Due to the Covid-19 emergency, the Fossil Atmospheres project will not be accepting any Ginkgo leaf samples for the 2020 collection season. Happily, your amazing response to the 2019 collection season means we have many samples to analyze and that the science of our project can continue. Thank you all so much for your continued interest in Fossil Atmospheres and please consider visiting our Zooniverse site to help with leaf cell analysis.

-The Fossil Atmospheres Team

Now that it is officially fall and the Ginkgo leaves are beginning to turn yellow and drop, everyone at Fossil Atmospheres wants to take a moment to thank all of you for your willingness to be part of the team that successfully captured a geographically diverse moment in time for Ginkgo biloba. We have received over 320 packages containing over 550 individual samples, making Fossil Atmospheres more successful than we hoped it could be!

We intended for most of the samples to come from the United States; thanks to you we received samples from 40 states in the Continental USA. We also got samples from 5 foreign countries: Canada, France, Romania, the Ukraine, and Japan. That is a great geographic dataset and we love it!

Thanks for following our scientific protocol. We appreciate that you took the time to take pictures, collect the data on the tree, and navigate the iNaturalist interface to link all that data to the project. Most of the samples have all of the information we requested. Thanks for being so thorough! Some of the samples still need a bit more information. We will add a comment on the iNaturalist record asking for some clarification if it is needed. Keep an eye out for that in the next couple of weeks.

Next up the research team will commence processing the samples, and will produce images that allow for cells and stomata to be counted. To keep up with that next stage of the project and even help a bit, check out the Fossil Atmospheres Zooniverse site at https://www.si.edu/fossil-atmospheres

All the best and happy fall!

Rich Barclay, Principal Investigator
Laura Soul, co-Principal Investigator
Heather Killen, Citizen Science Coordinator
and the rest of Fossil Atmospheres Team
Department of Paleobiology

https://www.si.edu/fossil-atmospheres
NMNH-Fossil-Atmospheres@si.edu
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Today we had our 400th Ginkgo observation for the Fossil Atmospheres Project! All you citizen science Ginkgo finders out there, a HUGE thank you! You are fabulous!

You all have done it!! We have received our 100th package of leaves. Thank you to all you wonderful citizen scientists and Ginkgo lovers that have engaged so generously with our project.

Next up - our 200th sample! Many of the packages we are receiving have multiple samples in them, so we are well on our way!

Thank you everyone for all the fabulous packages of Ginkgo sandwiches! Getting the mail has become the highlight of the teams' day. We are getting closer and closer to hitting our 100th sample received! I wonder who will make the auspicious observation?