The Boneyard 2.1

Welcome one and all to the rebooted Boneyard, a blog carnival dedicated to the multitudinous wonders of paleontology. I hope that the Boneyard can really take root and become a proud member of the science blog carnival community (which you can follow more easily thanks to the efforts of the good folks at ScienceBlogging).

I'll be honest - response has been light so far. Networking has never been my strongest suit, but as a guy who hopes to eventually make his way in the world by freelancing, that's something that has to change. I intend to improve the Boneyard by improving my networking skills. Of course, I'd be silly to not acknowledge that networking comes down to investing time, and time is a precious commodity for me right now. But I hope that by putting a bit more into spreading the word about the Boneyard, it will snowball. I guess I'm asking for some help. If you dig the Boneyard, I want you to be a part of it. Submit, host, spread the word. Repeat.

Enough of that. Let's get down to the meat of it.

We'll kick off Boneyard 2.1 with Julia of Bioluminescence. Last November, she mused about paleontology and the important role imagination plays in the process in her post entitled Fragments, Figments, and Visionaries.

For more in this vein, you should also take a look at the ART Evolved series called Philosofossilizing - What is Palaeo-Art? The contribution of artists to paleontology stretches back to the earliest days of the science, and it's always nice to read about the unique challenges they face in their work.

For even more in this vein, Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings recently posted an interviews with Brett Booth, Julia Molnar, and Luis Rey.

The Flugsaurier meeting in Beijing recently wrapped up, and Mark Witton was kind enough to summarize what the rest of us missed at the Pterosaur.net blog. Witton fanciers will also be pleased to learn of his upcoming book, I'd wager.

Maniraptor. For the benefit of the layman, Albertonykus sums up what exactly the word means at his blog, Raptormaniacs. Check out this post for a detailed rundown of the members of the clade maniraptora.

At her blog Chronicles from Hurricane Country, Elissa Malcohn wrote a four part series about her experience volunteering with the University of Florida's Tapir Challenge team. It's a great look at what a volunteer might have to look forward to at a dig. Part one, two, three, and four.

I always appreciate hearing the reasons that others find themselves invested in natural history. David Tana's recent post at Superoceras, Earth, Life, and Time: A Lasting Legacy, is evidence that outreach from paleontologists to young students can make huge impacts in their lives.

One of the biggest stories of the summer was the Torosaurus/ Triceratops paper published by John Scannella and Jack Horner. Zach Miller delved into it more deeply than any other blogger, offering his views on the claims of Scannella and Horner. A spirited debate arose, and it's great reading! It all started with this post.

Ever since coming across his History of Geology blog, I've found myself tweeting David Bressan's posts fairly often. His submission to Boneyard 2.1 concerns the history of ichnology. One of the aspects of paleontology I find most fascinating is how curious people came to grips with the nature of fossils over time, and David offers wonderful insights into this process.

Brontosaurus? Apatosaurus? One of the perennial topics in dinosaur paleontology is the unfortunate case of Brontosaurus. Brian Switek's Dinosaur Tracking post about the issue provides a fantastic, succinct breakdown of the issue, a fine place to point folks who need their heads put right.

Traumador the Tyrannosaur is always having some kind of outlandish adventure, and for this Boneyard, he wanted to share a few of them. Last year, he posted a series of videos about his expedition to search for microfossils. More recently, he's been reporting on the Dinosaur Winter Olympics, fulfilling a vital role that ESPN and Sports Illustrated seem to be shirking. Never send a man to do a dinosaur's job...

Louisville Fossils is another blog I find myself tweeting often. I was intoxicated by the surreal feel of this video of the "trilobite beetle," and this photo of the crinoid Scytalocrinus robustus blew me away.

Speaking of crinoids, my personal submission to Boneyard 2.1 is a post I wrote earlier this year about the geology of Southern Indiana, and how learning about the Carboniferous fossils I've been finding since relocating here several years ago redeemed the state in my eyes.

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That just about does it for Boneyard 2.1. In order to help get the Boneyard out of the nest, I'm going to go ahead and host 2.2 here at LITC (I've had some offers to host, so if you have made such an offer, I'll just be bumping everyone a month back). I'm also working on finalizing the graphics, so look for a new banner and some spiffy badges very soon.

IMPORTANT: Keep following updates about the carnival at its official site, and encourage other bloggers to contribute to future editions! Cliché it may be, but "the more the merrier" is absolutely true when it comes to blog carnivals.