CSBR: Rescuing and Sharing a Unique and Irreplaceable Fossil Collection at the Duke Lemur Center

The Duke Lemur Center is responsible for two unique and irreplaceable collections: the largest living population of lemurs outside of their native Madagascar and a natural history collection that includes one of the most diverse primate fossil collections in the United States. The fossil collection – with specimens from the United States, Egypt, Madagascar, and Colombia – helps researchers use the tree of life to connect lemur research to other primates, including humans.

Unfortunately, some of the most important fossils at the DLC, including some of the oldest lemur fossils and some of the oldest monkey fossils, are actively breaking down because unstable salt minerals were embedded in the specimens during fossilization. This project is a rescue mission to stabilize and preserve these fossils in physical and digital form.

Highly trained fossil technicians will remove salt minerals from the most endangered specimens and store the revitalized fossils in new specimen cabinets that better control the temperature and humidity around the specimens. The team will also create 3D scans of the specimens using x-rays. The scans create a back-up record of the fossils in case they continue to deteriorate.

The scans will be uploaded to MorphoSource, an online repository that allows educators, students, and researchers to examine fossils in 3D from any device with internet access. With a better-stabilized collection, the DLC fossil collection can open to the public for in-person and virtual tours, and online exhibits and curriculum guides will be created by the DLC education team using scans and 3D prints.

The most unstable fossils in the collection come from Locality 41 in the Fayum Depression in Egypt. The site is one of the most fossil-dense terrestrial Paleogene localities in Africa. Along with primates like Catopithecus and Plesiopithecus, the site preserves giant hyraxes, rodents, bats, snakes, birds, and carnivores.

The tennis-court sized fossil deposit in the Western Desert of Egypt was actively quarried in the 1980s through 2010s. The most fossil-rich sections were targeted by the excavation teams. This makes the collection at the DLC irreplaceable through additional fieldwork.

This project partially supports a Fossil Preparator who will focus on the Egyptian collection as well as other unstable materials in the collection. It also partially supports a Digital Tomographer who will use the Duke microCT scanner to generate scans of the most at-risk specimens, and the DLC Data Manager who will work with the Tomographer to backup and upload scan data to MorphoSource.

The data manager will lead the effort to add higher resolution specimen data to the DLC Specify database, which will integrate with iDigBio (idigbio.org) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (gbif.org). The project also supports microCT scanner access and new specimen storage cabinets. The DLC education team will use these newly stable specimens to create curriculum-targeted tours and guides for North Carolina K-12 students and visitors to the DLC.

Ultimately, exceedingly fragile fossil specimens will be available in-person and online to researchers, students, and the general public.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.