Trolling the Fossil Freeway with Ray

Even if you haven't heard the name Ray Troll, it's still almost guaranteed that you've seen some of his artwork. Maybe you saw an amazing museum exhibit, or picked up a copy of Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, or perhaps you remember a few weeks ago for Mary Anning's birthday we debuted an awesome piece of his:

“Mary Anning's story was really inspiring to me and Brad when we made that book all those years ago and then finding out “she sells seashells by the seashore…” it's all about her..." - Ray Troll

But Ray Troll is much more than an amazing artist: he's a top-notch paleonerd, amazing author, game-creator, science education advocate, fish enthusiast of the strongest sort, and also a musician! He also recently completed a project close to home for the Vengeance Team: he painted the mural of the Saber Toothed Salmon fossil, part of the Explore Oregon exhibit at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History (That exhibit is freshly opened and extremely awesome, so if you get a chance you should swing by and check it out).

Amy and blog assistant/boyfriend Kelly were lucky enough (Meaghan is SUPER GODDAMN JEALOUS) to sit down with Ray Troll and his wife Michelle at their beautifully fossil-decorated house in Ketchikan, Alaska and pepper him with questions about his music, art, connections to Mary Anning and paleoichthyology musings while Meaghan sat at home grumbling and doing science stuff.

Forever the image of Meaghan's Envy

Paleontologists Give the Best Presents

Last year, Meaghan made epic personalized nerd mugs and fake tattoos for her lab mates. It was a great Christmas - she got to not be poor AND be smug, which is a difficult combination to come by. Naturally this year, she wanted to outdo her previous year's efforts and come up with something crafty and sciencey that could solidify her position as the Martha Stewart of Science. Fortunately for Meaghan, there exists such a thing as "Non-Toxic Food-Grade Silicone Paste."

This is a little different from the typical casting supplies that paleontologists work with, in that it is meant for eating and is incredibly easy to use. Select or make the item you would like to mold, mix equal qualities of blue and white, and smoosh the mixture all over the item for about an hour. Boom. Silicon molds. 

Initially Meaghan had grand plans of using the new 3D printer at University of Oregon to print out mini replicas, but they have some daft rule about "academic intentions" and she couldn't figure out how to bullshit her way through it. Instead Meaghan made small sculpey clay replicas of an oreodont skull, and a flat medallion of a Dunkleosteus head, and a flat giant ground sloth. She also grabbed a bear skull that was just lying around (long story).

GSA 2013: The Good, The Bad, and The Coyote Ugly

GSA was full of its fair share of tummy aches, talks where squinting was the only option, and hilarious, fabulous geology. First off, I finally physically met my mentor, Kate Zeigler!

Amy, Kate, and their Paleozoic pal eurypterid!

Our meeting in person was almost more than the geology gods could handle, but we fortunately weren't struck down and made into fulgurites (heh) as we dined on burgers and milkshakes. I could finally ask some questions that are hard to phrase over email ("Erm soo paleomagnitude... that's like, yeah, basalt points north? Poles switch and it blows my mind?") I also got a chance to grill her on some hard hitting paleo-questions which will be featured in an upcoming Vengeance Team interview (Meaghan guest stars and wow, what a guest she makes...).

I hadn't realized how much I had in common with Kate, who has been my mentor through the Huffington Post Girls in STEM program from afar for a few months. We have plans to rock climb in New Mexico whenever my skin becomes so pale that the SW sun is the only cure to my vitD deficiency.

SVP Summary Part 1: Dinosaurs are Surprisingly Relevant

We know, we know, there was no blog post last week. We're sorry. We were doing a science. We'll make up for it by posting too much this week instead!

Amy is still trying to pull together her thoughts from GSA (the beer there was free), but Meaghan has decided that instead of creating a cohesive summary she's going to vomit some grey matter on the page and let all y'all just deal with it. Today we're going to talk about Meaghan's favorite non-poster presentation which was, surprisingly, a dinosaur talk!