First fossil expedition complete

Hello NfN transcribers!

Labels associated with fossil specimens are tricky, they’ve got age and date information about how old the specimen is and the actual date that the specimen was collected. Locality information frequently is confused with geological age info (especially in Indiana because most of our rocks are Mississippian or Pennsylvanian in age!) and abbreviations aren’t always clear.

However, the champion transcribers from NfN have done remarkably well and in an unbelievable time. We’re very grateful for all of your hard work and we’re very much looking forward to seeing some familiar names on some of our upcoming transcription expeditions. A very special shout out to @maggiej is well deserved for over 500 transcriptions!!!

Thanks also to those individuals that helped to craft some of the specialized instructions for this expedition. Fossils and geologic time add a whole new dimension to our inventory of life on this planet and we’re quite pleased at how well everyone handled the extra information. Again, special thanks to @maggiej for being a tremendous help in the Talk section too!

Don’t forget that the @researchers are here for you too. We’re very interested in seeing how we can be better science communicators and your feedback is much appreciated. Feel free to contact us using our tag @researcher or me directly (@garymotz) for the fossil expeditions. Help us help you to help science!

Keep your eyes open for a new fossil label transcription expedition coming soon!

(spoiler alert:  we do have some incredibly preserved soft-bodied forms from the Cambrian Burgess Shale coming up in the next expedition!)