Frequently Asked Questions....
- What is MammothCam? (The MammothCam Volunteers)
- Where
is was the dig located? (Shelly)
- Where are the MammothCam offices? (Gordon)
- What's the punch line? What equipment are you using? (Clyde)
- What is a paleontologist? (Beth)
- -- Are paleontologists the same as archaeologists? (Beth)
- -- Are paleontologists the same as geologists? (Dan)
- Hey! What about the trivia part? (Gordon)
What is MammothCam?
MammothCam.com is the result of a group volunteers who wanted to bring the experience of this discovery to as many people as possible. Using webcams, websites and as much technology as we could get our hands on, our goal is to help share the discovery of the Columbian Mammoth(s?) in San Jose, California with those who cannot visit the excavation site directly or just want to stay in touch with the daily progress.
A longer version is available in the About Us section.
Where is/was the dig located?
Just north of the Mineta San Jose airport, along the Guadalupe River (or, as
the local drivers would say: on Trimble across US 101 away from Central.)
UCMP Berkeley/San Jose Mercury News has a nice map and the Santa Clara Valley Water District has good visitor information as well.
Where are the MammothCam offices?
Just north of the Mineta San Jose airport, along the Guadalupe River (or, as
the local drivers would say: on Trimble across US 101 away from Central.)
UCMP Berkeley/San Jos
e Mercury News has a nice map and the Santa Clara Valley Water District has good visitor information as well.
[Ed. note: There are no MammothCam offices. We're volunteers, we don't
need an office...or a phone (408-396-2636) or a coffee machine (
Programmer's note: Yes, yes we do! We have no Starbuck's Budget!).
We just have a website, a webcam and a whole lotta time. Then again, this is only
the third question in the FAQ, so maybe we should get back to working on that instead....]
What's the punch line? What equipment are you using?
Wow, good question, this would be a great place for a write-up! Besides, we
probably should have a timeline or something on this. So, it all began as I
was preparing for a three-hour tour (a three-hour tour!)....wait, that's too
long of an answer.
The short version, however, is a field site setup of a web-ready security camera
cross-over cabled into a Linux laptop configured to use a PC Card to dial in
via PPP to an FTP server to drop the images off. The web server retrieves the
images on an on-going basis, formats and cleans them as much as possible and
posts them to the web server located at the now-infamous www.mammothcam.com (which
I *repeatedly* mistype as mammathcam, as if Joe Namath's great-great-grandmother
were somehow channeling through my keyboard for a webshot...)
You know what? This is going to take a while and the file is probably going
to grow before it is all over and done with. Let's make the FAQ something
shorter than War and Peace and relocate the rest of this answer in a
couple of to-be-grown documents: The timeline (which
sports a nifty, barely used Project Overview) and a rambling bit of
technobabble. Any other questions should be
sent in for answers and eventual posting here (or somewhere
close by.)
What is a paleontologist?
A paleontologist is someone who studies the development of life on earth
dating back to prehistoric and geologic times. This includes all types of
life (ranging from microbe to plant to animal) and all aspects they can learn
about it (fossils, tracks, chemical residues....not just bones!)
Our friends at Berkeley have an
excellent
definition of paleontology.
Are paleontologists the same as archaeologists?
Beth writes:
A suggestion for the FAQ... a brief description of what a paleontologist is and does as opposed to an archeologist. People are often mixing up the two because they
both dig in the dirt and wear those fancy orange vests (at least in California).
My husband - who is an archeologist - has had oddball questions about
"fossils" where people have brought in "dinosaur hearts" or "eggs"
(these days they probably go straight to ebay). Can you help?
A little public education goes a long way! - Thanks, Beth.
Beth, we can certainly try, thanks for the question!
The dictionary defines a paleontologist as "A specialist in paleontology".
MammothCam defines dictionary as "Not user friendly" (To look up
how to spell a word you have to....spell it first? Anyway....)
A paleontologist studies forms of life in prehistoric times, based on
fossils of plants, animals and other organisms. That includes everything that
lived in prehistoric times (i.e. times before there was recorded history.)
Most of their work comes from digging in the dirt and finding old bones and
fossils of things that lived a long time ago.
An archaeologist on the other hand, studies past human life and
culture, included things like tools and pottery and cultural artifacts. Just
like paleontologists, they also frequently have to dig in the dirt (because
that's where the human artifacts like buried buildings, jewelry, etc.) but
they are interested in finding out about humans of old as opposed to all
the other things that lived way back when.
So, when I was younger and playing in the dirt, I was a paleontologist if
I found a bone from an ancient animal (that was probably a steak bone buried
by the dog last week) and an archaeologist when I found toy cars (that I
lost -- I mean buried -- when I was playing in the dirt last week.)
There are probably much better explanations but the short version is,
paleontologist = studies things from animals (bones, fossils) that lived a long time ago
archaeologist = studies things from people (tools, pottery) that lived a long time ago
Are paleontologists the same as geologists? (Dan)
Nope. Geologists study the history of the earth, its development, composition
and processes. Mostly they deal with the earth's crust but geology also plays
a large role in the investigation of celestial bodies (those in space) as well.
So, Geologists study the earth. Paleontologists study life on earth.
Archaeologists study the life of humans on the earth. Psychologists
study the people who study the people/life/earth and students are the
people who study about the people who do all of these things before they
go off themselves and become the new people for future students to study!
Whew!
Hey, what about the trivia you promised?
No problem!
- Washington's official state fossil is the Columbian Mammoth. In 1998, elementary school students led a four-year effort to have this behemoth designated as their state fossil.
- Fossils of Columbian Mammoths have been found on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.
- Columbian Mammoths lived 60-80 years and ranged from Alaska to Central America.
- Columbian Mammoths traveled in herds of females, led by a dominant matriarch. Any
males born to the herd would leave when they were 12-15 years old.
- Somehow, they managed to weigh 10,000 pounds, despite eating nothing but vegetation (700 lbs/day)
- Their curved tusks were the longest (16 feet!) of the elephant family
- "MAMMOTH" is worth at least 66 points in Scrabble (3M*3+1A*1+1T*1+1H*4=16 + 50 pt bonus for 7 letter play)
- Scrabble is a trademark and covered under U.S. Patent 2752158 -- "Game apparatus"
- The product of 2*7*5*2*1*5*8 is 5600, which when divided by 66 (pts from "MAMMOTH")
results in an infinitely repeating number of 84.848484848484.... And, of course, 84
is exactly the same number of points you would get in Scrabble for
"TriviaAtMammothCam"! We're done!
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