Chris Widga

@widga.bsky.social

2984 Followers 1116 Following

Director of the Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery at Penn State. Here for museums, fossils, not-fossils, and geo-nerdom. Sucker for good jazz. Personal account. #museums #paleontology #geology #scicomm #naturalhistory

Article from journal of archaeological science reports about Clovis and hunting or scavenging
Screenshot of journal article that says "did Clovis foragers hunt megafauna scavenge their carrion, or both -- and can we tell the difference?"
An iron bridge over flat water with lots of green veg on the banks.
A tapir mandible with an opportune break in the side showing permanent dentition replacing deciduous teeth.
Dark water and white ice from an airplane window
Mounted skeleton of a mastodon in a stone arch with a person in front of it
Books on bookshelf titled Shortest History of the Dinosaurs with a red and yellow cober. Also Last Days of the Dinosaurs on end.
Mammoths skull drawings, tooth pictures comparing different mammoths and a brief timeline for mammoth evolution.
Large white foam cube on steel pedestal, mounted in a micro-CT chamber.
A mastodon with very long, straight tusks.
Chalk drawing of Tiktaalik
Lumpy bumpy piece of shit with purple spots.
Screenshot of a 3D model of a carmel brown mastodon humerus bone.
Mastodon and extinct deer in a museum exhibit
Hand holds a scale bar with a small mastodon on it, in front of a long table of paleontologists
Photo of queso chips and a beer
Blue sign with white text that reads "dinosaur cloning lab"
Carmel brown bone with a scale bar on a desktop.
A very large dark grey bone broken in three places, on a white tabletop.
A wall of brown cases with drawers.
Skeleton in the shape of an elephant..with a couple of extra tusks
Green mountain viewed from a front porch with white railings
Baby chin tusk of a mastodon in a brown jaw bone.
Brown mastodon fossil with narrow cylindrical chin tusk
Large Bronze sculpture of big horned sheep in front of a large builidng
Brown bones and old plaster jackets laid out on a white table, surrounded by busy people doing things
An elephant skull with tusk sockets and teeth facing you, on top of a skinny dark brown wooden pillar
A white box of small white teeth 3d printed
Map of Nova Scotia showing blue circles where mineral specimens in the PSU Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum collection were found.
Very small mammoth tooth with human hand for scale against a white background.
Image shows a book cover for When the Earth Was Green, a new book by Riley Black. Cover is black with green and yellow text. It also has green plants, sauropod dinos, odd tusked and horned animals like Deinotheres and rhinos.
A bright airy museum gallery with a very large, brown, articulated dinosaur skeleton mount, ferns around its feet. People talking off to the side.
Photo shows a large brown jaw fossil with pointy teeth in a clear plastic container against a white background.
Museum collections drawer of small and smaller mastodon teeth.
A small clear plastic box containing six fossils, including two saber teeth plus a sharp pointy molar (because large cats have crazy shearing wear on their carnassials)
Label in fancy script that says 'bones of mastodon'
Columbian mammoth jaw on a shelf in a museum. Specimen is light brown with whitish teeth, on a shelf of ethafoam.
A white 3d printer tully monster in a black 3d printer chamber.
A box of plastic bags with the label "Saltillo dirt!"
White table in a museum collection room with white metal cabinets. Table holds dozens of small metal miner's lamps.
One eye and a palm (both human) are visible around the edges of some crusty, ugly fossil bone.
Screenshot of a map showing wrinkly mountains with yellow pins indicating sites where tree ring data were collected.
Photo shows close up of a gnarly tree trunk with a floof of needles at the top.
Fossil tapir skull on a stand in a creepy blue light
Artic Eva 3D scanner wrapped in plastic in a protective case.
Book with read cover, the title is "Sad Topographies".
Glassy surface of a creek flowing through a forest with very few leaves left on the trees. Grey, overcast sky-- but there's probably fish under the surface....
Photo shows a large, brown, dirty, mastodon tooth on a green towel.
Photo shows an open drawer of notes and papers.
Large bison bulk walking across a parking lot in open grassland with a few trees in the horizon
View of the business end, skull and horns, of a large pleistocene bison. skeleton. Mounted skeleton is chocolate brown and shiny.
Photo out of a windshield showing a road with bright blue sky and golden fall foilage.
Museum exhibit showing 15 foot long black shale slab with footprints.
Sun dappled woods with autumn leaves in orange and yellow.
Sliced and polished specimen of Acasta Gneiss