Ichthyosaurs and the Making of the Modern World 4/11/19

[GreenMachine]

Event is free if you RSVP and limited to the first 100 people.  April 11, 2019,  5PM - 10 PM @ Great Basin Taps in Tanks
Click here.
Great Basin Brewing Co. Taps & Tanks
1155 South Rock Boulevard
Reno, NV 89502

I'm going.


Crappy Rocks, Terrible Lizards & Awful Changes: Ichthyosaurs and the Making of the Modern World

Dr. Neil Kelley

More than 200 years ago, a young girl named Mary Anning stunned the scientific world with her discoveries of strange fossil reptile skeletons tumbling out of seaside cliffs along the coast of southwest England. Her discoveries, including the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton, helped to spark a fossil craze in Victorian England and helped to kickstart the science of paleontology. Two centuries later, scientists are still making exciting discoveries about these extinct marine reptiles and using them to help understand the profound changes across millions of years that have shaped life as we know it on this planet. Nevada has produced some of the largest and oldest ichthyosaur fossils, and new fossils are found every year. This talk will explore the history of these discoveries, and some of the interesting characters who made them, as well as a look at the cutting edge of ichthyosaur science.

[RenoRider75]

I'm signed up and going.  Last week was awesome.

[GreenMachine]

 

When I told people that it was a bumper crowd for a paleontology presentation they were surprised.

Got my RSVP in hand.  See you there tonight around 5:30 PM.   

[GreenMachine]

Bumping.  The beer starts flowing at 5:00 PM.

[GreenMachine]

Had to bump it again. 

Doh!

[RichVee4]

Sounds very interesting, take good notes  .  Unfortunately tonight didnt work for me.

[GreenMachine]

Wow!  Even more people than the first.  The speaker had some competition from some volcanists in the audience and it was an interactively fun presentation.   

The highlighted subject tonight was the Ichthyosaur, which about half the auditorium had seen at Berlin State Park, Berlin, NV.  But Tom, the brew master had some comments about another Ichthyosaur finding around Lovelock, in about the same stratified mountains as Berlin is located.  Gonna have to seek this place out too. 

One of the speaker's noted finds was a previously undetected set of baby terrible reptile fishes, some other variant of the Ichthyosaur buried along with the other fossils but previously unidentified and placed in a bag for future scientific study.  In this case it was the layout of the teeth in the jaw that set them apart.  After two Tectonics I was unclear if they were juveniles that would later align their teeth or if, because of their staggered teeth arrangement they were a different species, eaten by another terrible reptile fish.  But kind of cool to find that he and others from UNR have been working the Berlin, NV, site since I'd been there a couple years ago.  He's also working another Ichthyosaur site at Mt. Shasta, perhaps the site of the Shastasaurus.



Thanks to RR75 for coming and for promoting, even sponsoring, the event tonight!  Kudos to you, my friend!   

[GreenMachine]

Sounds very interesting, take good notes  .  Unfortunately tonight didnt work for me.

FYI, the presentations begin at 7:00 PM, in case you're running late.  See if you can still RSVP for the remaining two.  If the event is booked, they seemed to make room for the additions who show up without RSVP by bringing in more chairs.

I think so long as a couple of bus loads of people don't storm the event, they'll make room for more.

[RenoRider75]

Their talks are held in the beer cask aging room, which is cool to see even if you don't care about dinosaurs.  The beers on tap are extremely fresh and delicious too.  They've served two different foods so far; last week was pastrami sandwiches and macaroni salad.  This week was pizza and a salad.  Both times the food was good (it all comes from Great Basin's kitchen).

I definitely encourage people to come check it out.  Being able to learn about our area from some of the best experts in the world is pretty cool. 

Thanks to RR75 for coming and for promoting, even sponsoring, the event tonight!  Kudos to you, my friend!   

Thanks for finding out about this series!  I wouldn't have even known about it otherwise. 

[dub]

Wait...is the beer and food free too?

[RenoRider75]

Pints are $6 and the food is usually about $7.  If you want to come and have a beer but don't want to pay the pint fee, I'm happy to set up an SSA tab.  Consider it a pre-payment for tips on the track later this year, haha