Saving a Lost Ecosystem: Restoring and exploring the exceptionally preserved fossils of the Cleveland Shale (Late Devonian)

Cleveland Museum Of Natural History, Cleveland OH

Investigators

Abstract

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is currently undergoing a large-scale transformation project, which includes the building of new permanent exhibits and storage facilities. The Museum’s paleontology collections house fossils from a unique time in Earth’s history, when what is now Cleveland, Ohio, was a tropical ocean that supported an unfamiliar ecosystem. Many of the distinctive plants and animals found here went extinct when the environment changed dramatically at the end of the Devonian Period (~358 million years ago). The fossil record in Cleveland provides a remarkable glimpse into the past impacts of drastic environmental change—information with far-reaching implications for the future. The Museum has the world’s largest collection of Cleveland-area Devonian fossils; however, they are currently at risk due to inadequate storage conditions. The Museum’s scientists recognize that now is the time to save this valuable record of Earth’s past. Their goal is to build a stable environment for this collection, document all the evidence it contains before it degrades further, and expand access to enable more scientists to use this extraordinary resource. Additionally, photographing and 3D-scanning the fossils will allow global audiences to interact with them in new and exciting ways. The Devonian Period ended in millions of years of upheaval marked by drastic environmental change, multiple extinction events, and the loss of the majority of marine life. These extinctions had dramatic impacts on life in the oceans and on vertebrate evolution. Numerous traits of modern vertebrates—including jaws, teeth, and pelvic fins—first appeared in the Devonian fish found in the geologic formation known as the Cleveland Shale Member. Many of the species uncovered in these local Cleveland deposits are not found anywhere else in the world. The fossils are exceptionally preserved, retaining features like soft tissues and rarely found morphological information. However, pyrite disease is currently threatening the preservation of the Museum’s Devonian fossil collection. Reactive pyrite that occurs naturally in the Cleveland Shale can oxidize in humid conditions, creating iron sulfide, which can destroy morphological features and entire specimens. Therefore, the Museum’s goal is to move the collection into a climate-controlled space with new cabinets, publish the vertebrate paleontology dataset to global aggregators for the first time, make and publish 3D surface scans of specimens to retain information about morphology, and use these records in educational outreach to teach the public about how much the Earth has changed and will continue to change. 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.