Could clams help create an environment where fossils can form? Fragments of hadrosaur eggshells were found in only two sites at Dinosaur Provincial Park of southern Alberta that contained large amounts of pisidiid (pea) clams and other species. Scientists think calcium carbonate released from the shells helped the fragile eggshells to fossilize. Irish naturalist Arthur Wilson Stelfox (1883-1972) was studying non-marine Mollusca in Great Britain and Ireland long before the findings in Canada. This journal contains his field notes from June 1911 to September 1917. Specimen lists includes comments about abundance, commonality, measurements, and water temperatures along with some photographs.
Join us and help transcribe Stelfox's notes for easier access by today's paleontologists and scholars.
Could clams help create an environment where fossils can form? Fragments of hadrosaur eggshells were found in only two sites at Dinosaur Provincial Park of southern Alberta that contained large amounts of pisidiid (pea) clams and other species. Scientists think calcium carbonate released from the shells helped the fragile eggshells to fossilize. Irish naturalist Arthur Wilson Stelfox (1883-1972) was studying non-marine Mollusca in Great Britain and Ireland long before the findings in Canada. This journal contains his field notes from June 1911 to September 1917. Specimen lists includes comments about abundance, commonality, measurements, and water temperatures along with some photographs.
Join us and help transcribe Stelfox's notes for easier access by today's paleontologists and scholars.
Arthur Wilson Stelfox (1883-1972), Irish naturalist and entomologist, was born in Belfast and studied architecture in Ireland and England. While practicing that profession, Stelfox also did some work in natural history and served as secretary of the Belfast Naturalists Field Club. In 1920, he received appointment as Assistant Naturalist at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, where he specialized in the Hymenoptera. Following his retirement in 1948, Stelfox continued to build his collections, and donated them to the Smithsonian in 1966.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives holds Stelfox's personal papers. These document his work as a naturalist in Great Britain and Ireland and the development of his collection of Hymenoptera. They include diaries concerning Hymenoptera and other insects collected, 1921-1965; lists of mollusks collected, 1904-1917; correspondence, primarily with A. Clive Jewitt, G. E. J. Nixon, and R. C. L. Perkins, concerning Stelfox's study of Hymenoptera; manuscripts sent to Stelfox for comment; published papers, with extensive marginalia; illustrations; and working notes.
