In our upcoming exhibit on Ice Age fossils from Riverside County, one of the prominently featured localities is the Harveston subdivision in Temecula. This is a small but remarkably diverse collection that includes examples of animals that are relatively rare as fossils from the area. Many of the Harveston bones
This is the 7th in our monthly series of posts celebrating Western Science Center's 20th anniversary. Scientists spend a lot of time writing. Besides writing grants or other proposals to try to convince someone to pay for research, we write reports or manuscripts describing the results of our
As we prepare our new exhibit, we’re drawing on collections from Riverside County that have mostly been recovered by mitigation companies. These companies generally do a great job of documenting and identifying specimens, but there are outliers. Unfortunately we have acquired a number of specimens that weren’t prepared
As we prepare our new exhibit on Ice Age fossils from Riverside County, one of the things we chose as a focus was to highlight the diversity of these deposits. To that end we've specifically looked for fossils that represent a broad range of species. Over a year
"Museum collections provide the record of past research, and the baseline for future research."
A commonly found and easily identifed part of a mammal skeleton is the head of the femur. This is visible in the Pacific mastodon femur below, as the large knob at the upper right end of the bone: The femoral head is a large hemispherical mass that generally sits on
Later this year we're going to open a new permanent exhibit at Western Science Center featuring Ice Age fossils from Riverside County. While the largest single fossil collection at WSC is from Diamond Valley Lake, we are the fossil repository for the entire county and hold collections from
As I've mentioned in prior posts, many of the Western Science Center's fossils were discovered during construction projects. Often the first indication that a fossil is present is when a bulldozer or other piece of machinery cuts through a bone, at which point the mitigation paleontologists
This is the 5th in our monthly series of posts celebrating Western Science Center's 20th anniversary. The Western Science Center currently has 18 paid employees, the largest our staff has ever been. And yet, given our scope of research, our busy programming and field trip schedule, and our
Western Science Center serves as a fossil repository for several state and federal agencies, including the National Park Service. Related to that responsibility, a couple of times a year we send a team under permit to Joshua Tree National Park to collect fossils that have naturally weathered out of the
Max’s Mobile Museum was designed from the outset to allow for rotating exhibits that could be changed out quickly. At last Saturday’s Inland Empire Science Festival we debuted our first new Mobile Museum exhibit since 2022, Life in the Ancient Seas. This exhibit was inspired by a temporary
This is the 4th in our monthly series of posts celebrating Western Science Center's 20th anniversary. Western Science Center has an interesting challenge for a small museum. We are the only natural history museum in Riverside County, which is roughly the size of New Jersey and has more
Osteology
Many of the fossils housed at Western Science Center were recovered by paleontology mitigation companies from construction projects. This is a common and convenient arrangement in California that results in many more fossils being saved. (I've worked as a paleontologist in other states that do not have California&
Museum
This is the 3rd in our monthly series of posts celebrating Western Science Center's 20th anniversary. It was supposed to just be an exhibit upgrade. Last month I talked about the discovery of Max the Mastodon, and how he became the iconic specimen for the Western Science Center.
Paleontology
Before coming to the Western Science Center I worked at the Virginia Museum of Natural History as Curator of Paleontology. My primary field site during that time was the Carmel Church Quarry in eastern Virginia, a remarkable location with multiple fossiliferous beds spanning 60 million years of time. During my
Mastodon
This is the 2nd in our monthly series of posts celebrating Western Science Center's 20th anniversary. By 1995 the multiyear Diamond Valley Lake construction project was well underway. Huge amounts of sediment had to be moved to both increase the reservoir's volume and to provide the
Paleontology
Later this year Western Science Center will be opening a new permanent exhibit (more on that in a future post). One of the highlighted specimens in this exhibit will be the skull of Harvey the Mammoth. Like many of WSC's specimens, Harvey was discovered during a construction project,
Mastodon
"Max", the holotype Pacific mastodon, got his name because of his size. Even before he was completely removed from the ground, it was clear that Max was one of the biggest mastodons ever found in California. And yet, we don't know exactly how big he was.
Museum
This year (2026) marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Western Science Center. To commemorate this event, each month I'll be doing one post that specifically related to some aspect of the museum's history. A lot of California politics and planning revolves around water.
Fossils
Shortly before the holidays, our curator Andrew McDonald and I were looking through one of our collections cabinets for a particular specimen from Murrieta, California. In the process we stumbled across a fragment of another tooth, recently prepared by a volunteer but not yet catalogued. Even though it was incomplete,
Geology
Each December, Brett and I try to spend a few vacation days in the small California coastal town of Morro Bay. Morro Bay (the town) is named for Morro Bay (the bay), an estuary than runs parallel to the coast for about 6 km. Morro Bay is the only protected
Snails
In our current exhibit "Life in the Slow Lane" one of the displays features fossil snails recovered from Pleistocene sediments during the Diamond Valley Lake excavation. Of the roughly 100,000 fossils recovered from DVL, over 4,000 were snails. These were pretty much all very small freshwater
Geology
Much of this text was originally published on my old blog “Updates from the Paleontology Lab“ on February 22, 2008. Western Science Center is located in a semi-arid basin in Southern California, a short drive from the Colorado and Mojave Deserts. It seems an odd place to spend much
Mastodon
As I mentioned last week, many of the Western Science Center's fossils are actually recovered by paleontology mitigation companies, thanks to California's robust protections for fossil resources. Most of these companies are highly skilled and professional and do a great job recovering the specimens and their