The September 1983 issue of Geotimes (now EARTH Magazine) featured a cover with an image celebrating when the Smithsonian Institution put its collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale on display for the first time at the National Museum of Natural History. The caption reads as follows: "This year for the first time, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History has put on display specimens from its unequaled collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale (British Columbia). At the entrance to Dinosaur Hall, a diorama, shown in part of the cover of this issue, recreates the muddy bottom where those creatures lived at the base of an algal reef. A clutch of arthropods (Canadaspis perfecta) crawls up the slope on the right where mud has slumped from the terrace, the fatal weakness that will bury—and preserve—an entire population of Middle Cambrian shallow marine fauna. Sponges cling to the reef face. (photo by Chip Clark, the Smithsonian Institution)"
I wonder if EARTH Magazine can do a cover story when the Smithsonian's Dinosaur Hall reopens in 2019?
In other news from this issue:
- The International Geological Correlation Program reported world phosphate use had risen to 150 million tons per year.
- Leg 92 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project was underway aboard the Glomar Challenger studying basalt-seawater interactions off the coast of Panama
- In the "Fireballs, Volcanims and Quakes" section, Geotimes reported on the destruction of homes in the Royal Gardens subdivision by lava from the eruption of the Eastern Rift Zone at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii.
- A new report published by AGI detailed that student enrollment in geoscience raised by 6.4% between 1982 and 1983. There was a 6.7% increase in male student enrollment and a 5.5% increase in female student enrollment. Student enrollment in geoscience was 47,801.
- In new maps, the “Complete Bouguer Gravitational Anomaly Map of the Cascade Mountains” was released by Z.F. Daneš and W.M. Phillips.
The late Robert C. Haney was also the managing editor, who we lost last year. His rememberance can be found in GeoSpectrum: http://bit.ly/1AaPTYo