Our Meetings
Guests are always welcome to the meetings if you would like see what
we're all about. Meetings start at 7:00 pm and usually take place the
first Saturday of the month, unless there is a holiday, then it's on
the second Saturday of the month.
Located at the USF Behavioral Science Room #103.
After the speaker finishes we have a short break. Then we
draw for door prizes and some raffle items as well. We finish with
any final announcements.
Upcoming Meetings and Guest Speakers (2022-2023 season):
NOTE: All meetings are the first Saturday of the month at 7:00 pm
unless otherwise clearly noted.
Sept. 10 - Dr. Richard Hulbert, Collection Manager, Vertebrate Paleontology
Florida Museum of Natural History
Looking Back & Ahead: 40+ Years as a Florida Paleontologist
Dr. Richard Hulbert will retire from his
position as vertebrate paleontology
collections manager at the Florida
Museum of Natural
History (FLMNH)
on September 30,
2022. In this, his
last talk to TBFC as
an employee of the
FLMNH, Dr. Hulbert will reflect on
his 41-year association with the museum and the major paleo
discoveries and technological advances occurring over that period.
He will also look ahead to greatly increased time in his
“retirement” to conduct research on Florida
fossils and discuss his plans for a comprehensive program on the
Pleistocene Mammals of Florida that will include extensive
collaboration with amateur and hobbyist fossil collectors across the state.
Dr. Richard has been a good friend and liaison for the amateur
community in Florida. His trusted relationship with the amateur fossil
hunter has probably done more to advance paleontology in Florida
than any other initiative. We’ll miss Dr. Richard when he’s retired,
but I can only imagine we’ll see him around. There’s lots of
research Dr. Richard has had to put off because of other
projects at the museum. I’m sure it won’t be long before we start
hearing about his future studies on tapir, horses and other Florida
mammals.
Oct. 1 - CANCELED
Nov. 5 - Annual Auction
Dec. 10 - Paleo Talks
Many of you already know about Tech-Talks. If
you don’t, they’re very popular technical
talks covering a wide range of technical conepts and ideas:
From how a technology or
processes work, to how to perform a specific
task, to lessons learned in a project. Most are
short, 10-20 minutes. For us, our December
meeting will feature Paleo Tech Talks. Three
short presentation and Q&A sessions on 3
different topics.
Jan. 7 - David Letasi, There's a Mastodon in my Sink!
Explore the prehistoric world of elephants and their relatives the
mastodon. What is their origin? Discover why so
many of these beasts’ fossil bones are found in our sinkholes,
ponds and river bottoms. How did they live, what
were the predators that hunted them and what was their
relationship to other prehistoric mammals? Did early humans lead
to many of their species extinction? Dave will
examine these strange varieties of elephant families, their
prehistoric habits and range. Can science bring back the
mastodon and their relatives the mammoth?
David Letasi has been interested in fossils and pre-historic
times since he was eight years old and thus has had many
years’ experience searching for fossils all over North
America and Asia. By age twelve, he had discovered three
archeological sites that are recorded in the Michigan State
Archeological Site Survey. In addition to dinosaurs, Letasi
has studied prehistoric man, ancient world history, and
archeology.
After serving in the Navy, he decided to travel around the
United States to collect specimens from well-known fossil
sites in Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Florida, as
well as Canada and several countries in Asia. After he
married his wife, Suzanne, in 1972 she began to travel
with him. In 1976 they moved to Florida where it was possible to
collect saber-tooth cat fossils, his main field of interest.
Dave worked for Great Explorations Museum in St Petersburg and
assumed a number of duties, including designing and curating
exhibits and later worked at the Museum of Science and Industry
(MOSI) in Tampa. While at MOSI, he led cave explorations for
children and adults to the Dames Cave in the Withlacoochee State
Forest, as well as fossil-collecting trips to mining sites in Polk
County. Since retiring from MOSI in 2007, he has been active in
projects with the Historic Hernando Preservation Society.
His lengthy résumé includes being the lead archaeological project
coordinator with the Historic Hernando County Preservation Society,
the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Gulf Archaeology Research
Institute of Gainesville. Some interesting projects he’s
worked on include searching for the eighteenth-century capital of
the Seminole Nation and the exploration of the Bayport Civil War
shipwreck site.
If you have any mammoth or mastodon fossil material, bring it
along to the January meeting. Dave would sure like to see it and
so would the rest of us!
Feb. 4 - Dr. Joshua Slattery, Paleontology and Geology of Alum Bluff: Florida’s Largest Natural Exposure
During February’s lecture, Dr. Joshua
Slattery will discuss new paleontological
and geological research being undertaken at Alum Bluff and nearby localities in
the Florida Panhandle. Alum Bluff is
largest natural exposure of Neogene and
Quaternary aged strata in Florida. It is
also one of the best natural laboratories
to document and understand the fauna
and flora of the Neogene in the Gulf
Coastal Plain due to its highly fossiliferous exposures. Alum Bluff is located
along the eastern bank of the Apalachicola River in Liberty County and exposes
an extended stratigraphic record ranging
from the Miocene to Holocene (i.e., the
last 18 million years). Although studied
for over a century, new research at Alum Bluff and other nearby localities by
Dr. Slattery and colleagues is revealing
new insights on the formation of shell
beds, extinction of nautilid cephalopods
in the Western Atlantic, and the physical
and biological effects of the mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum and Pliocene
Warm Interval in Florida.
Dr. Joshua is a longtime member of
TBFC, a Ben Waller memorial scholarship winner and currently
serves as a TBFC professional advisor.
Mar. 4 - Dr. Bob Sinibaldi
Whether you make a “big” find
or just pick up
another common
fossil, there’s a
process that
starts with finding the specimen, all the way
to putting it on
your shelf for
display. Or, if
you’re lucky,
donating it to a
museum collection. Many of have perfected the art of finding fossils.
There’s also a bunch of us, myself included, who have neglected to
properly clean, repair, preserve and log every find we bring
home. Dr. Bob will discuss proper discipline with the processing of
the fossils. His discussion will explain everything from getting
your specimen out of the ground to the shelf in a safe and ethical
manner.
Everybody
knows Dr. Bob,
at least those of
you that have
been to a
meeting or two.
A longtime member of TBFC, past
president, and
current Board
member, Dr. Bob
is certainly active
in the paleo
community and a big part of what makes TBFC tick. Did I mention
he is also an author with four paleo books to his credit? I’ll throw
a plug in here for the Paleo-Store where you can purchase any, or
all, of Dr. Bob’s books: Ice Age Florida in Story and Art, What Your
Fossils Can Tell You: Vertebrate Morphology, Pathology, and
Cultural Modification, Fossil Diving: In Florida’s Waters or Any
Other Waters Containing Prehistoric Treasures, and The Handbook of Paleontological Terms.
Apr. 1 - Dr. Jonathan Bloch
Dr. Jonathan Bloch joined the Florida Museum in 2004 as an assistant
curator of vertebrate paleontology. He continues his duties and
research as a curator of vertebrate paleontology, a position he has
held since 2014. Bloch, who has co-authored more than 90
professional publications, is also a University of Florida Term Professor and
serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Mammalian Evolution.
“While I will have less time for my own fieldwork and research than I
am used to, I know the vertebrate paleontology division will be as
productive as ever thanks to our enormously talented and hardworking team of staff, volunteers and students,” Bloch said.
Dr. Bloch has been featured in many television documentaries including
his legendary Amazon python bite scene while filming to
support the titanoboa discovery.
Join TBFC for another great presentation from Dr. Jonathan Bloch.
May 6 - Dr. Douglas Jones
Dr. Douglas Jones is
Director of the Florida Museum of Natural History in
Gainesville. Located on the campus
of the University of
Florida, the Florida
Museum of Natural
History is one of
the most comprehensive university-based natural history museums in the
U.S. with over 40
million specimens
and artifacts in its
permanent collections.
Dr. Jones received his Ph.D. in 1980 from Princeton University. He has been a curator of paleontology at the Museum since
1985 and is also a professor in the Departments of Geological Sciences and
Biology at UF. Dr. Jones has authored over 150 scientific and technical papers
and edited several books, including most
recently, The Geology of Florida. He is past president of the Board
of Directors of the Florida Association of Museums (FAM), the
Association of Science Museum Directors (ASMD) and was Chairman
of the Board of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) which
represents the 30,000+ museums in the USA. He also serves on
the boards of several scientific societies, foundations and cultural
organizations.
June 3 - End of Season Dinner, check the May issue of the Chronicles (TBFC Newsletter) for details.
View Our Past Virtual and In-Person Meetings
COVID-19 has forced us to adapt!
Since in-person meetings were not possible during this time, the club
hosted Virtual Live Meetings on our YouTube channel.
Since COVID, we've tried to record in-person meetings and upload them to the site too. Unfortunately not all meetings are able to be recorded but please check the channel for any new content.
Subscribe to the channel to get notifications when we go live or a new video is uploaded!
All our club live streamed or recorded meetings will be saved and can be re-watched anytime! Not all meetings can be recorded for various reasons.
You can view past virtual or recorded meetings in the playlist below: