🚨Paper Alert!🚨 Our work on Precambrian basement deep beneath the Williston Basin in #NorthDakota. We looked at two >2900 m drill cores, sampling the W edge of the Superior Craton and E margin of the 1.9 - 1.8 Ga Trans-Hudson Orogeny. ⚒️🧪 (T Nesheim, myself, J Vervoort) doi.org/10.1130/B374... 1/5

The last #FossilFriday of 2025. A beautiful fossil specimen of Mesosaurus being shown at the PALEO SP 2025 (December 11-13) at the Biosciences Institute of UNESP-Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil.

Happy #FossilFriday! Part 3 from the @childrensmuseum.bsky.social in #Indiana! Seriously so much there even beyond the Dinosphere, from giant ammonites to marine reptiles (this one is Plioplatecarpus) to Dracorex to a local Mastodon. Floor after floor, there is more to find!

🐘🦥 For #FossilFriday: a mammoth mystery. The Franklin Street tooth was the first of twelve specimens from New Ulm, MN—unearthed in 1912 in glacial drift, it’s the earliest known. New Ulm finds continue! Read more about the “dirty dozen” in #LostBones #3 on my Substack. marcusbrandel.substack.com

Happy solstice! This is my longest longest day ever ☀️#Antarctica

For #FossilFriday: the Eocene “dawn horse” Protorohippus venticolus (cast), at Utah Field House in Vernal, UT. The original—now private—is ~33 cm tall, one of two from Fossil Butte Member, WY. More on North American equids soon. #Eocene #equus #palaeontology #citizenscience www.nps.gov/fobu/

Lost Bones #5: (From the Ashes a Fire Shall be Woken) open.substack.com/pub/marcusbr... "In April 1967, Burgess Construction employee Ivan Brouwer's dragline struck bones..." #FossilFriday #Writing #HistoricalNonFiction #Pleistocene #BisonOccidentalis #Palaeontology #Bison #CitizenScience

Up From the Abyss of Time open.substack.com/pub/walrod/p...

The Science Museum of Minnesota has scanned the Northfield Mastodon molar for palaeontology outreach. See the link is in my profile for more or on Substack goto: marcusbrandel.substack.com/p/lost-bones... Please share to help support my volunteer work! #Mastodon #Pleictocene #CitizenSceince

Happy #FossilFriday! 🐴🐘🐪💀 This gorgeous horse mandible comes from Brown County, Minnesota. Collected by a friend of mine under permit in a state park earlier this year. The bone is deceptively heavy, suggesting it has been partially mineralized. To read more like this: marcusbrandel.substack.com

Happy #FossilFriday! A little while back some of us from the Science Museum of Minnesota visited the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History (@smmnh.sky.social) in Blue Earth, #Minnesota. Nice place with a great cast of Lythronax (type of tyrannosaur), touchable footprints and so much more!

Something ancient and wonderful for the weekend! 🤩 The world’s oldest known sculpture of a horse! This tiny figurine was carved from mammoth ivory by an Ice Age artist some 40,000 years ago! 📷 by me #Archaeology

#FossilFriday 2nd of the OG 12 mammoth finds from New Ulm, MN 🦣. This molar is split lengthwise—rare compared to the usual broken plates. Chewing surface’s gone, but you can still some jaw and roots. New Ulm discoveries continue! More in Lost Bones #3 (free on Substack): marcusbrandel.substack.com

Happy #FossilFriday! Turkeys, like other birds, have fused toe bones (metatarsals). In their ancient cousin, T. rex, the bones are separate but still bare a lot of similarity to parts of the turkey, because they share a common ancestor. Can you see the family resemblance?

Happy #FossilFriday! We are back from another great meeting of the @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social , this year in Birmingham, #England. We presented a poster each on collections problem-solving and 3D prints for outreach + loved getting to see the @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social

A Dusky Moorhen with chick at Lane Cove National Park, Sydney NSW, for the #CootsAndMoorhens theme of #BirdOfTheDay. October 2004. #birds #photography #birdphotography #birding #nature #naturephotography

Happy #FossilFriday! It’s #GarWeek so check out these 50 million year old #gar fish from #Utah at the Science Museum of Minnesota! This genus, Lepisosteus, goes back to the Cretaceous and is still swimming today! Thanks to @bellmuseum.bsky.social & @garlab.bsky.social for hyping these cool #fish!

Happy #FossilFriday! We’re in #England for a conference and went to the #Jurassic Coast, in Lyme Regis. The shore here has loads of #fossil marine creatures from about 150 million years ago, like ammonites and belemnites, home of famed paleontologist Mary Anning in the early 1800s.

🐻Happy #FossilFriday! This canine tooth was found at the bottom of Lake Bronson Reservoir in northern MN after draw down for dam replacement. Flagged in a pedestrian survey, likely from an American black bear (Ursus americanus). The site is pre-contact Native American, submerged nearly 90 years.

Two Hartebeest molars in a maxilla, from the Last Interglacial of Turkana, Kenya--a time period in which we desperately need more research! #FossilFriday

happy #fossilfriday and halloween 🎃 in celebration of spooky season, i give to you the phorusrhacids, more popularly (and aptly) known as the terror birds. they were some of the most formidable land predators of the cenozoic, and in my opinion, are vastly underappreciated (art by rudolf hima)

#lostBones This is the fourth full skeleton I’ve written about from the state - all proudly assembled by private individuals without institutional help. If you know of others, or if you have your own skeleton haunting your basement or garage this Halloween #FossilFriday I’d love to hear the tale!

I made a run to the Field Museum this week and finally saw the Chicago Archaeopteryx. Just wow, it’s a stunner. And the exhibit is a beauty! 🪶 👀🤩 #FossilFriday

Happy #FossilFriday! It’s the last day of #Croctober so check out this amazing cast Macrospondylus 🐊, from the #Jurassic of #Germany at the Science Museum of Minnesota! It lived about 180 million years ago and would have spent nearly its whole life at sea, & even had super reduced front legs!

#FossilFriday, The Midwest’s #Homotherium! A partial skullcap, the first Homotherium serum specimen found in Minnesota, recovered in 2008 from Tyson Spring Cave in Fillmore County. The find, along with a Cervalces skullcap, was published by Chris Widga and colleagues in Boreas (Widga et al., 2012).

Third installment of #gomphtober2025 : lower jaw of the amebelodont Amebelodon fricki. The largest jaw of any land animal. On display at the University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln. #fossilfriday #universityofnebraskastatemuseum #universityofnebraskalincoln #elephant #prehistoricnebraska

#FossilFriday - This rare Midwest partial skullcap and antler beam of Cervalces scotti marked the first stag-moose specimen found in Minnesota. Recovered in 2008 from Tyson Spring Cave along with a Homothereium skullcap! Published by @widga.bsky.social in Boreas (Widga et al., 2012). #Cervalces

Big week at the @imnh208.bsky.social as one of our *best* Bison latifrons 🤩 🦬 was packed for a long term loan to the Smithsonian in DC! #FossilFriday Named “Junior” btw. 👀 Look for this Idaho treasure next summer. Thanks @mosasaurologist.bsky.social!

Thanks for the invite to come get plastered on Idaho! Junior's horns put most ceratopsians to shame.

Happy #FossilFriday! This week the paleo team from the Science Museum of Minnesota was out picking up ancient #Bison bones here in #Minnesota! 🦬🦬🦬 The bones are in the river itself, which has zero visibility, so they have to be found by feel. A little chilly & mucky but some cool fieldwork!

Second installment of #gomphtober2025 skeleton of gomphotherium from Mt. Diablo, California. Was on display at UC Berkeley, don't know if it still is. #fossilfriday #prehistoriccalifornia #gomphotherium #cenozoic #miocene #elephant #fossil

🦥 #FossilFriday P68.40.1 - the rarest Minnesota fossil I’ve ever held in my hand: an ungual phalanx of #Megalonyxjeffersoni (Giant #GroundSloth). Discovered in a pile of excavated peat, this individual toe claw remains the singular specimen of this animal found in the state. #Pleistocene #Fossil

Croctober continues!

Recently the #paleontology team from the Science Museum of Minnesota + Hill Annex Paleontology Project visited the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History in Blue Earth, #Minnesota and made the local news! Check it out! www.faribaultcountyregister.com/news/local-n...

It's the first ##FossilFriday for Croctober! Here is the prototype reconstruction of Deinosuchus schwimmeri, from the late Cretaceous of Georgia and other places around the south. I finally got a Pic with me in it for scale so you can see just how huge this dead gator was.🐊🧪

Come and hear me talk SEA MONSTERS - both of the cryptozoological sort and the ancient fossil sort - at Dorset Museum and Art Gallery, Dorchester (UK) - on Fri 21st November. I'll be signing and selling books too :) www.dorsetmuseum.org/whats-on/sea...

It was an adventure as always! #volunteerwork

🐪 #LostBones 🐪 says Hmmm… A recent visit to the Jackson County Historical Society Museum revealed a camel calcaneus in the collection. But was this camel actually in Minnesota? More to come. Jackson County: www.jchsmn.org . . . #FossilFriday #Pleistocene #Camel #Palaeontology #CitizenScience

Happy #FossilFriday! We had an amazing #CroctoberFest this past Saturday at @badweatherbrew.bsky.social ! We brought a LOT of #crocodile #fossils from the Science Museum of Minnesota, I gave 2 talks + there were live crocodilians. Absolutely 10/10! 🐊🍻🐊

🐘🦥🐪 #FossilFriday: Meet the big boy, numero uno - Bison Skull 147 found in a peat deposit packed with bones in Anoka county Minnesota. Now housed at the #SouthernMinnesotaMuseumOfNaturalHistory 🔗 www.smmnh.com #Pleistocene #AnokaSandPlain #BisonOccidentalis #Palaeontology #CitizenScience

The Goodhue County Historical Society tops my list. Not only do they feature some of my favorite megafauna specimens—like bison, mammoth, and giant beaver—but they also offer an array of historical, archaeological, and regional displays highlighting the cultural and natural heritage of Red Wing.

Happy #FossilFriday! Meet Paludirex, a BIG #crocodile from #Australia, one of many crocs coming from the Science Museum of Minnesota to @badweatherbrew.bsky.social for #CroctoberFest tomorrow (Sat, Sept 20)! We’ll be there 12-5pm with sooo much + I’m giving two talks, come raise a glass with us! 🐊🍺🐊

Ancient DNA from mastodons reveals they weren’t just roaming the Ice Age these giants migrated with warming and cooling climates. Expanding north when forests returned, retreating south when ice advanced. Their story of resilience and collapse has lessons for today. 🧪 #SciComm buff.ly/Ut9PO3w

For #FossilFriday - ancient DNA shows the #NovaScotia mastodons are older than thought, and have migrated into the Atlantic region multiple times over the past 500,000 years. In Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ⚒️

It lives!!! 🦣🦣🦣🧪 Repeated climate-driven dispersal and speciation in peripheral populations of Pleistocene mastodons | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ribs! The third most common terrestrial mammal skeletal element found during my research in county historical societies - #2 (mandibles), #1 (teeth). #counting #bones #lostbones #citizenscience

Happy #FossilFriday! CroctoberFest is just 8 days away at @badweatherbrew.bsky.social Come see this awesome jaw of Gryposuchus, an extinct croc from South America about 15 million years ago, and SO much from the Science Museum of #Minnesota on Saturday, Sept 20 (12-5pm)! 🐊🍻🐊

Happy #FossilFriday! Yesterday we were at the Minnesota State Fair from the Science Museum of Minnesota with a bunch of fun stuff including an actual Triceratops humerus. Thanks to @twincitiespbs.bsky.social for hosting us for the day!

A mastodon tooth and a bank robber's ear!? The Northfield Historical Society has both! Defeat Jesse James Days starts this week in Northfield Minnesota. djjd.org www.northfieldhistory.org/1876-bank-raid Read more about the ear and the tooth in #LostBones #2. Link is in my profile. #CitezenScience

Bonus #FossilFriday! We went out today looking for #fossils from the Time of the Dinosaurs. We found some #shark vertebrae & a #crocodile tooth! Part of the science we do at the Science Museum of #Minnesota! 🦈🐊