Lab news
September 2023: Welcome to new lab members Bruno Costa (PhD) and Max Scott (MSc)! Bruno will be working on some Microvertebrate fossils and taphonomy of the Western Interior Seaway with MITACS partner the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, and Max will be working on face-biting in mosasaurs. Welcome!
August 2023: Congrats to Victoria Markstrom and Virginia Gold for successfully defending their MSc theses on mosasaurs of Manitoba! Their exciting work is elucidating the biology behind these enigmatic creatures.
July 2023: New paper alert! Check out our new paper on the microvertebrates of Manitoba, led by Aaron Kilmury (MSc) and contributions from five undergraduate students who did an amazing job sorting and identifying microfossils!
https://peerj.com/articles/15493/
Also, check out this excellent microvertebrate fossil sorting guide they put together with support from the Canadian Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award: https://csvp.ca/awards-2/equity-diversity-and-inclusion-community-science-grant/edi_award_winners/
May 2023: Welcome to new lab members Maria Hussain and Brenna Findlay! Maria will be working as an otolith technician with the Environmental Nano Geoscience Facility (www.environmental-nano-geoscience-facility.com) and Brenna is a summer NSERC USRA working on abnormalities in mosasaur tooth development.
March 2023: New paper alert! Check out our collaborative project on dinosaur lips published in Science here: www-science-org.uml.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7877
And some media coverage here: news.umanitoba.ca/multiple-outlets-predatory-dinosaurs-such-as-t-rex-sported-lizard-like-lips/
September 2022: Welcome to new lab member Ashley Verstraete who will be working on her honours thesis project investigating enamel microstructure in heterodont theropod dinosaurs!
September 2022: HUGE congrats to Aaron Kilmury and Adam Snyder for successful MSc defences! So excited to see where the future takes you.
September 2022: New Paper Alert! The second chapter of Aaron Kilmury's MSc thesis is now published: Kilmury AA, Brink KS. Late Cretaceous vertebrate faunal assemblages of the Manitoba escarpment, Canada: Implications for Western Interior Seaway provinciality and biodiversity. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 2022 Sep 1;601:111119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2022.111119
June 2022: Congratulations to MSc student Virginia Gold for receiving a Geological Society of America Student Research Grant!
May 2022: Welcome to new NSERC USRA recipient Ethan Vallelly who will be working on ecological interpretations of Cretaceous marine bonebeds of the Manitoba Escarpment!
May 2022: Welcome back to UM Summer Undergraduate Research Award Recipient Sierra Schlief! She will be working on preparing and examining fish otoliths for potential contaminants with collaborator Michael Schindler in the Environmental Nano Geoscience Facility.
November 2021: New paper alert! A part of Aaron Kilmury's MSc thesis project has been published in the Manitoba Geological Survey Report of Activities: "Identifying Late Cretaceous vertebrate fossil collection biases, southwestern Manitoba and east-central Saskatchewan: www.manitoba.ca/iem/geo/field/roa21pdfs/GS2021-6.pdf
November 2021: Check out this new collaborative research paper "Growth variability, dimensional scaling, and the interpretation of osteohistological growth data, by Cullen, Brown, Chiba, Brink, Makovicky, and Evans: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0383
September 2021: Welcome to new lab member Virginia Gold who will be working on determining what causes growth lines in mosasaur teeth for her MSc thesis!
September 2021: Welcome to new lab member Christian Plouffe who will be working on the description of a new plesiosaur with associated gut contents from Manitoba!
August 2021: Congrats to Aaron Kilmury for receiving a travel grant to attend the Geological Society of America meeting in Portland to present his award winning poster from the GSA North-Central Section Meeting: Chrono-, Chemo-, Litho-, Cyclo-, and Biostratigraphy of the Late Cretaceous Manitoba Escarpment in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada
August 2021: Congrats to Adam Snyder for getting a Research Manitoba Master's Studentship Award!
May 2021: Welcome to Summer Undergraduate Research Award Recipient Sierra Schlief! She will be looking at growth marks in captive leopard geckos to determine how they grown in captivity.