WOO HOO! and a heart-felt Thank You

Boise was a smash - a LOT of fun! I could only "day-trip" the event, as I'm in class this week, but it was great nonetheless!

My presentation went VERY well - I managed NOT to ramble, and got all the points across that I wanted (without ad lib or going overboard). The data on the site age was well accepted, as were many of the leaf identifications (there's one that people may well go back and forth on for a long while: is it Podocarpus or is it Salix? The argument can probably be made for either). People helped me identify an inflorescence, which I've always found challenging, and someone was even able to identify the genus of one of the seeds!

The nicest thing was connecting with people to get an idea of the possibilities of what my site means: what the significance of the leaves are, what kind of forest my site may have had, etc. It was VERY reassuring to hear all the other presentations on the Miocene. Making contacts and connections to help me unravel the mystery of my site was totally worth going!

Thank you SO much, everybody, for contributing to my dating project. I will be recording my presentation on VoiceThread.com and making it available to all my contributors. And of course, I will continue with my leaf identifications and trying to get pollen so that I can publish a more complete story of the Thorp-Bristol fossil site - watch this space for further updates!