WHERE IS THAT COLLECTION?

One advantage of being an octogenarian, especially if you have a modicum of memory remaining, is that you become a living data-bank for all the geologic lore that has come your way during a half-century of field and laboratory experiences. A common problem today, now that many geologic results are digitally developed and announced on the web to an eagerly awaiting geoscience community, is that the basic geologic evidence is never, or hardly ever, re-examined. Occasionally the perpetrator of such a synthesis may be stricken by conscience and wonder if a "new look" at an old fossil might substantiate or change the results. So, who might know the answer? Perhaps an old pal from graduate school days (or 1960s field work in northern Alaska) would remember. Especially if he has been in, or near, a repository of "geologic stuff" (not necessarily a museum) for that half-century, or so. The subsequent phone call (or e-mail) pleads: "Do you remember in the summer of 1972..."; or "Where can I find the recent brachiopods discussed by a Dr. Morse in the mid-1880s..."; or "We have been arguing about fossils in metamorhpic rocks-- where might we find collection X from Y?" Not surprisingly, in these days when whole departments, let alone basic subdisciplines, disappear from universities, many geologic PhD's have never been exposed to the logistics or folk history of collecting and preserving collections-- let along understand what a type specimen is and how it is documented. The above scenarios, among others, are discussed with the hope of enlightening a few of the folks who might well be asking similar questions in the future.