Cam Muskelly (Explorer of Deep Time ⏰ ⚒️)

"Quiet, piggy!"

Tectonically deformed trilobites. Olenellus thompsoni, Cambrian, York PA

You know, I'm not good about #TrilobiteTuesday. They weren't a strength of the collection, unless you count a stupid number of Silica shale phacopids that probably aren't Phacops rana as labeled, but ... I am not a trilobite guy.

These are a couple of olenellids, famous as tectonic shear indicators

This was my son's first complete trilobite - a goldbug!

This is a Triarthrus eatoni from the famous Ordovician Beecher's Bed of New York. This site preserves soft tissues like legs, gills and antennae with pyrite or fool's gold.

#TrilobiteTuesday

Welcome back to #trilobitetuesday

Here is a beautifully enrolled Dolomitized Calymene celebra from the Silurian (Wenlock) Joliet Dolomite from Grafton, Illinois.

Dinosaur dessert - ETV News I’ve spent time excavating fossils in the quarry, and I’ve learned the processes of the lab at the Prehistoric Museum at USU Eastern. But Josh Lively, curator of paleontology at the museum, wasn’t don...

etvnews.com/articles/opi...

I'm a simple man. Put me in a place with rocks and I'll love you forever. 🪨 💕

👀 tomorrow @ See Jurassic Right

Histology and fossil diagenesis of a pterosaur tooth from the Crato Formation (Lower Cretaceous of Brazil) Pterosaur dental biology remains poorly understood despite its importance for comprehending feeding strategies and flight adaptations. Here, we present the first comprehensive histological analysis o...

Histology and fossil diagenesis of a pterosaur tooth from the Crato Formation (Lower Cretaceous of Brazil) - Aureliano - The Anatomical Record - Wiley Online Library anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Garfield Minott at microphone, holding sauropod model. Photo from Simcoe Muskoka Family Connections Black History Month event.

Carcharodontosaurus head model by Minott, as used in technical paper by Kent Stevens.

Minott Carcharodontosaurus head model from Paul Sereno lab website.

Mainstream palaeoart often seems lily-white in terms of the diversity of its contributors. But pieces of palaeoart that rank among the -MOST SEEN- works in the entire field were examples of black craftsmanship. This week came news on the passing of Garfield G. Minott (1966-2025)... cont

Earliest oceanic tetrapod ecosystem reveals rapid complexification of Triassic marine communities Tetrapods invaded oceanic environments after the cataclysmic end-Permian mass extinction (EPME), with temnospondyl amphibian to reptile-dominated assemblages succeeding across the Early Triassic [~251...

Earliest oceanic tetrapod ecosystem reveals rapid complexification of Triassic marine communities | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

LOL!!!!!

A pliosaur vertebra from the Etches Collection sporting a notochordal boss, an embryonic remnant. These are common in ankylosaur verts but not uncommon in #IsleofWight posterior dorsal and early caudal iguanodontian centra. Rarely reported elsewhere it seems. #FossilFriday

The first full(ish) #trilobite I've ever found in the wild #geology #paleontology

Half a dozen benches down in a granite quarry, with a large haul truck receiving broken granite from a loader.

An African American student looks through a hand lens at a sample of granite. They have dredlocks, and their sunglasses are pushed up on their forehead.

Brightly lit quarry wall. Horizontal gneissic banding is visible.

Visiting Boscobel Quarry today. ⚒️

Sea urchin

As I travel through my time, I feel really lucky to be a paleontologist

Weathered limestone showing snail shells in cross section partly filled by light gray sediment and partly filled with darker coarsely crystalline calcite spar. Pencil tip for scale.

Geopetal gastropods from Mississippian Reynolds limestone. #FossilFriday
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This is a late Cretaceous echinoid, Hardournia mortonis, from the Peedee Fm. near Holden Beach, NC. The mouth structure is preserved with 5 beak-like teeth called Aristotle's lantern.

#FossilFriday

#Fractofusus is the most common organism at many of the #Ediacaran fossil sites in #Newfoundland, and it's also one of the best preserved. Here we can see the complex branching they possessed, preserved in exquisite detail.

#FossilFriday #FractofususFriday

We are 2 for 2 with echinoderms for #fossilfriday!

Here is an absolutely beautiful regular sea urchin known as Desoricidaris pouyannei. This specimen comes from the Lower Cretaceous (Cenomanian) rocks of Taouz, Morocco. The preservation of the test (body) is absolutely stunning even after 100 mya!

Missing all of my friends who are at SVP 💜 😢

Gigantoproductus are a major part of the "cockle rock" from Teesdale back home. It's a carboniferous limestone used as a decorative stone.

Billion year old shallow water stromatolitic carbonates contact metamorphosed. Green layers with diopside and occasional grossular garnet. Sedimentary layers are preserved, including ripples! Franklin Mountains, El Paso, Texas.

Morphology of the forelimb of Confuciusornis and its implications for early flight evolution Abstract. The morphological transformation of a highly mobile, grasping forelimb into a flapping wing is a key transition in the evolution of bird flight.

Morphology of the forelimb of Confuciusornis and its implications for early flight evolution url: academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Oldest oceanic reptile ecosystem from the Age of Dinosaurs found on Arctic island More than 30,000 teeth, bones and other fossils from a 249 million-year-old community of extinct marine reptiles, amphibians, bony fish and sharks have been discovered on the remote Arctic island of S...

phys.org/news/2025-11...

Come see me today at B199

Thank you to everyone who visited my poster yesterday. Looking forward to a great rest of the conference! :) #2025SVP

Earliest long-necked sauropterygian Lijiangosaurus yongshengensis and plasticity of vertebral evolution in sauropterygian marine reptiles - Communications Biology A newly discovered Triassic fossil marine reptile, Lijiangosaurus yongshengensis, reveals that an exceptionally long neck developing more than 40 cervical vertebrae evolved in nothosaurs before the ri...

Wang, W., Shang, Q., Wang, J. et al. Earliest long-necked sauropterygian Lijiangosaurus yongshengensis and plasticity of vertebral evolution in sauropterygian marine reptiles. Commun Biol 8, 1551 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Interesting work on the early evolution of animals. The new study places sponges back as the sister group to animals.