Fossils, footprints and fakes
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Evolutionary Studies, Paleontology, Ethical Issues, Science Policy
- Keywords
- Fossils, Fieldwork, Collaboration, Collecting, Collections, Enhancement, Ethics, Acquisitions, Fakery, Trackways
- Copyright
- © 2015 Graham
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Fossils, footprints and fakes. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1375v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1375v1
Abstract
The Natural History Museum has undertaken a series of annual field trips to Morocco for collections enhancement purposes. Specimens are collected directly from various locations and also obtained from local collectors and dealers, introduced to the group by trusted local contacts with whom the museum has built a relationship. The 2015 fieldtrip in late February/early March was very eventful, with sudden snowfall and floods encountered, hidden mountainside quarries visited, little publicised dinosaur trackways discovered and fossil fakery by skilled preparators witnessed at first hand!. This presentation highlights the scientific value and potential pitfalls of such collaborations.
Author Comment
This is an abstract that has been accepted for the 63 rd Symposium for Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy held in Southampton, UK September 2015. It forms part of the SPPC/SVPCA 2015 collection.