January 5, 2006
WSU Students Unearth a “Whale” of a Find
As students at Wright State University (WSU)-Lake Campus returned from their winter holiday, the usual question resonated through the hallways: “What did you do over break?”
For the students in Dr. Chuck Ciampaglio’s Paleontology of the Mississippi Coastal Plain course, the response to the typical query was altogether different than the usual description of holiday merriment. Those 13 students were able to tell fellow classmates that they unearthed a fossilized whale, one that could be an entirely new species, and explored a region rich in fossil remains.
“We started to plan this expedition in December of 2004,” says Ciampaglio, assistant professor of geology at the Lake Campus. Ciampaglio regularly does field work in the Mississippi area, and had talked with George Phillips, curator of paleontology from the Museum of Natural Science in Jackson, MS., and James Starnes, a state geologist with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, about the need to excavate the remains of a 55 million-year-old whale. The idea to use this dig as a learning experience began to take place, and the three men collaborated for a year on how to make it happen.
Ciampaglio worked with WSU to create the course, which needed to take place in December because the weather would be most conducive to a successful dig. Also, the students would have the time needed to travel. When WSU decided to move forward with a pilot program of December course offerings, which would take advantage of the break between fall and winter quarters, this dig fit perfectly into that concept.
So, early on December 12, Ciampaglio and a combination of Lake and Dayton campus students, as well as Dr. Dave Hochstein, assistant professor of psychology at the Lake Campus, set out for the drive south. The week-long trip was educational in every aspect – on the way the group stopped in Birmingham, Ala., where they studied cyclothems, which is a series of coal-bearing strata from the Pennsylvanian period. The group also collected plants from this site for study in another course.
Once in Mississippi, Ciampaglio made the most of the trip by dividing the class into 2 groups. He called on another colleague, Matt Forir, executive director of the Museum of the Ozarks in Springfield, Mo., to lead one group of students on the whale dig. Forir, along with Hochstein, and the students traveled to a field owned by Danny Fleming and went to work excavating the torso and portions of the animal’s back. The 34-ft. specimen took the students, working ten hour days, about 3 days to uncover. Informally called the “Fleming Whale” because of the location, the “Basilosaurus cetoides” whale will be examined in Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri to determine the whale’s species, and learn more about what the whales ate and how they lived. More study needs to be done to classify the whale’s species, and students will aid in that examination. Ultimately, the Fleming Whale will reside in Mississippi.
The second group of students spent the week traveling the coastal plain with Ciampaglio as their guide. Covering close to 1500 miles in 4 days, Ciampaglio took students to the Chickasawhay River where the group hiked north-to-south, working fossil locations. At Dobys Bluff, another location in the area, the students trekked the “Iron Ladder,” a steep rock formation where many gastropods are available for study.
“Looking at these gastropods is amazing,” says Ciampaglio. “ You can actually see the evolutionary beginning of many marine creatures that you see today.”
The group also traveled to St. Stephens, Ala., where there were an abundance of sea urchins and sand dollars for study; in fact, the students were delighted to see dozens of these species barely covered with dirt and prime for examination.
“Overall, the Mississippi trip was outstanding”, says Keshia Froning, a first-year student from St. Henry, Ohio, who is a pre-education major at the Lake Campus. “The best part for me was actually doing the digging and plastering. It was cool digging, and knowing that no human has ever seen what we uncovered. I cannot wait for the next dig.”
Ciampaglio adds that the success of this dig will pave the way for future excursions. “It’s ideal,” says Ciampaglio, “to allow these students to learn in this way, making it more than just a dig and more than just a course.”
With the help of the Van Wert Wal-Mart store, many of the supplies for the December trip were donated. The students were able earn credit, have assistance in the cost of materials, and to have the paleontological experience of a lifetime – certainly a memorable way to spend the holiday break.
Pictured, Keshia Froning, center, works diligently on excavating a 34-ft. fossilized “Basilosaurus cetoides” whale from the Mississippi earth. Froning, a first-year student from St. Henry, Ohio, and a pre-education major at the Lake Campus, traveled to the Mississippi Coastal Plain and worked on the dig as part of a course she took over the winter break.
# posted by Dave Hochstein @ 12:41 PM
As students at Wright State University (WSU)-
