It is pretty darned satisfying to be heading to the Isle of Wight for SVPCA next week. My only other visit was in the spring of 2004, when Vicki and I were in England on a spring break vacation/research trip.

Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

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image-title="Ichthyosaur sectioned vertebrae 1" image-description=""
image-caption="<p>The polished face of the block, 1.5″ tungsten cube for scale. The bowtie shapes are the two biconcave vertebral centra.</p>
"
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The polished face of the block, 1.5″ [tungsten
cube](https://svpow.com/2018/02/26/off-topic-what-will-happen-to-my-tungsten-cube/)
for scale. The bowtie shapes are the two biconcave vertebral centra.
:::

It is pretty darned satisfying to be heading to the Isle of Wight for
SVPCA next week. My only other visit was in the spring of 2004, when
Vicki and I were in England on a spring break vacation/research trip. We
spent a night at a bed and breakfast in Sandown and visited the Dinosaur
Isle museum, where I got to see
["Angloposeidon"](https://svpow.com/2007/12/10/world-first-a-peek-inside-angloposeidon/)
and the Barnes High brachiosaur in person.

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image-title="Ichthyosaur sectioned vertebrae 2" image-description=""
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My most tangible memento of that trip is this cut and polished block
with two vertebral centra from what I'm guessing is an ichthyosaur. It
has a little story.

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While we were at Dinosaur Isle I got to see another cut-and-polished
specimen, the partial titanosauriform centrum shown above (and
[memorialized on the
blog](https://svpow.com/2008/03/12/the-heart-of-the-matter/) way back in
2008, when SV-POW! was about 6 months old). I've seen others since (like
[this one](https://svpow.com/2009/07/20/asp-target-of-opportunity/)),
but that was the first such specimen I'd seen in person, and it captured
my imagination.

Vicki and I took a bus to get back to the ferry from Sandown, and
somewhere in the island interior there was a bus stop at a small
collection of buildings, maybe just two or three? One was a rock shop,
and I really wanted to pop in and see what they had. The bus driver
warned me, sternly, that the bus would be stopped for precisely two
minutes, and that if I was not back on board in 120 seconds I'd be left
behind.

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So I sprinted inside the shop, found this block behind the counter,
paid, and dashed back to the bus, arriving with a few seconds to spare.
For four years it sat on my desk or on our mantle, then it got boxed up
with a bunch of other natural history stuff and was buried in a closet
for a decade. I didn't get around to unboxing it until January, 2018 ---
you can spot it in the second photo down in [this
post](https://svpow.com/2018/02/26/off-topic-what-will-happen-to-my-tungsten-cube/).
Since then it's lived on my desk at work, or on a bookshelf adjacent to
my desk.

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One of the things I love best about it is that even in these somewhat
weathered, almost certainly non-diagnostic shards of adequacy, the
internal structure is beautifully preserved.

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This chunk of rock embodies a lot of time --- developmental time for the
ichthyosaur, to grow such beautiful bones; deep time for these
vertebrae, voyaging to us across millions of years; and personal time.
In the fifteen-and-a-half years since my last visit to the Isle of
Wight, I've gone from being a grad student to a professor at a med
school (which I did *not* see coming back in 2004), and Mike and I have
gone from being pen pals to frequent coauthors and co-travelers (and
we're still pen pals).

I think it's only right that I pressure Mike into stopping at that rock
shop, if it's still there, so I can find a companion piece. Stay tuned.


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Cut and polished ichthyosaur vertebrae from the Isle of Wight

I wasted some time today making memes. I blame the [Paleontology
Coproliteposting](https://www.facebook.com/groups/223217351831257/)
group on Facebook.

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permalink="http://svpow.com/2018/10/28/coproliteposting-time/camarasaurus-meme/"
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image-title="Camarasaurus meme" image-description="" image-caption=""
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Of course I started out by making fun of the
[most](https://svpow.com/2018/02/20/distinguishing-cervicals-of-apatosaurines-and-camarasaurus/#comment-167437){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}
[mockable](https://svpow.com/2018/06/22/did-apatosaurs-have-unusually-large-neural-spines-too/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} sauropod. This one's for you *Cam*-loving perverts out
there. You know who you are.

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image-title="ichthyosaur meme" image-description="" image-caption=""
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This one was inspired by the thiccthyosaur meme, which irritatingly
enough I cannot find right now. Oh no, wait,[ here it
is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ).

[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/unemployment-meme.jpg?w=753&h=1024){.size-large
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image-title="Unemployment meme" image-description="" image-caption=""
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I'm laughing through the tears.

For previous adventures in meme-ing, see [this
post](https://svpow.com/2018/03/24/the-flaming-t-rex-and-other-new-paleo-memes/).


I wasted some time today making memes. I blame the Paleontology Coproliteposting group on Facebook.

Postagens de Rogue Scholar

Cut and polished ichthyosaur vertebrae from the Isle of Wight

Coproliteposting time!