This week was my first week working with my lab partner Jasmine for my vertebrate/invertebrate paleontology internship. My first day my PI Dr. Susan Butts gave Jasmine and I a brief description about what we are going to do for our internship. This year we are focusing on specimens from the late cretaceous period (100-65 million years ago). The cretaceous period was the warmest the earth has ever been. This resulted in a large ocean running through the middle of modern North America known as the Western Interior Seaway. All of the specimens that we will be working with this Summer will be aquatic organisms that were found within the Western Interior Seaway.

Our first day was Monday, and Jasmine and I learned how to take 3D scans of specimens using NextEngine and Scan Studio. The scans we made are then able to be printed into 3D scale models.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Jasmine and I learned how to document specimens on the online database, and Yale photos of them.