Job Description

It occurred to me that I haven't covered exactly what it is I'm doing here. In general terms, I am working as an intern for the Panama Canal Project (http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/panama-pire/) through the University of Florida and the Smithsonian. There are a number of collaborators, both American and Panamanian, who have research projects currently underway and up until I arrived here I was not entirely sure who I would be working with or how many people would be in Panama simultaneously. I have since learned that I will be acting as an assistant to Aaron Wood, the post-doc I'm living with, and that we'll be extracting fossils from both terrestrial and marine formations (rock units) that date back to the Miocene (about 23 - 5.3 million years ago). From a brief introduction to the fossil database, it looks like most of what we'll be finding are teeth and bone fragments from camels, crocodiles, turtles, and fish, along with a whole bunch of snails and bivalves. There still hasn't been a final word on our work permits, but once things get going I'll be sure to keep a running list (with photos, of course) of the different animals we find. I've been told that the odds of finding any fossil plants are low, but I'm keeping my hopes up!

Our lab workspace in STRI