Excuses aside, I recently returned from a short trip to Las Vegas where I attended the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology of which I am a member. The only way I can justify going is if I present some original research so my boss can subsidize a portion of the trip costs. This year, I presented a poster about an extinct varanid lizard, Saniwa ensidens. It is closely related to the living monitor lizards. You can read about the prep here.
Magic Canyon (where this fossil came from) is a very cool place, I'd really like to go back and spend as much time as I want cataloging the fossils and then extracting them. Maybe next year I could to some sort of stratigraphic study of it. I can dream can't I?
Anyway, here is a much reduced in size and resolution copy of my poster. I put a lot of work into this guy and I'm very proud of the work. (Right click and choose 'View Image' to see it a little bigger.)
My poster was received well. I didn't get a whole lot of traffic or comments on it, but that which I did receive was positive. My poster neighbor, Massimo Delfino, was the best neighbor I could have asked for. Each time neither of us had anybody speaking with us, he would come over and talk to me. He showed me some cool geology stuff on his netbook and just made me feel so at home in that big kids science fair.I really didn't enjoy Las Vegas. I really wish Faith could have been there to enjoy it with me. But I didn't really leave my hotel room except to attend a few portions of the conference because I had a bunch of homework that needed to be done. In 2013, the SVP annual meeting will be in Los Angeles so I think I will go and take Faith and the kids, because it's a way better place for families (Ahem, Disneyland).
Paleontologically,
Dan
