoughts and photos here!

Day 1: Secrets

One of the nice things about working in the Paleontology & Geology Research Lab at the North Carolina Musuem of Natural Sciences is that "behind the scenes" is part of the scene. You can actually stare at me while I'm working away at my computer each day, if you desire to do such a thing. More interesting, probably, would be to watch our staff, students, and volunteers preparing fossils in the main lab space - secrets waiting to be revealed. But hey, whatever floats your boat!

If you're in Raleigh, stop by and say hi to Carnufex!

Day 2: Souvenirs

I am kind of a Stuff Person and also have a Thing for Museum Gift Shops. As such, I have loads of doodads from my various museum visits. One of the things I like picking up are postcards, especially those that have non-Tyrannosaurus dinosaurs featured on them. For a while, I had these up on my wall at my apartment in Edmonton. Those who have visited my UofA office will also be familiar with my embarassingly large collection of ankylosaur toys, or as I prefer to refer to them, 'scientific models for grown-ups'.

Recognize any museums from your own travels?

Day 3: Architecture

I had a lot of fun with this one on twitter because I LOVE interesting museum architecture. A couple of favourites:

Permian Hall at the Moscow Paleontological Museum:

...which also had custom door hinges, like plesiosaurs!

Dinosaur museum in an old castle in Lerici, Italy:

I wasn't sure about the ROM Crystal at first, but it's grown on me:

And I think the SECU Daily Planet at the NC Museum is pretty swell (on the inside, it's a theatre!):

Day 4: Inspiration

Some non-dinosaur stuff for inspiration day: I really like learning about Canadian art and its history, and one of my very favourite museums on the entire planet is the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. If you're in Vancouver, DO NOT MISS THAT MUSEUM. It's an emotional experience to step into the exhibits at this museum and be surrounded by so much creativity and history and skill. Here's a sample to sharpen your brain.

Day 5: Family

I'm lucky to have had great parents that fed my dinosaur obsession as a kid with trips to museums near and far. I'd love to dig out some photos from the before time, but for now, I'll leave this day for my own memories. What are some of your favourite museum memories from your childhood?

Day 6: Favourites

I like busy museums that are crammed full of stuff, especially when that takes the form of a Wall of Stuff or a Hall of Stuff. Here's a few of my favourites.

Hall of Stuff at the Museo de La Plata

Wall of Stuff at the Natural History Museum of LA County

Day 7: Pose

I don't like posting pictures of myself very much, so I'll just include one here to finish off: here's Pinacosaurus (nee "Syrmosaurus") at the museum in Moscow, with me for scale.

That's it for now! What did you share for Museum Week?

Vesuvio!

This Christmas break my family decided to trek down to Pompeii to visit the ruins and Mount Vesuvius, something that I have wanted to do for a long time. If you’ve ever taken an introductory geology class, then you’ve probably heard the story of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, as it is used to illustrate several concepts about volcanic eruptions. The 79 AD eruption began with a Plinian eruption, where a large column of ash extends high into the air, as far as the stratosphere. The term “Plinian eruption” is derived directly from the 79 AD Vesuvius eruption – Pliny the Younger was one of the first people to describe a volcanic eruption in detail. There are many examples of Plinian eruptions from the last few decades – Mount Pinatubo in 1991, Mount St. Helens in 1980, and most recently, Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. After a day of Plinian-style eruption, several pyroclastic flows covered the cities of Pompeii, and, in particular, Herculaneum. Like many other volcanos, Mount Vesuvius is found at the intersection of two plate boundaries. The African Plate is subducting (diving down) beneath the Eurasian Plate, and as this occurs, melted rock moves up towards the surface and eventually erupts from the volcano.

The volcano was steaming away when we climbed it last week – a good reminder that Vesuvius is just snoozing, not dead.

Wikipedia directed me to this very interesting article about the danger Vesuvius poses today to an ever-growing population along its flanks. A future eruption by Vesuvius could seriously affect at least 600 000 people who live in the ‘red zone’, and up to 3 million people in the surrounding areas. There are emergency plans in place to evacuate these people, but there is concern that they may not be adequate. During our walk up the volcano, I did spot a lot of interesting looking monitoring stations, and you can see what Vesuvius is up to at this website.

On a somewhat lighter note, you can get Pizze Plinio in Pompei! (It has bufala and parmesan cheese, prosciutto crudo, tomatoes, and rocket lettuce...which I suppose is like a volcano...a delicious, delicious volcano...).

Mamma mia, è un dinosauro!

It is Christmastime, which means it is time for me to make my annual pilgrimage to my favourite 13th-Century-Castle-that-is-also-a-Palaeontological-Museum in lovely Lerici, Italy.

Enter the Cortile dei Dinosauri to meet some friends from the Jurassic and Triassic.

A family of cynodonts relaxes on the sand.

Scutosaurus gives you the once over.

And my small thyreophoran friend Scutellosaurus steps hesitantly behind a sauropod.

The interior of the museum is also quite nice, and features many footprints from the area around Lerici. There's also a pretty nice selection of invertebrate fossils from around the world.

I feel strongly that I need to make this into a t-shirt.

You can read more about the dinosaurs of Italy in the book...the Dinosaurs of Italy, by Cristiano Dal Sasso. It is a very readable book geared to a lay audience and has wonderful information about Ciro, the remarkably well-preserved small theropod Scipionyx, and Antonio, the newly-named hadrosaur Tethyshadros.

Dal Sasso C, Signore M. 1998. Exceptional soft-tissue preservation in a theropod dinosaur from Italy. Nature 392: 383-387.

Dalla Vecchia FM. 2009. Tethyshadros insularis, a new hadrosauroid dinosaur (Ornithischia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Italy. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29:1100-1116.

And for more information on dinosaur footprints from Lerici, check out:
Nicosia U and Loi M. 2003. Triassic footprints from Lerici (La Spezia, Northern Italy). Ichnos 10:127-140.

Palaeofestivus

Hey look, a Christmas tree!



But what's that lurking in the plastic foliage?

Why, it's a tree composed of 80% small plastic dinosaur ornaments! How lovely!
(The remaining breakdown is 10% hilarious cellphone charms, ironic because neither of us have cellphones, and 10% real ornaments given to us by our families [at least 40% of which are Disney-related in some way].)

You may wonder why a festive witch adorns the top of the tree. In Italy, Santa Claus was not really a big deal until after World War II - before then, Christmas gifts were given not on Christmas Day, but on the Epiphany, and were delivered by La Befana. Last Christmas I got my very own Christmas Witch complete with sack full of delicious candy.

Pete and I have been having a lot of fun transforming dollar store plastic animals and dinosaurs into Christmas ornaments. I also had a great set of really cool dinosaur skulls from a Safari Toob, which turned into AWESOME decorations. The set included traditional Christmas favourites such as Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Velociraptor and Parasaurolophus, the slightly more obscure Carnotaurus, Dilophosaurus, and Oviraptor, and the newcomers Nigersaurus and Dracorex! Isn't that neat?

Are you getting festive with dinosaurs this year?

***and yes, I realize it's pretty early for a tree. But we had these awesome ornaments, and we were excited, and besides, why not?