Birmingham Paleontological Society

Greg Mestler died early Friday morning after a long illness that gradually robbed him of his strength and energy, but never of his quirky sense of humor, desire to help others, learn more, and desire to be involved with the friends and family he so dearly loved.  Greg was an active member from the very beginning of BPS, back in 1984, and was always in the middle of any activity. 

It's time for a celebration !  September marks the 25th year of existance for BPS, and we will host a Celebration of this event at our Monday, OCTOBER 5 meeting.  We were formed in 1984 by paleontologists who worked at the Red Mountain Museum, and needed extra eyes and field labor to assist with museum acquisitions.  And here we are 25 years later, still going strong!  All current members,

BPS will be having our Not-So-Annual Rummage Sale on Saturday, October 10.  There are numerous items for sale, from furniture and household items, to good quality clothing of all sizes.  The location is 309 Fieldstown Road, Gardendale, in the Hoss Automotive parking lot.  Take Exit 271 from I-65, go east towards Gardendale about 1 mile, and the Rummage Sale will be on the right.  Sale will

The teacher workshop will be offered again this October 2009, cosponsored by the Geological Survey of Alabama education committee, The University of West Alabama, and Discovering Alabama, with volunteer support from members of the Birmingham Paleontological Society.

This month BPS members went to Perry County, in south Alabama, and collected in a creek where it has been said, this is the furtherest north that cretaceous material is found.  It has been a while since we collected at this site, and kudzu and other grassy plants had grown over the road, making it a challenge to find our way to the site this time.

The September 2009 meeting will occur on the 2nd Monday of the month due to the Labor Day Holiday.  See you on September 14, 2009.

Our speaker will be Jun Ebersole, Curator at the McWane Science Center.  His topic will be "The Evolution of our Perception of Neandertals".  This talk will examine how the scientific and popular views of Neandertals and cavemen have changed over the past 100 years.

Free parking; Enter the The McWane Science Center parking deck from 2nd Ave. North, proceed to yellow level "C", enter the door marked "Special Events" and bear to the left.

Update: Check your schedule for the air time, the show is now scheduled for 10pm ET, which is 9pm Central time here in Birmingham.  The mosasaur episode is titled "T-rex of the Deep".  The "Terror Bird" episode is now scheduled for 8pm Central time.

Since many BPS club members are interested in both Paleontology and Archeology, it seemed important to find out a little bit about the culture which might have made the pottery chards which many found in the creek on the June 2009 BPS field trip.   

This month the group traveled to Butler County, Alabama, to a sandy creek which runs through early Tertiary and late Cretaceous material.  The weather was overcast on Saturday, making collecting very pleasant.  A number of members camped out for the weekend.  Sunday the sun was out, and it made us grateful for the cloud cover on Saturday!

The sandy beaches and gravel areas yielded up shark teeth, ray teeth, some nautiloid sections, and recent mammal material which was sometimes as fasinating as the fossils. 

We have now arrived at a very interesting point where the discoveries of the past two decades have illustrated how difficult it is to define exactly where feathered theropod dinosaurs leave off and birds begin. Many of the features once thought to be unique to birds, like a