Dana Friend, a 1st year graduate student in paleontology, and Drew Muscente ’12 work in the new Fossil Prep Lab, which is accessible to the public through viewing windows, at the Museum of the Earth Sept. 21.
Putting itself on display through a clear glass window, the Cornell-affiliated Museum of the Earth's fossil preparation laboratory has opened to visitors, who can now watch paleontologists - including several Cornell students - carve away at hunks of rock to reveal the fossils inside. "It's a great opportunity to show visitors how you go from a fossil that you find in the earth in some desert somewhere to one ready for research or display," said Richard Kissel, director of teacher programs at the museum's parent organization, the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), who teaches courses at Cornell. "The windows open, so our fossil experts that work in the lab can interact with the public." The new laboratory facilities, which include a scanning electron microscope and other advanced technology, will benefit researchers as well as curious visitors. "We haven't really had any space to do research," said Warren Allmon, PRI director and the Hunter Rawlings III Professor of Paleontology at Cornell, at the museum Sept. 21. "This is a huge step forward for us, to have our own scanning electron microscope, to have state-of-the-art lab spaces - the kind of lab spaces a real museum should have." Researchers who will use the lab include Cornell students, several of whom have worked in the PrepLab since the museum opened in 2003. Allmon brings his Paleobiology (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences 4790) class here to do laboratory work, and each student completes an independent research project using the museum's resources.
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