Vertebrate Paleontology

Vertebrate Paleontology Preparation Laboratory

The Division of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Preparation Laboratory is the place where all fossil bones come to be “prepared” — that is, where the stony matrix in which the bones are embedded is removed — to make the information hidden within available for scientific research or for public display.

The Lab is always busily engaged in ongoing research by scientists at the Yale Peabody Museum, in working with vertebrate paleontology students from Yale’s Department of Geology and Geophysics, and in making molds and casts of our fossils to share with researchers in other museums. We are also involved in the the Division’s fieldwork.

The Peabody Finds a Poposaur

In 2003, our field teams working in the Triassic age sediments within the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in Utah discovered the almost complete, articulated skeleton of a Poposaurus. Poposaurus is a little known carnivore that, while it resembles a small theropod dinosaur, is actually more closely related to crocodilians. For the past year we have been carefully removing the rock (the matrix) that has entombed this important skeleton for over 240 million years.

Assistant Preparator Vicki Fitzgerald and Curator Jacques Gauthier open one of the 6 field jackets of the Poposaurus collected in 2003. Large specimens were encased in plaster and burlap to protect them during their long trip from Utah back to New Haven. In the Lab the jackets are carefully opened to reveal the specimen inside.

Vicki carefully cleans and glues together all the tiny fragments of bone that had weathered out from our Poposaurus fossils (fossils can only be found when they weather out of rock). Paleontologists walk every hill and gully looking for tiny bits of bone that indicate that there could be a whole skeleton just underneath the surface.

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Conservation of Marsh’s Dinosaurs

Another recent project was the conservation of an important part of the Division’s dinosaur holdings, the massive collection begun in the 19th century under the Museum’s first director, O.C. Marsh, the first professor of paleontology in the United States. The fossil specimens that you see in the Peabody’s Great Hall are only a part of this collection. 

Vertebrae from the Marsh Dinosaur Collection have been cleaned and repaired and are ready for return to the collection. The Lab is always filled with bones being worked on. Many of our volunteers helped to make support jackets for the large bones in the collection.

Most of the Peabody’s dinosaur material is stored beneath the Museum, available for research by scientists and students from around the world. Among these fossils are the first described, or type, specimens of such well-known species such as Apatosaurus (“Brontosaurus”), Stegosaurus, Camarasaurus and Barosaurus.

Over time the glues used to join these fossils have failed, and the bones have become disarranged. With a National Science Foundation grant to conserve this scientific treasure, Assistant Preparator Vicki Fitzgerald and our skilled volunteers spent hundreds of hours cleaning, regluing and building supports for hundreds of fossil bones, ensuring that these fossils will be available for study by paleontologists for another hundred years.


The Yale Peabody Museum’s collections are available to legitimate researchers for scholarly use. Loans are issued to responsible individuals at established institutions. Loans and access to the collection can be arranged through the Collections Manager.

Volunteer Opportunities | Support the Peabody
 
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Divisional Staff

Marilyn Fox
Preparator
203.432.3747
marilyn.fox@yale.edu

Vicki Fitzgerald
Assistant Preparator
203.432.3747
vicki.fitzgerald@yale.edu

Mailing Address

Vertebrate Paleontology Preparation Lab
Peabody Museum of Natural History
Yale University
P.O. Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118 USA

Shipping Address

Vertebrate Paleontology Preparation Lab
Peabody Museum of Natural History
Yale University
170–210 Whitney Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511 USA
 
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