Pacific Paleontology Advances to the Finals Round of the “Monterey Bay Small Business Startup Challenge”

We are pleased to announce that our firm, Pacific Paleontology, has advanced to the Finals Round in the Monterey Bay Small Business Startup Challenge! We are extremely excited about this opportunity and that our new small business enterprise (SBE) has won this level of accolade and look forward to the potential of moving forward!

https://www.startupmontereybay.com/startup-challenge/

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DGKIpaoV9O_SajwFfYhh37zFWVFAVV78icTgfiaRyco/edit#slide=id.p1

Donations to build fossil sifting screens needed

 

Good morning friends. The non-profit arm of our SBE family firm, Pacific Paleontology, is fundraising to build two fossil sifting screens for the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History like the ones seen here. The screens are for an upcoming fossil hunting expedition in Santa Cruz that our company will be leading and that will be sponsored by the museum. The cost to build the two screens is a nominal $200.00 and your donation would be tax deductible. Please DM if you're interested in contributing and I'll explain the other benefits too!

 

Rare 4-petal mutation of the sand dollar Scutellaster oregonensis (Clark, in Dall, 1909) recently donated to our paleontological research by beachcomber and collector Wendy Frye and identified by Richard Mooi of the @California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. This is from the Purisima Formation here in Santa Cruz and is on the order of 2-3 million years old. As you may recall, echinoids typically have pentagonal (5-part) symmetry, making this discovery on par with a 4-leaf clover. This one is on its way to the paleontology collections of the Academy tomorrow on my monthly migration. Thank you Wendy!

Some fossils are rarer than others...

 

Here is one of the more uncommon fossils from the Sandhills Habitat in Santa Cruz; the fossilized upper and lower claw of a crab from the Santa Margarita Formation rock layer. This is 10-12 million years old and I've only seen one of these in over 4 decades. The reason something like this isn't that common is because the Santa Margarita rock layer generally represents ancient higher energy environments consisting of areas of the ocean where course sands and gravels are deposited.

Early West Coast Walrus

 

Fossil jaw fragment with teeth collected just over 40 years ago as of last month... This is probably from one of our extinct west coast walruses: Imagotaria of Barnes or "Desmatophocine C" in updated taxonomy thanks to Bobby Boessnecker.

“Under the Sea, Into the Depths of Darkness and Back in Time”

 

Traveling back in time taking a dive to the bottom of the sea 4 million years into the past down under Monterey Bay, what creatures await to be revealed in the light of curiosity, we explore what has never been seen before and ask our Selves “what has gone before us”, “how can we learn from this” “what can we use this for ahead”?  The journey, Orpheus and Eurydice, Odysseus, Sysiphus, and Psyche and the Return.  What lessons will we learn?  How will we change?  Listen!  Hark!  Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change.

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“Boreotrophon and the Importance of Studying Coastal Erosion; Act II”

 

Good morning beautiful Monterey Bay!  This is a 3 million year old fossil of the small marine muricid gastropod genus Boreotrophon, perhaps something close to B. vancouverensis which was first described as a new species by our colleague Shawn Wiedrick et. al. in 2019. This little fellow is known from living specimens today in the colder waters of British Columbia to Alaska. Up until the discovery of this specimen in a rockfall here in Santa Cruz 4 years ago, this species didn’t have a fossil record, if it is indeed this species. More work is necessary to reveal its taxonomic affinities. This discovery is further evidence of the great changes our Monterey Bay has seen over time, perhaps experiencing colder waters in the past, as well as highlighting the importance of conserving and studying our dynamic coastline for what it reveals about the ancient history of our area.  

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