VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

NEWSLETTER DATE Volume 18, Number 8 September 2008

Prez Sez: Coming Events The weather sure has messed up collecting and peoples homes. I hope Meetings held at the you all stayed dry! Orlando Science Center Our speaker for September will be the famous archeologist, Barbara Purdy, September 17th, 7:00pm Mtg from the University of Florida. Don't miss this meeting. We will also have sign up sheets for work stations at the fossil fair. October 15 6:00pm Kid’s Blast and The Sept. Vulcan field trip will be on the 13th and probably still too hot to at- 7:00pm Meeting tend. The 90's limit collecting to 3-4 hours at best. If you want to go please let Bonnie & Russell know via email [email protected] or call October 11-12 352/429-1058. Fossil Fair The Graves Mountain GA dig happens the first weekend in Oct. if you want to car pool plan on leaving on Weds or Thursday. Be aware that it is very hot November 19, 7:00pm Mtg and a lot of walking and carrying all your tools and rocks. December 17 The only good part of Hurricane season is the uncovering of more fossils! 7:00pm Meeting Shelley Zimmerman For more info... www.floridafossilhunter.com See You Then!!! Shelley Zimmerman

Table of Contents Piece on the Peace ……………….. 2

Kids FossilBlast ……………………. 2 2008 Florida Fossil Hunters Fossil Fair Volunteer info ………... 2 Fossil Fair Flyer ………………..….. 3 Fossil Fair Stone Age Graveyard Reveals Lifestyles Of A 'Green '…..... 4 October 11-12th First Prehistoric Pregnant Turtle And Nest Of Eggs Discovered In Southern Alberta……………….….. 6 Membership Application ………….. 7 Calendar ……………………………. 8 Florida Fossil Hunters News Volume 18, Number 8 - September 2008 Page 2

Fragments 2008 Fossil Fair

Piece on the Peace With all the usual rains of summer Four Ways to help plus all the added water the tropical VOLUNTEER YOUR TIME: There are plenty of things storms have brought, the Peace River to do....help set up on Friday, October 10th. Work at is too deep and the flow too strong to the Kids' Fossil Pit, ID table, Membership table, Silent do any hunting there. Auction, or Admissions table on Saturday and Sunday. And then there is cleanup and packing up at the end of However the rains do make good hunting at Vulcan. Join the fair on Sunday. You can sign up at the meeting or us there on Saturday, September 13th at 8:30 am on the call Valerie at 407-699-9274 driveway loop. See the box below for more info. You must be a member of our club for insurance purposes. DONATE FOSSILS FOR THE KIDS PIT: We'll need everyone to give some this year...even if you just have Daggers and Axes and Swords… a few fossils, they can delight some child and make it The Daytona Beach Museum of the Arts and Sciences possible for them to own a piece of our distant opened a new exhibition of antique weapons and armor past. We'll also need items for the Silent Auction. on August 15th. The items include artistry of some of the GET THE WORD OUT: Tell your friends and family most famous gunsmiths and weapon makers from the me- about the fair. Download copies of the fair flyer from the dieval period to the 19th century through a wide range of website and pass them out. There will also be copies finely designed and decorated muskets, rifles, pistols, li- available at the Sept. meeting. ons-head daggers, war axes, knives, sabers and straight- edge swords. You can get more info at their website BRING FOOD TO SHARE: We'll set up a tent like we www.moas.org or at 386-2550285. did last year for the vendors and volunteers to get a bite to eat during the day. Please bring a yummy to share. Roadside Geology of Florida For those of you who weren't at the August meeting..... We REALLY need participation during the show so try Florida now has its own book in this great series on geol- to volunteer to take the burden off those that spend ogy by state. The table of contents indicate that it is a more than their share of hours helping. comprehensive book covering the making of this land- If I have forgotten anything or any suggestions, just let me mass from the Precambrian to the present. It then gives or someone know. Thanks, Valerie First 407-699-9274 the geologic formations and even some of the fossils found along many of the roads. It is listed at $25.99 but Fossil Fair T-Shirts you can find it cheaper on Amazon.com. At least one of We've changed the color of the vendors at our fossil fair will also have copies for sale. the T-shirts since the last newsletter. This year's shirts Evolution Cruise will be "sand".....not grey or Insight Cruises has scheduled a cruise from Feb 27th to blue as stated in August's Mar 9th, 2009 that features an Evolution seminar in part- newsletter. These "Brooksville nership with Scientific American. Learn more about it at Quarries" shirts will be avail- www.insightcruises.com. It's listed as Scientific American/ able at the September meet- Bright Horizons, Cruise #3, Evolution Emanation. ing as well as at the Fossil

Fair. In addition to the usual adult sizes, we'll have kids' sizes, too. The price per shirt is $10.

At last month's meeting, each kid got to take home a real Vulcan Field Trip Dates fossil horse tooth as a memento of our journey into the Currently these dates are available: evolution of horses. Our next kids' program will be on September 13th, 2008 October 11th, 2008 Wednesday, October 15th at 6 pm. The Kids' Fossil Blast is a fun, hands-on way to find out about fossils for kids November 8th, 2008 December 13th, 2008 mainly ages 4 to 14 yrs. Each meeting we focus on a dif- You must be a member to attend! For September ferent type of fossil using real fossils, replicas and printed trip contact Bonnie [email protected] / 352/429-1058 materials. Sometimes the kids even get to take real fossils Check the website for more info. home. We meet every other month at 6:00 pm at the OSC.

Florida Fossil Hunters News Volume 18, Number 8 - September 2008 Page 4 Stone Age Graveyard Reveals Lifestyles Of A 'Green Sahara'

ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2008) — The largest Stone Age lightly built people who appeared to have had a diverse graveyard found in the Sahara, which provides an unpar- economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding. They alleled record of life when the region was green, has lived during the latter part of the green Sahara, about been discovered in by National Geographic Ex- 7,000 to 4,500 years ago. Their one-of-a-kind burials plorer-in-Residence and University of Chicago Professor often included jewelry or ritual poses — a girl wearing an , whose team first happened on the site dur- upper-arm bracelet carved from a hippo tusk, for exam- ing a dinosaur-hunting expedition. ple, and a stunning triple burial containing a woman and two children in a poignant embrace. The remarkable archaeological site, dating back 10,000 years and called Gobero after the Tuareg name for the “At first glance, it’s hard to imagine two more biologically area, was brimming with skeletons of humans and ani- distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same mals — including large fish and crocodiles. Gobero is place,” said team member Chris Stojanowski, a bioar- hidden away within Niger’s forbidding Ténéré Desert, chaeologist from Arizona State University. “The biggest known to Tuareg nomads as a “desert within a desert.” mystery is how they seemed to have done this without The Ténéré is the setting of some of Sereno’s key pale- disturbing a single grave.” ontological discoveries, including the 500-toothed, plant- Although the Sahara has long been the world’s largest eating dinosaur that lived 110 million years desert, a faint wobble in Earth’s orbit and other factors ago and the enormous extinct crocodilian , occurring some 12,000 y