Field jackets in the lab--each contains fossils, dirt and rock.

Hello everyone—Molly Ward, Paleontology Educator here again. The 2008 summer field season is coming to a close. Students and volunteers are returning to the museum in dusty trucks full of fossil jackets. Most of the fossils that were excavated since May were covered with a protective plaster jacket and stored at the field site. Now, truckloads of those lumpy white jackets are appearing in the lab, and paleo hallways at the museum.

Some of the jackets are already being opened and preparators in our labs are starting to prepare (clean) the matrix (extra dirt and rock) off the fossils using tools like dental picks. Each jacket is a bit like a present—although they are labeled with information about the site and what the field crew thought they had found, the preparators are never quite sure surprise awaits them still buried in the dirt and rock.