Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson

Principal Paleontologist

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

Advancements in Best Practices for Mitigation Paleontology: First update in the last 15 years https://t.co/IuMlKzDKmX

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

The Giant Carnivorous Snail Clinopegma stantoni has been simmering for 116 years but is 5 million years old!
#FossilFriday, #paleontology, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils, #SantaCruz, #santacruzcounty, #fossil, #santacruzmuseum https://t.co/yXJOxTQW3r

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

If you are in Santa Cruz tonight and looking for some fun fossiliferous festivities, please consider dropping by the Santa Cruz Museum and checking out our booth "Pacific Paleontology, Inc." & looking into our new Internship Programs for kids and adults! https://t.co/eOaUCargz1

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

Fossil Prep Technique with a Recent Whale Discovery...

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

This is quite possibly the paleontological find of the century in Santa Cruz, literally! An extinct deep sea brittle star, found high up in the Santa Cruz Mountains! https://t.co/ab3axIMLSx

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

Please consider joining Pacific Paleontology and CA State Parks for this fun family foray foraging for fossils back in time to the Pliocene Era a few million years into the past. Free. https://t.co/bCJx47NffL.

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

The end of our screen washing season is drawing to a close here at Pacific Paleontology with the approaching Winter rains here in Santa Cruz. This is one of the 4-5 million year old samples that we are running through our screen processing this week. https://t.co/XccYYEWwj0

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

These are fossil Dendraster ashleyi or Dendraster gibbsii Sand Dollars from the Purisima formation Here. They are embedded in their original tomb along with ghost shrimp burrows on the beach. These are about 5 million years old and I'm about to extract them.

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

Pacific Paleontology was recently called out to one of our paleo mitigation contract sites with the message that "bones have been found"!! We excitedly arrived only to find this! Neither paleontological nor archeological these bones are from a modern deer, Odocoileus hemionus

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

#californiaacademyofscience, #academyofscience, #ucmpberkeley,

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

“From the Ancient Sea, to the Rock, to the Lab, and Onward to the Museum”

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

#Paleontologist, #paleontology, #SantaCruz, #Monterey, #santacruzcounty, #pacificpaleontology, @pacificpaleontology, #beachfossils, #fossil, #fossilhunting, #fieldwork, #beachcombing, #santacruzmuseum, #MontereyBay, #SCMNH, #universityofcaliforniamuseumofpaleontology, #UCMP,

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

I'm running a contest for a new logo design on 99designs. So far I've received 31 concepts from designers all over the world. Which is your fav? #99designed https://t.co/7Q0wuIMdfk

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

@CoastalPaleo Very cool discovery! I remember vividly to this day the moment I learned of Pakicetus when as a lowly paleontology student in 1982 at the UCB Science Library stacks I read an article about it. It had such an impression on me that I can almost still remember that "library smell"

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

https://t.co/2aZPUVQH8P

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

@CoastalPaleo @AshPoust @tetrameryx Very nice etymological tribute!

[UC Museum of Paleo @ucmpberkeley]

#FossilFriday 🎅🎵It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...🎵🎄

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

The non-profit arm of Pacific Paleontology is fundraising to build two fossil sifting screens for the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History like the ones seen here. The cost to build the two screens is a nominal $200.00 and your donation would be tax deductible. Please DM.

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

Rare 4-petal mutation of the sand dollar Scutellaster oregonensis (Clark, in Dall, 1909) recently donated to our paleontological research by beachcomber and collector Wendy Frye and identified by Richard Mooi of the @calacademy California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

[Pacific Paleontology: PaPa, Wayne Thompson @wathompson]

Here is one of the more uncommon fossils from the Sandhills Habitat in Santa Cruz; the fossilized upper and lower claw of a crab from the Santa Margarita Formation rock layer. This is 10-12 million years old and I've only seen one of these in over 4 decades.