California Oil Museum

Hello Museum Visitors, Another day playing Hide ‘n Seek in the California Oil Museum! Let’s see if you can find me, Callie! As always, hiding next week will be my brother, Smilie. And remember some of our hiding spots will be easy to solve and some may be harder to figure out. Below is a close up picture of me in my hiding place. Let’s see if you can figure out where I am! Sincerely, Callie

Hello Museum Visitors, Another day playing Hide ‘n Seek in the California Oil Museum! Let’s see if you can find me, Callie! As always, hiding next week will be my brother, Smilie. And remember some of our hiding spots will be easy to solve and some may be harder to figure out. Below is a close up picture of me in my hiding place. Let’s see if you can figure out where I am! Sincerely, Callie

Hello Museum Friends, Sorry I've been hiding for awhile. My Museum co-workers were on vacation and then busy with some bugs. Did you find me, Smilie? I am hiding in the Rig Room with our friend Derrick! Did you know, the highest paid worker (during the early 1900s) got paid $4.25 for the day? He was the driller! Congratulations on those who figured out my location! My sister, Callie, is hiding again! See if you can find her! Her picture will be posted tomorrow!

A recent discovery in Russia has prompted today’s #fossilfridays discussion. Russian reindeer herders on the Siberian island of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky have found remains of Ursus spelaeus, or a Cave Bear. The entire carcass is perfectly preserved, having been frozen in the permafrost for thousands of years. It even includes the nose, organs and other soft tissue. This is the first original remains, besides bones, ever found of the long-extinct Cave Bear. You may be wondering if a... frozen Cave Bear can be called a fossil. Sometimes, we think of fossils as only the hard remains of bones or teeth, or tissue that has been petrified into a stony material. However, the term fossil is used for remains preserved in rock-like amber or in ice and even in other substances, like the La Brea Tar Pits. Initial scans date the adult Cave Bear at 22,000-39,000 years old. Scientists are excited to start examining the Cave Bear and believe that they will even be able to extract DNA. The Cave Bear was a species of bear, more closely related to today’s polar and brown bears than black bears, that lived in Europe and Asia up until about 20,000 years ago. Cave Bears were similar in structure to brown bears, having a broad domed skull, stout body with long thighs, and massive shins. Males weighed 800-2050 pounds while females were much smaller, around 500 pounds. Most Cave Bear skeletons on display in museums are male; female Cave Bear skeletons were originally thought to be dwarf Cave Bears. Cave Bears are so named because they lived in caves, not entering for hibernation as do current and other species of bears. They lived in low mountainous areas with limestone caves. Cave Bears are the most common Pleistocene mammal in the fossil record because of their cave-living habits; caves afforded the skeletons some protection before the fossilization occurred. Scientists have discovered a difference in Cave Bear teeth, which shows that they ate a higher concentration of vegetable matter than other bears. Some of these studies also showed that they ate a great amount of bones (including their own species!) They were probably scavengers, especially in the Ice Age when food of all kinds was scarce. Cave Bears faced predators like wolf packs, Cave Hyenas and Cave Lions, but most of these couldn’t attack full sized males and so targeted young, old, sick, or hibernating Cave Bears. There are only a few examples of human interaction with Cave Bear remains, and some are thought to be proof of Cave Bear worship among some Neanderthal tribes. Cave Bears are seldom represented in cave paintings, unlike other species of bears. See more

Today's #WomeninSTEMWednesdays focus is on a woman who didn't start out in the STEM fields but made her mark in them later in her life. Hazel Reid O’Leary grew up in Virginia and was the daughter of physicians. After attending segregated elementary schools in Virginia, she was sent to live with a relative in New Jersey to attend an integrated arts high school. She graduated from Fisk University and later received her law degree from Rutgers Law School. She started a career in... criminal law prosecuting organized crime cases in New Jersey. After her divorce, she moved to Washington and started her career in government. She worked for the Federal Energy Administration under President Ford and the new Department of Energy under President Carter. She left DC briefly to work for as the vice president of environmental and public affairs for the Minnesota Northern States Power Company. Nominated by President Clinton in 1993, O’Leary became the Secretary of Energy and the first woman and first African American to serve in that office. She was also the first Energy Secretary to have worked for an energy company. As Secretary, O’Leary declassified cold war documents that showed that the US government conducted radiation experiments on citizens, began a clean-up of plutonium left by the US in South Vietnam, encouraged the administration to end nuclear testing in the United States, and shifted funds and research to focus on renewable and efficient energy sources. She was the first Energy Secretary to link energy policy decisions to the health and quality of the environment. She currently works with an initiative that address challenges and opportunities for minority engagement in the energy economy, STEM education, and climate change mitigation.

Today's #mineralmonday is Orthoclase, a member of the feldspar mineral family. It’s composed of potassium, aluminum, and silica. It is often called K-Feldspar or K-spar by geologists because of its abundant potassium. Orthoclase is a 6 on the Mohs hardness scale and has a monoclinic crystal system. One main physical property of Orthoclase is that its cleavage planes are at right angles. It is because of this that the mineral is named; Orthoclase comes from the Greek meaning ...straight fracture. Orthoclase is also known to have a pearly finish on its cleavage planes. Orthoclase is one of the most abundant rock-forming minerals on the Earth’s crust. It is formed during the cooling of the Earth’s magma, so Orthoclase is found mostly in igneous rocks; it is often called pink feldspar, which is found in granite. It can be found in metamorphic rocks like gneiss and schist, but Orthoclase is very rarely found in sedimentary rocks; weathering through time causes the Orthoclase to be changed into different minerals, like kaolinite. Orthoclase was one of the main minerals in the igneous rocks brought back from the Moon and has even been detected in analyses from NASA’s Mars rovers. Orthoclase is found all over the world but mostly in or close to the Northern Hemisphere. Here in the United States it is found in California, Colorado, Nevada, Maine, and Pennsylvania. Orthoclase is used for the manufacturing of ceramics and glass. It is also used as an abrasive in scouring powders, including household cleansers like Comet. See more

Thanks to everyone who came out- we are out of bags! Stay tuned for our next give away. Thanks to the Agriculture Museum

For today’s #FossilFridays, let’s discuss a form of fossilization that we have neglected so far, original remains. Over the years, some animal or plant remains undergo little to no changes; shark teeth are one example, as they are resistant to decay. Other ways original remains are preserved is in amber or petroleum. Insects, small animals, or reptiles can get caught in tree sap, which evaporates and hardens into a hard, but light weight, yellow-to-orange rock look-alike cal...led amber. This creates a time capsule, where the entire specimen is preserved and protected from decay and rot. Scientists can study the trapped insect and we can see exactly how little creatures from the past looked, what they ate, how they moved around, and much more. Even some DNA has been extracted from amber-trapped fossils. No, we are not recreating dinosaurs in laboratories as the Jurassic Park novels and movies showed scientists doing, but much information is learned from the trapped fossils. Petroleum can also preserve specimens, but not to the extent as those trapped in amber. Animals who got stuck in natural oil seeps still lost skin, muscles and other parts that can be eaten by bacteria in the petroleum. The bones, teeth, and other hard parts are what is preserved. When an animal dies in petroleum, the intact skeleton is found, with no damage from scavengers, the weather, the sun or time that other fossil finds suffer. The petroleum also is absorbed into the bones, similar to the petrification process which hardens and protects the bones, as well. Many of you may be familiar with the La Brea Tar pits in Los Angeles, where giant petroleum lakes trapped Mammoths, Dire wolves, Smilodons, Giant sloths and a host of other prehistoric animals. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that people realized the fossils were important and began to excavate and study them. Even our local oil seeps on the way to Ojai have been known to trap the occasional cow or coyote, but it will take some years for those bones to become fossilized. Most of the best amber fossils come from the Myanmar region. About 100 million years ago, the area was a tropical seaside forest with plenty of strange and interesting insects and small creatures. Myanmar is a strife-ridden area, which makes it tough for scientists to study these amazing fossils and the rocks they came from. They often must complete with collectors to try to purchase the best amber pieces in order to study them. The sales of these amber pieces often provide revenue for the participants of the conflicts in those areas. Fossil collecting and studying have many ethical dilemmas, most unknown to the general public, but of great concern to scientists and researchers. See more

Don't forget our Science to go bag giveaway on Saturday!

Today's #WomenInSTEMWednesday is Dr Virginia Apgar. If you've had children, you've heard her name but may have not known the story of Dr Virginia Apgar. When she finished high school in the late 1920s, Virginia Apgar decided she wanted to become a doctor. With the help of many scholarships, she was able to attend Mt. Holyoke College. There, she played the violin and cello in the college orchestra and majored in zoology. Weeks before the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929,... she was accepted into the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. Despite the hard times, she graduated fourth in her class. She planned to continue with a career as a surgeon but was discouraged by professors and the Chair of Surgery, Dr. Alan Whipple. He was aware of her talent, but felt it would be wasted, many women that he had trained were unable to establish successful careers as surgeons. He encouraged her instead to study anesthesiology, a field that was new at the time and needed improvements. She spent a year studying at departments of anesthesia in Wisconsin and New York. She returned to Columbia and became the Director of the Division of Anesthesia and an attending anesthetist. It was a rough few years until surgeons and the medical field accepted anesthesia as an equal and important specialty. In 1949, Dr. Apgar was appointed the first woman full professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She began to study obstetrical anesthesia, and how anesthesia on mothers during labor affected the infants. This is when she made her most notable and famous contribution to the field of medicine. The Apgar Score is the standard evaluation given to newborns in the delivery room. Dr. Apgar used her own name as an acronym; Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration are the five factors to score an infant’s health after birth. Each factor can receive a zero to two score, with a total score of ten as a perfectly healthy infant. Dr. Apgar went on to prove that the Apgar Score, given at the fifth minute, could predict neonatal survival and neurological development. She later received her master’s degree in public health and became the director of what would become the March of Dimes Foundation.

Happy Labor Day! September babies (and July too) you'll want to learn more about today's #MineralMondays mineral! Corundum is an Aluminum Oxide rock forming mineral. It is found in all three rock types and has a hexagonal crystal structure. Corundum is one of the hardest minerals on Earth, it is a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale, only diamond and moissanite are harder. Corundum was named from an ancient Sanskrit word, kuruvinda, meaning ruby. Corundum has been used for centu...ries as an abrasive. It is combined with magnetite to make emery, used in emery boards. Corundum is used in polishing compounds, grinding media and wheels, sandpapers, and cutting wheels. Corundum gemstones are used as a jewel bearings and crystals in Swiss and other watches. Because of its heat resistance it is used in lasers, scanners, kiln liners and airplane windows. However, in recent years, synthetic corundum is replacing natural corundum in many manufactured products. Synthetic Corundum is made of the same elements, Aluminum and Oxygen, but in a laboratory or plant with different techniques to produce the mineral. Most Synthetic Corundum is easy to manufacture and relatively inexpensive compared to mining operations. It often produces higher quality and larger amounts of the crystals as well. You may have not heard the name Corundum before, but you are familiar with its gemstone names, Sapphire and Ruby. Both are Corundum crystals; Rubies are made when trace amounts of the mineral Chromium are added to Corundum, Sapphires are made with other trace metals leading to Sapphire’s bright blue and many other colors. Ruby is the birthstone for July and Sapphire is this month, September. Sapphires have traditional symbolized truth, faithfulness and nobility. Ancient Persians believed that the Earth rested on a giant Sapphire, causing the sky’s beautiful blue color. Sapphire’s were believed to a protection stone, from envy and harm of others and from diseases of the eye. Some famous Sapphires include the Rockefeller Sapphire, a 62 carat rectangular cut stone and Princess Diana’s 12 carat Sapphire surrounded by diamonds, now belonging to Duchess Kate. See more

First look a Brachiopod and one might think they are just a plain old marine shelled creature like a clam or scallop. However, Brachiopods are not mollusks, they are members of the Lophophorate family. They are closer relatives to corals and bryozoans and have a much older history. The first Brachiopods are found in the fossil record about 540 million years ago during the Cambrian period. About 30,000 fossilized species of Brachiopods have been found and there are only about ...300 left in the oceans today. Brachiopods are named for the Greek words brachion and podos meaning arm and foot. They are often called Lamp Shells because they resemble early Roman oil lamps. They are found in all oceans around the world, but are more plentiful in the continental shelves and off the coasts of Antarctica, Australia, and New Zealand. One of the main differences between bivalve mollusks and Brachiopods is their plane of symmetry - a bivalve’s plane is cut between the valves or shells and the Brachiopod plane cuts across valves, through the closed shell. Brachiopods are also only found in sea water; mollusks can live in seas or freshwater lakes and rivers. Mollusks also have gills and have adapted to locomotion and feeding techniques that have let them thrive differently. Brachiopods have adapted to living in deeper, darker, colder waters by evolving thicker shells and lower body mass and metabolisms. They are, for the most part, stationary and solitary animals. Their pedicle, or foot, is the only part that lives outside the shell and it attaches to rocks and keeps the Brachiopod in one area. Brachiopods eat by suspension. They push their shells slightly open to allow water in, and with their lophophorate organs produce feeding currents to trap microplankton, which are then transferred to the mouth. Since they are rarely seen in tidal waters or beaches, they aren’t a prized shellfish for humans (or other sea life either, only larvae-staged Brachiopods are eaten by marine animals,) nor a destructive pest organism, Brachiopods are often overlooked or ignored by marine zoologists and the public in general. They are an important evolutionary and fossil record species that deserve to be studied and researched. #FossilFridays #museumfromhome #caoilmuseum See more

Our next Science to go bag giveaway....We love partnering with the Agriculture Museum! We hope to see you on the 12th!

Today's #WomeninSTEMWednesdaymight be a familiar face but many don't realize that actress Hedy Lamarr was an amzing inventor and her work is used by all of us today! Hedwig Eva Kiesler was born in Austria at the beginning of WWI into a respectable Jewish family. As an only child, she was encouraged by her parents to questions things, explore nature and learn how things work. She once took apart her music box to discover how it played music. She was a beautiful young woman and... was discovered at age 16 by director Max Reinhardt. She began to have a career in acting and went by the stage name Hedy Lamarr. She found a bit of fame in some plays and small films in Berlin. She was married briefly to Fritz Mandl, a Nazi sympathizer and munitions dealer. She fled to London to leave the unhealthy relationship but took with her a knowledge of wartime weapons. She eventually made it to Hollywood and became a sought-after actress. She moved onto Hollywood societal groups and became a friend of Howard Hughes. He encouraged her love of science, aeronautics, and nature. He gave her a small laboratory to keep in her movie trailer so she could experiment while filming. She designed a new wing for Hughes’ planes, designed from the drawings of fast fish and birds. She loved to improve things, she upgraded a stoplight and invented a dissolvable drink tablet. As the world was facing another World War, Hedy discussed her thoughts and theories with composer George Antheil. Together they invented a communication system to guide torpedoes to their targets. It involved frequency hopping along radio waves with the transmitter and receivers moving together, which would prevent the enemy from discovering the waves. Hedy and George, with the US Navy, were granted the patent in 1942 but the Navy never used the device and the patent expired in 1953. This discouraged Hedy and she turned from science and focused on acting for the rest of her career. Twenty years later the US government used Hedy’s frequency-hopping technology in the Cuban Missile crisis. Her technology also led to the invention of many items we use today including cell phones, fax machines, and other forms of wireless technology. She received the Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first woman to receive the Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award for inventors. After her death in 2000, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and was called the Mother of Wi-Fi.

Thank you Melgar Photo Studio for sharing this amazing photograph of our Museum.