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How (and How Not) to Survey a Systematic Invertebrate Paleontology Collection for Locality Data

How (and How Not) to Survey a Systematic Invertebrate Paleontology Collection for Locality Data. Paul Mayer Invertebrate Paleontology Collections Manager Field Museum of Natural History. The Problem. The Problem. Methods. Results. Results. Results. Field Museum of Natural History

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How (and How Not) to Survey a Systematic Invertebrate Paleontology Collection for Locality Data

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  1. How (and How Not) to Survey a Systematic Invertebrate Paleontology Collection for Locality Data Paul Mayer Invertebrate Paleontology Collections Manager Field Museum of Natural History

  2. The Problem

  3. The Problem

  4. Methods

  5. Results

  6. Results

  7. Results

  8. Field Museum of Natural History Department of Geology Collections

  9. Dangers

  10. B- 2.7

  11. D 1.0

  12. Walker Collection 725,000 specimens 1964

  13. Collection Survey and Map • I Started January, 2008 • Third week asked for statistics on size and volume of collection. • My main goal is to learn what is in the collections.

  14. Field Museum Geology Department Collection Size

  15. 2000 Paleontological Society Survey White, R. D. and W. D. Allmon. 2000. Guidelines for the Management and Curation of Invertebrate Fossil Collection. The Paleontological Society Special Publication v. 10, p. 3, table 2.

  16. 2001 - 2002 Collection Manager Survey 150 cabinets sampled 8 people, April 2001 to October 2002

  17. What is in the collection? • Quick survey of collection • Several hours • Cabinet by cabinet

  18. A more complete survey • 546 cabinets • Drawer by drawer (over 13,000 drawers) • Four to five months • Opportunity to see collections • Curation level • Size • Maps

  19. How to display data? • Lots of data collected (546 pages) • Maps • Displays lots of information • Allows for quick comparisons • Easy to see patterns • Record of the collection

  20. Summary • Benefits of a drawer by drawer survey • Understand collection • See problems and their extent • Snapshot of collection • Easy to generate maps. • Future work: expand accessibility of collection • Cataloging • Digitizing • Photographing

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