Re: Paleo. Labs (posted for J. Pachut)

["Dr. Fred J. Gunther" <fgunther@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All:

Several years ago, in a **standard paleontology** course, I added an 
exercise in **quantitative paleonotology**.  

I took a collection of recent sea shells (collected from the NJ shore),
numbered them from #1 to #n (not sure now how many) and had the stuents 
measure them and count certain features (e.g., number of muscle scars, 
length, width, growth rings, etc.).  The numbers were recorded onto 
punched cards (yes, it was that long ago), and used as input to a 
cluster-analysis program  (most likely one published by U.Kansas).  The 
interesting results where the basis of a discussion in the lab -- e.g., 
what did the computer miss?  Why?  (GIGO)

Fred