Paleo Dude Goes To Cleveland, Ohio

Tuesday, the 14th of October I along with some other paleontologists boarded a plane at the Salt Lake City airport and headed for Cleveland, Ohio. Our purpose was to participate in an international conference on paleontology. The group is called the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, SVP for short and this was our annual conference. More than 1,100 paleontologists attended the conference from many countries around the world. We enjoyed talks given on a variety of subjects, renewed old friendships and caught up on the latest discoveries

That night, we enjoyed a lecture at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and were able to look at many of the displays.

My job at the museum is preparing dinosaur bones for study. One of the symposiums Wednesday morning was for preparators and I listened to talks on new field techniques and ways to prepare delicate fossils in the lab. The fossil shown in the talk was paper thin. The bone itself, not more than 1 mm thick, was extremely delicate. The preparator stabilized the bone with material that, after a few days, would evaporate so multiple applications were needed to maintain the strength. The great advantage is the fact that the strengthening material would completely disappear after the process was complete.
The next day, Thursday, some of us found time to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is located on the shore of Lake Eerie. This is the first time I have seen one of the Great Lakes and the view from the upper floors of the building is very nice. I was unable to get a picture from there because they do not allow cameras in the museum. The museum itself is very well laid out beginning with the early years of rock and roll and continuing through to today. My favorite sections were the 50’s and the 60’s.

Friday, I was coauthor on one of the posters presented that day and being the only author in attendance I was required to defend the poster for two hours that day. The poster was about the Yellow Cat Quarry that produced bones from the Gastonia burgei and Utahraptor ostrommaysorum. This was the first big quarry I worked on with the museum. At that time, I was only part time with the museum. I remember summers were hot sometimes reaching 116 degrees in the shade. The poster received good reviews and I had an enjoyable time talking with people.
Saturday was the last day and I enjoyed a few more talks during the day. I also walked around the area. Cleveland has a beautiful Civil War Memorial that I visited for a short time. The guide was very friendly and informative. I neglected to tell the guide that members of my family fought for the south. That evening, was the awards dinner. The food was great and I had good conversation with those at our table. The awards went well and none of the recipients were too long winded.
Sunday was the day we flew back. I had not realized that it takes one hour longer to fly from Cleveland to Salt Lake than it does to fly from Salt Lake to Cleveland. I forgot about the jet stream but I finally arrived back in Price at 10:30 that night tired but better for the experience.