Bones and noses

On Monday the 7th of October, the whole Museums of the South of Jutland came in a trip to visit our small Gram (mainly the Museum of Natural history and Palaeontology, the Gram Castle and the Conservation lab). It has been a long and tiring day where we had to manage 97 persons coming from all the South of Jutland. Different trials were prepared, implicating to cast the nose of your teammate - a beautiful decoration above your fireplace - or answering to a quiz about the Museum. The total of points obtained was counted by the mighty judges in order to find a pair of winners.

For my part, I was implicated in the Clay Pit with Martin. After a little presentation of the geological context, the participants had to find some fossils. Depending of the quality, the fossil type, we gave a different amount of points. Some would say we were unfair, I prefer to say strict. Or maybe a bit unfair.

 I was at first a bit stressed about the trials, but everything was fine, I managed to help some I hope, in the identification or to find some stuff when they were really in despair. Unfortunately, excavation is also about random: in 45 minutes some were luckier than others! Nothing fancy has been found, most of the time mussels or snails of different species. Still, some found some scaphopods, bryozoan colonies and foraminifera for the hawk-eyes. There is even one pair of participants that found a crab claw, which is a pretty good finding! No shark tooth or whale bone though. The Director of the Museums was very disappointed…

After the excavations, we all met at the restaurant nearby the Gram castle. We gave the golden nose - a beautiful one – to the winners and finished this day with a coffee and a piece of cake. It was tiring, but I think everyone enjoyed it. Hope that some will come back to visit us again!