Shuler Museum of Paleontology
The Shuler Museum of Paleontology houses research and teaching collections, supports the preparation of fossils, and fosters paleontological research at SMU by undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and visiting scholars. The collections grow by active fieldwork. Emphasis is on fossil vertebrates and on plants, and its coverage is global. Particular emphasis is placed on stratigraphic, taphonomic, and paleoenvironmental applications of its collections. It facilitates and participates in educational outreach at all levels from preschool to lifelong learners, and it supplies exhibit specimens to public museums, including the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.
Its facilities include well-equipped preparation laboratories, plus study laboratories equipped with digital, optical, and fluorescence microscopes. The digital earth sciences laboratory is well-equipped for structured light 3d scanning, CT data processing, and software for the analysis of the resultant data sets. Students have access to departmental geochemistry, scanning electron microscope, and other analytical facilities. The Shuler Museum offers work-study and hands-on experience to SMU students at all levels.
Who is Ellis W. Shuler?
Dr. Ellis W. Shuler was one of the dozen or so scholar-teachers who comprise SMU’s original faculty. The faculty, assembled by founding President Hyer, was almost uniformly of very high quality – remarkable since the University had little to attract strong faculty save a president clearly dedicated to the highest quality in all things related to the new University. Shuler was broadly educated in geology, having just recently completed the Ph.D. degree at Harvard. His primary interest was geomorphology and he did his dissertation (on the New River in the central Appalachians) under the guidance of William Morrris Davis, one of the eminent geologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is said that, when Davis found out that Shuler was going to this new and unknown university, he gave Shuler a major portion of his personal library and persuaded Harvard to give Shuler all of its geological library duplicate holdings. So Shuler came to Dallas, where he taught courses in all the fields of geology, with the beginnings of what has come one of the outstanding geological libraries in North America.
SMU had, from the beginning, offered courses in paleontology, more frequently in the early days, in invertebrate paleontology. When Thomas E. Williams, himself a fusulinid specialist, joined the SMU faculty in the early 1960’s, he realized the opportunity that the collections in paleontology afforded to build a stronger program in paleontology and proposed that the collections be named the Ellis W. Shuler Museum of Paleontology. The Museum has continued to grow in diversity and in international recognition with the work of Williams, Bob Slaughter, and now the current faculty.
The Shuler Museum, through its research programs and the scientific work of its faculty, staff and students, is now an internationally recognized center of research that brings significant credit to the University.
Museum Specimens
Vertebrate collections in the Shuler Museum of Paleontology have special strengths in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic of Texas, and the Mesozoic of Southwestern U.S. SMU personnel have maintained an active field research program in paleontology in countries that include Egypt, Kenya, Malawi, Cameroon, Pakistan, Mexico, and Yemen. Among the approximately 50 vertebrate type specimens housed in the Shuler Museum are the Cretaceous plesiosaurLibonectes (Elasmosaurus) morgani (Welles), dinosaur Protohadros byrdi Head, and mammal Holoclemensia texana Slaughter, and the Pleistocene pronghorn Tetrameryx shuleri Lull.
Paluxysaurus jonesi
Paluxysaurus jonesi is not only the symbol of the Shuler Museum, but is also the state dinosaur of Texas. This dinosaur was a massive sauropod that lived in what is now Texas during the Early Cretaceous (about 112 million years ago). The fossil remains of this intriguing animal were discovered by SMU researchers in the 1990s and 2000s and were officially described by Peter Rose, an SMU graduate student, in 2009. Rose’s analysis showed that it is most closely related to Brachiosaurus, the long-necked dinosaur made famous in popular culture (e.g., Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park).
Currently, about 60-70% of the skeletal elements of Paluxysaurus jonesi have been discovered, making it the most complete skeleton of any North American sauropod from the Cretaceous. From this skeleton, we know that this animal was about 12 feet tall at the shoulder and was about 60 feet long, including its 26 foot long neck. It is estimated to have weighed over 20 tons.
PERSONNEL INFORMATION
For collections information contact:
Dr. Dale A. Winkler, Director
214-768-2898
dwinkler@smu.edu
Dr. Louis L. Jacobs Webpage
Dr. Bonnie F. Jacobs Webpage
Volunteer Preparators
Vicki Quick
Bill Johnson
Undergraduate Assistant Preparators
Kyle Paterson, reconstructing the ilium and secrum of Paluxysaurus jonesi, since Fall 2009.
Erin France, preparing the ilium of Paluxysaurus jonesi and picking microfossils from the Cloverly site, since Fall 2009.
Katharina Marino, preparing dinosaur and crocodile species from Proctor Lake and working with Ph.D candidate Thomas Adams, since Fall 2009.
Claire Jones, working on Paluxysaurus jonesi, since Spring 2010.
Stephen Tyler Armstrong, working on Paluxysaurus jonesi, since Fall 2011.
Ryan Nicholson, working on Paluxysaurus jonesi, since Fall 2011.
Michael Key, picking microfossils from the Cloverly site, since Fall 2011.
Grant Ketterer, working on Paluxysaurus jonesi, since Fall 2011.