This week 15 additional people descended on the Panama Canal – the University of Florida Spring Break crew has arrived. For the majority of participants, this is their first experience in Panama.  We arrived Saturday afternoon and took Sunday as a tourist day to see the sights – the canopy crane and Punta Culebra were both great activities.

Monday morning brought us to the Panama Canal.  We depart our hotel at 7AM, get to the canal around 8:30, and work until 3:30.  Quite a few fossils have been found – lots of new vertebrate, invertebrate, and paleobotanical samples are filling the lab at STRI!

The first group is hooked up to the crane, which lifts them into the tree canopy.

Dawn Mitchell searches for vertebrate fossils in the Las Cascadas Formation.

This iguana was sunbathing in the treetops.

The view from the crane.

Andrea De Renzis, Victor Perez, and Rachel Narducci search the Empirador Formation for sharks teeth and invertebrate marine fossils.

Punta Culebra

Photo of the Spring Break Panama Canal participants at the Canopy Crane.

Museum Intern Will Tifft takes a swing at a difficult layer of Las Palmas along the Panama Canal.