David H. Koch Hall of Fossils - Deep Time ~ Come for the Dinosaurs, Absorb the Lessons

On June 8, 2019, after five years of work, $125 million, and, I’m certain, myriad headaches, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History opened its completely renovated fossil hall, the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils – Deep Time.  This post describes primarily what caught my eye on my first visit to this remarkable hall.  Given that it houses over 700 fossils and presents some 75,000 words on its signage, I clearly missed a great deal and return visits are in order.  At the outset, I would note that, for all intents and purposes, this is a new hall and that’s how I’ll refer to it below.

The prior incarnation of a Smithsonian fossil hall enveloped visitors in darkness that seemed to emanate from the crowded displays, the gloomy worn carpeting, the faint-hearted lighting, and even the outdated science that was referenced in the skeleton poses and the signage.  No natural light, no windows.

This newest hall greets the visitor with grace, space, and, above all (quite literally) light.  (Dear visitors, please embrace these attributes wholeheartedly.)  The picture below – a panorama shot of a  Diplodocus skeleton stretching nearly 90 feet from the tiny tip of its tail (curving off to the left) to its undersized head at the end of a wonderfully long neck – shows some of the new hall in much of its airy glory.

That’s where I have to begin, with the dinosaurs, because that’s where most who come to this hall will naturally first gravitate.  And the child in most of us will find irresistible the tableau in the center of the hall’s long room where a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Triceratops horridus portray a scene that may well mirror many that actually occurred some 66 million or more years ago.

Of note, the skulls of both skeletons shown above are casts because the actual skeletons (housed elsewhere in the museum) would have weighed too much to be posed in such close proximity with each other.  This is described in an article and illustrated map of the new hall that appeared in the Washington Post (Bonnie Berkowitz and Aaron Steckelberg, A New Old Home for the Nation’s Dinosaurs, June 2, 2019).  This is a highly informative piece on the new hall.  Well worth exploring.

Labels throughout the hall clearly identify what’s a cast and what’s not.  Material that fills in incomplete specimens are a different shade allowing the sharp eyed to distinguish real fossil from manufactured material.  I have to say that some of these differences in shading are too subtle for my eyes.

Back to the tableau of a teenage (it is assumed) T. rex beginning to munch on a T. horridus.  It fails to answer a question debated among paleontologists.  Was T. rex a predator or a scavenger?  The display is agnostic on this, though, in all likelihood, T. rex went both ways.  (Hear National Museum of Natural History’s director, Kirk Johnson, discuss this aspect of the T. rex on the NPR show 1A with Joshua Johnson (episode aired on June 11, 2019).  In this episode, Kirk Johnson waxes enthusiastic about many features of the new hall.)

Among other dinosaurs found here is this Camarasaurus skeleton positioned near the Diplodocus.

The Camarasaurus picture highlights one distinguishing feature of the new hall:  there’s no effort to fill spaces with recreated, lifelike foliage from the diverse time periods.  Rather, the vegetation representations are minimalist.  The hall does allow visitors to see the ecosystems of such worlds, depicting them in little “diorama” stands scattered throughout the hall.

Here’s a close-up of the diorama of a grassland scene some 19 million years ago, reconstructed on the basis of fossils found in the Harrison Formation, Nebraska.

How is this new hall organized?  The designers want visitors to enter from the museum's rotunda and, so they are to begin with recent history, not deep time.  Visitors are greeted by bronze statues of a human family being stalked by a saber-toothed tiger.  The former recognizable, the latter striking but still mostly familiar.  Walking from the entrance down the length of the main long gallery, visitors at first move somewhat slowly back in time, only hundreds of thousands of years in those initial steps, but then rather quickly millions of years go by until, angling off to the left from this first gallery, visitors come to the initial emergence of life on the planet.  This organization forces a rethinking of time as, in the process of walking through the exhibits, the familiar or somewhat familiar is replaced by the faintly familiar which in turn is replaced by the truly different, alien even.  Deep time, for sure.

There is a spiral motif that marks some of the hall’s signage which not only represents how Earth’s history reaches far, very far back in time, but also speaks to the connections among all things.  The past is, indeed, prologue.  No “special creations” here.  One such spiral sits high over the entrance to the hall accompanied by a quotation from Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species.  That quotation marks one of the recurrent themes that is traced throughout the hall’s displays – the history of life on this planet cannot be understood without a recognition of the fundamental role that evolution played and is still playing.

No shying away in this hall from evolution.  Indeed, a statue of a young Charles Darwin sits near the center of the hall with a Galapagos finch (?) perched on his shoulder.

This message about evolution’s central role in life on Earth is unavoidable as one’s path in the hall moves from the present into deep time.  Among the many exhibits and signage positing and elaborating on this theme, is a large sign featuring Smithsonian paleobiologist Gene Hunt.  An extensive set of quotations from him begins, “Species evolve by natural selection to meet the challenges of the world.”  Accompanying this is a fascinating (at least it was to me) display of two arrays of specimens of the bivalve mollusc Spondylus, commonly, though erroneously, referred to as “spiny oysters.”  The array on the left shows eight Spondylus specimens from a single species that lived in Florida some three million years ago.  Back then specimens of this species exhibited some, relatively marginal variations.  But, as the display notes, “Over time, variations like these can become the building blocks of new species.”  The eight Spondylus specimens on the right are from different species of this genus living in oceans today.

That evolution has had to contend with several major extinction events in deep time is unquestionably also a central element in the hall’s lesson on evolution.  One of the most striking ways this is conveyed comes when one gets back to the end-Permian extinction.  Here is a close-up of the key part of a graphic showing the wealth of diversity among plants and animals that marked the Permian in general (at the left of the event), but which was abruptly curtailed:

Massive volcanic eruptions 252 million years ago released gases that dramatically altered the climate, causing extinctions that rippled through food webs and devastated animal communities.

Emerging from that extinction event, life on Earth was diminished with a tremendous loss of diversity.

Embedded in the text of that sign is another fundamental message of the new hall that is repeated many, many times – Earth’s climate changed frequently in deep time and such changes had fundamental consequences for life on this planet.  Yet, as central as this message is to an understanding of how life as we now know it came to be (yes, the living are all connected in this great spiral of time), what impressed me perhaps most forcefully about the new hall was the way the content of that message is framed for visitors when they begin their journey.  Here is one way that message is delivered early in that journey.

"And humans are the cause."

And another:

One early kiosk loops a video discussing what can be learned about climate change over the past several hundred thousand years by studying ice cores.

Toward the very end of the short video, after it shows the strong correlation discovered between changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide and changes in the Earth’s temperature (more carbon dioxide, higher temperatures), the voice-over narrator says this:

Today CO2 is skyrocketing higher than any time in the past 800,000 years as we burn fossil fuels and cut down forests.  This time, humans are the reason Earth’s temperatures are rising.

Human’s lethal touch on life on Earth is felt in other ways as this display asserts.

To me, that’s the most amazing aspect of the new fossil hall – its robust assertion, clearly backed by science, that today’s climate change has human activities as its root cause and that it poses an existential threat.

Why is this amazing?  Because it shows that a bright line was drawn between David H. Koch, the core financial donor to the remaking of the fossil hall, and the content of the new hall.  David and his brother, Charles, head a multinational corporate empire founded by their father which, among other things, owns oil refineries and pipelines.  Writer Jane Mayer profiled the Koch brothers in a fascinating and detailed article in 2010 that ran in The New Yorker (Covert Operations, August 30, 2010).  In it, Mayer wrote:

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation.

Their attitude toward climate change?  As quoted by Mayer, a 2010 Koch Industries newsletter asserted that "fluctuations in the earth’s climate predate humanity . . . .  Since we can’t control Mother Nature, let’s figure out how to get along with her changes.”

That's why I think it quite striking that the new hall teaches its lesson about today’s climate change so strongly (stridently even), despite the beliefs of that donor.

I fear I've given the richness of the new hall short shrift because all I've highlighted has been the dinosaurs and the interwoven messages that I hope all visitors absorb.  There are hundreds of fossils on display, most much smaller than those awesome Mesozoic creatures.  I will close with a picture of what is one of the jewels of this new hall (I agree with director Kirk Johnson on this).  The piece of matrix pictured below comes from the Green River Formation (Wyoming) and features the 52-million-year-old, intact, incredibly beautiful skeleton of a tiny early horse, Protorohippus venticolum.  This is the most complete skeleton of this early horse species found to date.  The preserved detail is breath taking.  Given the fossil impressions of several fish in this matrix, evidently this horse died at a lake’s edge, floated out on the water for some distance, and then sank to the bottom.

“When Time and Duty Permit” ~ Pursuit of Natural History During War

The intersection of natural history and war (particularly the American Civil War – 1861-1865) intrigues me.  Did men with a deep amateur or professional interest in natural history who were swept up into armies during wartime continue to pursue that interest while serving?  Yes, some did, at times even collecting specimens during hostilities.  Perhaps it’s not surprising they did, given the need to find respite from the stress and trauma of war.  (I wrote about this possible benefit from collecting in a post about Robert F. Scott and his ill-fated Antarctic expedition in 1912.  Although the expedition was not technically a military operation, I think it’s relevant because Scott and his men were, at the time, fighting for their lives when he led them on a fossil hunt.)

A new exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, titled When Time and Duty Permit:  Collecting During World War II, pays tribute to American soldier-scientists who, during World War II (1941-1945), collected natural history specimens for the Museum.  Located on the ground floor of the Museum, up against a side wall, it’s small and easily missed – a great shame.

When I delved into the background to the exhibit’s material I found some support for the notion that sending people with a fascination for natural history off to war might, at times, have some untoward consequences – perhaps making for distracted soldiers who forsake the war for the pursuit of natural history, or even leading them (when they’re able) to redefine their military duty to accommodate collecting.

During WWII, the Smithsonian took a proactive role in recruiting and training soldiers to collect specimens, presumably prompted by some of the exotic, tropical places to which the American military forces were being sent.  Soldiers interested in collecting specimens received the Smithsonian’s Field Collector’s Manual in Natural History, written by Smithsonian staff and published in 1944.  It was pocket-sized, to be sure (a convenient 4 ½ inches by 5 ½ inches).  Frankly, it’s striking how much the Smithsonian staff packed into the booklet’s mere 118 pages.  Users could read detailed instructions for collecting, preserving, labeling, and shipping an incredibly wide range of specimens, such as birds, mammals, insects, earthworms, mollusks, plants, fossils, and meteorites.  Specific procedures for dealing with certain kinds of specimens were covered, including how to skin mammals and birds, or how to create plaster of Paris jackets for fossils embedded in matrix.

The authors of the Field Collector’s Manual suggested that natural history collecting would provide “welcome and valuable recreation” for servicemen “as their duties permit.”  (p. 1-2)  It was expected that the upper reaches of the chain of command would look favorably on this activity.

It is believed that Commanding Officers will recognize the merit of those men who are seriously interested and will grant them the necessary permission to make small collections.  (p. 2)

I suspect they were a trifle optimistic in this regard, particularly in light of a couple of the stories which I recount in this post.  Anyway, the Field Collector’s Manual is an interesting little volume.  (I found a copy recently on eBay.)

Of the six soldier-scientists recognized in the exhibit (wait, that’s not quite right, not all of them were soldiers, more on that in a moment), only one, Sammy Ray is still living.  Ray, born in 1919, had recently graduated with a degree in biology from Louisiana State University when he joined the Navy as a pharmacist’s mate first class and served with the 1st Marine Division.  Trained as a bird zoologist, Ray was recruited by Smithsonian Assistant Director Alexander Wetmore (shortly to become Secretary) to collect for the Museum.  When the 1st Marine Division was sent to the South Pacific, Ray proved to be a singular asset sending the Museum 171 exotic birds.  The exhibit displays a few of his specimens which, despite the passage of roughly 70 years and their obvious death poses (Ray’s handiwork), still radiate vibrant colors.  (In my picture taking, I am invariably defeated by glassed-in displays.  The pictures below are no exception.)

Ray acknowledged the invariable tension between his military responsibilities and his natural history work when he wrote to Wetmore that he would collect specimens “when time and duty permit.”  Despite being in combat zones, Ray appears to have a struck a balance between duty and collecting that seems to have given collecting a fairly wide range of play.

In one incident, his pursuit of birds took him deep into a mangrove swamp where darkness overtook him before he could return to camp.  After spending an uncomfortable night in the swamp, he wandered back into camp the next morning only to find search parties having been assembled to search for him.  Hard to imagine this endeared him to his comrades or his superiors.  Though the exhibit asserts, quite properly, that, “For many soldiers, natural history studies provided a break from the stress of war,” those same “studies” came with their own set of stresses, particularly if the collector disappeared overnight.  Not surprisingly Ray’s commanding officer frowned on his collecting, but they struck a deal.  The colonel overlooked the bird collecting and, in exchange, the pharmacist’s first mate supplied him with medicinal alcohol.

In the exhibit, next to what is described as “box and tools typically used during World War II to collect natural history specimens,” is a picture of pharmacist’s first mate Ray.

Well, the meager equipment (scalpel, thread, presumably needle, etc.) shown in that box doesn’t reflect all that the Smithsonian provided some of its servicemen-collectors.  Ray was given a “collecting gun” – I’m thinking modified shotgun – which used “dust shot” to kill birds without seriously damaging their pelts.  “I was the most-armed non-combatant to ever hit the beach in the South Pacific,” he said.

After the war, he became a marine biologist, earning degrees from Rice University, and in 1957 joined the faculty of Texas A&M University Galveston where he remains.  Oysters have been one of his principal research focuses.

(Though Ray is featured in the exhibit, there’s not much background information provided.  I have relied on several pieces for my treatment of Sammy Ray, including the following:  WWII Navy Corpsman Collected Birds Between Pacific Theater Battles, Around The Mall:  Scenes and Sightings from the Smithsonian Museums and Beyond, July 13, 2012; and Sea Aggies Professor is Recognized by the Smithsonian Institution, Texas A&M University Galveston.)

Among the other men identified in the exhibit is S. Dillon Ripley (1913-2001).  Now, here’s another fascinating character.  Ripley, who later became Secretary of the Smithsonian, was born to wealth and privilege, and early on fell in love with birds.  After graduating from Yale, Ripley spent much of his time abroad, collecting birds.  Enrolled at Harvard in the early 1940s in pursuit of a doctorate in zoology, Ripley was hired by the Smithsonian as an associate curator of birds in 1942, but soon resigned to join the war effort as a civilian member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where he was trained as a spy and a spy master.  (I must admit that I didn’t do due diligence on Ripley having relied, for better or worse, on a delightful profile published in The New Yorker on August 26, 1950, titled Curator Getting Around, by Geoffrey T. Hellman.)

Stationed in such places as India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Ripley did not ignore birds.  Looking back, he said, “I thought about birds all during the war.”  Of Ripley and another Smithsonian scientist who joined the OSS, Herbert G. Deignan (1906-1968), the exhibit notes:  “During their free time, they collected the local flora and fauna to study and send back to the Museum.”  I wonder about the implied secondary status of collecting to duty in that sentence.  Geoffrey Hellman in his New Yorker piece certainly offers that Ripley approached it differently.

The fact that ornithology, like archeology and butterfly-collecting, has often served as a cover for espionage and other extraterritorial political activity constitutes, in his [Ripley’s] opinion, a regrettable subordination of the affairs of birds to those of men and a distasteful violation of the rules of proportion.  He has done his best to restore the balance.  Ripley is as patriotic as the next ornithologist or aviculturist, and he has functioned with airy competence both as a political observer and as a secret agent, but in so doing he has on occasion reversed the politics-and-espionage-through-ornithology formula.  He once posed as a man of considerable political influence in order to gain access to an extremely esoteric birdy terrain in the Himalayas.  During the war against Japan, he took advantage of his position as chief of the Office of Strategic Services’ Secret Intelligence branch in southeast Asia to make an avifaunal survey of Ceylon.

Duty redefined.

And the Smithsonian reached an agreement with him, providing collecting equipment for the bird survey in exchange for the birds so obtained.  Among the tools he received was a shotgun (similar to the one sent Ray?).

The intersection of collecting and duty was not without its moments of revealing levity.  Among the birds Ripley secured for the Museum was a green woodpecker, a Picus chlorolophys wellsi under the following circumstances.  He caught the little woodpecker in Kandy (in Ceylon)

one afternoon in 1944 while tidying himself up for a cocktail party that was being given by Lieutenant General Raymond A. Wheeler, the American Deputy Supreme Allied Commander on the staff of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of the South East Asia Command.  At the time, Ripley was living, and shaving, in a palm-leaf hut a hundred yards from the site of the cocktail party, an outdoor affair.  He caught sight of the Picus while in mid-lather.  Dressed only in a bath towel, he grabbed his gun, rushed out, and hanged [sic] away.  [Clearly, “banged away” was what Hellman wrote, though I did enjoy the typo in this transcription.]  His towel fell off, and as he ran up to retrieve the bird, he noticed a number of officers and ladies, Martinis in hand, peering at him over some tea bushes that separated him from the festivity.  He joined them a few minutes later, and modestly advised Mountbatten, who had greeted him a trifle coolly, that the Picus, though up to then unrepresented in his collection, was not unknown to science.

In the picture below, taken in OSS quarters, Ceylon, 1945, Ripley (clothed) is second from the left.  (This photo was taken from the Smithsonian webpage announcing the opening of the exhibit.)

It’s a complicated business this mixing of natural history and war and it plays out in fascinating ways.