Contributors to
the Virtual Fossil
Museum

 

After a period of stasis, The Virtual Fossil Museum (VFM) is radiating. Equilibrium is being punctuated by a plethora of selective pressures, not the least of which is an eclectic coterie of contributors. Amateurs and pros, doctors and sanitary engineers have put the lonely webmaster months behind the content. Natural selection will also result in metamorphosis of some sections, and evolutionary convergence of styles in other sections.

A constancy will be the ever-growing inventory of fine pictures of fine fossils that even the makers of this site drool over. Moreover, based on popular request, actually perpetual prodigious numbers of requests, the VFM added a large image section during 2005, and will continue to get and add large images whenever possible.

We also decided, since we are after all a grass roots and ad hoc undertaking by an all-volunteer consortium, to let most sections be available as they are being built, revised, edited and augmented; this makes the site easier to build and edit, when all can see it as it evolves.

Over the last six months of 2005, the VFM had nearly 3000 visits per day during weekdays, some two-thirds from students from elementary school, high school, and undergraduate college, as best can be determined from the server statistics data. The website is integrated into curricula at many schools. As of early January, 2006, there were images of more than 400 fossils awaiting addition to the site; thus, 2006 will be another year of growth for the VFM.

Cheers - the Webmaster

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Here's a list of the fossil museum contributors:

Fan Qian Takara Kagawa Paul Kirkland Mike and Gwynn Shafer Ben Logan George Ast Jake Skabelund Carl Mink Eugene Jones Bob Carrol Dan Damrow, paleontologist Peter Watson

Weida Tong, Ph.D. Glen and Barb Rockers Joe Aronson Jan Roach John Adamek Robert Drachuk Arkadiy Alexandrovich, paleontologist Mary Lou Browning Kendall Parks Rick and Tanya Hebdon Kong Li, Ph. D. Hans Zumwald

Lillian Fang Marlene Garo Sam Gon III, Ph.D. Richard Kurkewicz Bill Kephart Ramblin Ralph Cooper, Geologist Aponi T. Sue Cramer Angela Partek Shirasu Sukaira Minghua Lu Dr. Alexei Kouprianov, Entomologist

Dan Sheehan, Ph.D. Michael Shippert Steve Lancelotti Mark Lancelotti Dave Comfort Alf Behrens, Geologist Fu Mao Carl Rouse Robert E. Woodruff, Ph.D., Taxonomist Emeritus