Well hello there!

It's been a while since I've put in any sort of update, so I thought I'd bung in a quick post to let you all know what I've been up to. I had a couple of weeks of fieldwork out on the U.S. Gulf Coast in May, and I've spent most of my time since processing samples and doing microscope work. Which has been dull, quite frankly, but the data is now starting to trickle in. I'll be doing a poster at Palass on what I've done so far. And while we're on the subject, who else is going this year? I've taken a room at the Kelvin Hotel, is anyone else going to be staying there?

Other exciting news: for those who aren't aware, next year's Progressive Palaeontology will be in Birmingham. You are all of course cordially invited, although I understand that those in a different timezone may not be able to make the trip. Preparations are going well, but I do find all this teamwork rather challenging. Palass will also be in Birmingham next year, so 2009 will be a bit of a Brummie double-whammy.

My first paper will also be out in December, in the very fine journal Palynology. It's not the most groundbreaking paper ever written, but I'm still quite pleased with it. Has anyone else got any publications in the pipeline? I've enjoyed reading Luke's, Rob's and Koen's papers from their MSc projects, and I'd very much like to read any more papers that get published.

Time to get back to the lab.

Cheerio!

Some palaeo-related discussion

Hello, my brethren.

Hope you're all well. Sadly I won't be making it out to Denver this year, but I hope anyone who goes has fun.

Now then, to business. John and I spent a few weeks in Santa Barbara doing a palaeobiological analysis course, and I thought it would be useful to let you all know what we actually covered, in case of any questions or discussions that might lead from it. We started with a bit of stuff about the philosophy of stats, and then covered geometric morphometrics, community palaeoecology (with lots of mathematical proofs), diversity curves, quantitative biochronology, phylogenetics (of the maximum likelihood variety), and speciation and extinction (lots of simulations, basically). So there you go.

And now a question for Ben. I read your report on your MSc project in the TMS newletter, and towards the end you mention the expansion of grasslands modulating silica supply to the oceans (presumably because of the phytoliths within the grasses?). Anyway, coming from the point of view of someone who has studied the expansion of grasslands but knows bugger all about the silica cycle, I'm just wondering how important a factor you think this would be in terms of radiolarian evolution, and the amount of silica reaching the oceans in general. The timing is rather interesting (late Eocene-early Oligocene), as this is when grasslands are hypothesised to have developed in South America (evidenced by hypsodonty rather than grass fossils themselves). Anyway, it struck me as being an interesting discussion point.

TTFN.

Hello from California

Life is hard. As hinted at by John in a previous post, he, myself, and Graeme are currently residing in Santa Barbara, taking part in the Paleobiology Database summer course. So far, we've been confused by the philosophy of statistics, and befuddled by the basics of programming. Tomorrow, we will blunder headlong into the quagmire of geometric morphometrics.

Anyway, today was a day off, and, amongst other things, we went to have a look at the Santa Barbara mission (as Saint Barbara is the patron saint of geologists, it's of course very appropriate that we're here). Here's a photo of the three of us outside of said mission, with the Santa Ynez mountains in the background.

As I say, life is hard.

Right then, must be off. I dare say either John or I will put in an update when something exciting happens.

P.S. We saw a skunk the other day!