A bulk sample simply means that there is as little bias as possible during collection. Instead of picking the most beautiful or well-preserved fossils from an outcrop, we take whole lumps of the sediment, which are then transported whole back to the lab in Panama for washing, picking and identification of the fossils. Only then will the bounty they yield be revealed.

This means we have to collect massive amounts of rock and sediment, but it’s the only way to provide a measure of the abundance of the many different organisms in an ecological way. This ecological approach to paleontology is critical for we want to know what the structure of the whole ecosystem was like.

Sped up from 15 minutes to a minute and a half, the video shows Erin and Aaron collecting a 10kg bulk sample of 7000 year old reef sediments in the Enriquillo basin. All the coral, mollusks, fish otoliths, sponge spicules and shark dermal denticles will be picked from these to help reconstruct the ecosystems of the past.