from the speaker:

The presentation centers on the 1987 excavation by volunteers of the NW Museum of Natural History Association south of Cape Blanco on the SW Oregon Coast.  The whale specimen is about 500,000 years old and came from a large baleen whale (blue whale or close relative) that was about 70 feet long (it’s also the largest fossil ever found in Oregon). We recovered 20 vertebrae and the rib cage (ribs were as long as 7 feet) and some additional bones. Large Ice-Age baleen whale skeletons are exceptionally rare, so the specimen is an important one. It was an impressive dig and well as a challenging one - since we were working within the intertidal zone.

In the talk I also mention other marine mammals that once lived in our coastal waters.  The format for the talk is similar to that of the dinosaur presentation, in that we will have an an "interactive” time following the slide show to pass around and discuss actual specimens.