(Mis)adventures in Paleontology.

[Morm]

Hey guys. I'm back a week early from field work and thought you'd all like to hear about what I was up to. As some of you are aware, I'm a paleontologist. That means, basically, I dig fossils for a living. I just started in mid june and I love it so far. If you guys are interested, I can update this thread with some of the adventures I take part in with this job as they happen. It's field season and I'm being flown all over Alberta (a great place for fossils) with last minute notice so it's gonna get exciting. So let me know if you want more or if this is just stupid.



My first fieldwork was actually a shock to me- archaeology in the boreal forest, right smack in the middle of the controversial tar sands development in Alberta, Canada. Now I can't really go into too many details, but since it is such a cool job I should share some experiences and maybe rant a bit.

Archaeology is the study of past cultures by studying, basically, their refuse/remains. Essentially what this boils down to is having a liberal arts degree in garbage collecting. If you want to contribute to society, line up for that degree somewhere between majoring in "leisure, recreation and travel" or "Phys Ed". I was joking in that last line, all those degrees suck in reality.

So, what do you do if you're trained in comparative anatomy, paleontology, geology, systematics and zoology when you're tossed in the mix with no warning? Well, since it was an all female crew (cept one other guy) the answer was obvious...

...and the obvious answer, of course, was learn about archaeology as you go. I went from my element to a whole other planet which is something I'm not used to. Even the field camp was cushy as hell, I'm used to a fucking tent in cougar country on the side of a mountain.


At this point I should mention that I did indeed ask for my complimentary fedora. When that failed, I reminded them that my main man indie was based on none other than Roy Chapman Andrews. Yes, he's a paleontologist.


Okay, so between digging up artifacts less than 10 meters away from an active bear baiting station, befriending the hottest chick at a camp of 500 people, quadding through muskeg (rotting plant matter that sucks you down and you need a fucking winch to get out) after a one day crash course in generic ATV training, laying baseline in pouring rain with absolute swarms of four types of biting insect, countless bear sitings in the area and more feminism (incluing the hairiest armpits I've ever seen...and she was a fucking FEMALE) than any one man should endure in a lifetime, I managed to chalk up another notch on my fieldwork belt. This is only the beginning I'm afraid, for soon it looks like I'll endure 45 Celcius dry heat in a coulee while pick axing through solid rock.

We dug, slowly, screen soil/sod/sand slowly and apparently my sense of humor is not only unfunny to them, it's offensive. Apparently it's insensitive to call an indian by the name "indian", instead we call them "aboriginals" or at worst, "natives". Fuck, I thought indian was sensitive. At one time they were called savages after all...So yeah, I'm also a redneck.



If there's any interest I can get into methods and what the finds can tell us, but not where we were specifically or what we found. Just general stuff. Note that everything else will be paleontology adventures, but this one was pretty rad nonetheless. Any questions, comments etc would be awesome since they definately promote discussion.

 

[Doomsday]

Awesome, when i was a kid i totally wanted to take up on paleontology, it's such a badass job. Wasn't Alberta where thy found this big t-rex dinossaur that they named Albertasaurus? My facts may be wrong, it's been a while.

 

[DM]

Hell yeah man, tell us more. I love reading about this kinda stuff, I find it fascinating. Also, hot women. :avatar:

 

[Morm]

Doomsday: I definately have a badass job. I'm very fortunate to walk out of university at the age of 22 and find a super rare job in paleontology, beating down all the people I graduated with this year and the year before. Alberta is such a dynamic place for paleontology and it's one of the best (if not the best) single regions on the planet for fossils. To answer your question: Albertosaurus is a tyrannosaurid from Alberta. Infact, we have FOUR members of that order from here, all of different age. Daspletosaurus and Tyrannosaurus represent the Tyrannosaurines and Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus represent the Albertosaurines. There's a fifth member to the famly, quite old comparatively (still Cretaceous in age), from Mongolia called Tarbosaurus. Tyrannosaurus is the heaviest and bulkiest built theropod (meat eating dinosaur) ever found with the others mentioned being quite similar in size, shape and lifestyle; however they are smaller. If you want things that are kind of bigger/longer but still weighing less, try Charcharodontosaurus from North Africa and Giganotosaurus from Argentina.

Fortunately, I had world a world renowned theropod expert as a teacher in the archosaur section of my paleontology of the higher vertebrates.

So I was called back early because I'm needed for another project. I only get 3 days off (two of which are weekend days anyways) before what looks like a whisking off to a new adventure. Stay tuned!

Any other comments or questions?

 

[DragonPoke]

Great!

My parents are both archaeologists, and my mom recently finished a masters in Paleontology... so I'm somewhat familiar with this stuff. Bad thing I didn't turn out like them since I made a very different career choice lol... but this is very interesting indeed.

Hmm, I was just wondering, in what layer did you find the bifaces and the scrapers? any particular signs of fabrication, use, etc.?

And I completely understand the feminism part, according to my mom's words: there comes a time when the existance and use of blades becomes less useful, if not useless, especially when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and you have to worry about other more significant stuff, like dying from a heat stroke, thirst or not getting bitten by a snake, let alone eaten by a mountain cat... precious times :D

 

[Morm]

Noting Productive layers is really useless unless you understand where the locality is and the age, along with other details which I'm not at liberty to discuss. Common sense should provide you with the insight that all sites are different so it really can't be used as a comparative tool anyways unless you understand fully all the details like sedementation rates etc.

My training in arky is basically like the last few weeks. Seriously I took 2 classes in university but slept through them. I'd have no idea about that tool stuff anyways.

 

[DragonPoke]

Noting Productive layers is really useless unless you understand where the locality is and the age, along with other details which I'm not at liberty to discuss. Common sense should provide you with the insight that all sites are different so it really can't be used as a comparative tool anyways unless you understand fully all the details like sedementation rates etc.

My training in arky is basically like the last few weeks. Seriously I took 2 classes in university but slept through them. I'd have no idea about that tool stuff anyways.

Hmm I kind of understand these things, I've been hearing about them my whole life :p... but anyways, I'm not an expert. I know all sites are different, but I'm curious about the differences that may exist.

Essentially what this boils down to is having a liberal arts degree in garbage collecting.

Hmm... not precisely liberal arts and garbage. Besides, as you stated, different places call for different measures and procedures; archaeology in Alberta is quite different from what you can find in Mexico and South America. Quite valuable garbage we've got down here :p

Btw, can you describe a bit of the main methods you and your team are using? how you dig up fossils and stuff, it'd be cool!

 

[darkie]

Your job is one of the most badass jobs ever. Keep updating; it's not stupid, it's awesome!

 

[Morm]

We mostly use dynamite.




Okay, sorry, I couldn't resist. Again, techniques etc really depend on the site. In Alberta, non academics like the place I work for can't excavate fossils. Archaeologists can, however, they use alot of shovels and screens. Mostly 1/8 inch screens IIRC.

Edit: Darkie suggested via PM that I chuck up pictures. I'm still waiting to get the quadding pictures back (woohooo) in a few weeks. Obviously I can't put up pictures of sites or what we found, but I can show you me in field gear:

Note the wicked wide brim hat, personal protective gear and the huge amount of mud on me. I hit a puddle going at least 40 Km/hr in 4th gear on a quad. The wall of water went over my head, good times. Also that is bear mace hanging off my belt loop.

 

[Morm]

Just posting incase anyone misses it, I added a pic to the post above this one.

 

[Doomsday]

I'd like to ask if you know about Lourinhã? It's probably the most well-known place in Portugal when it comes to dinofossils. i think they discovered a new specie over there (I think they might have named it something like Lourinhossaurus), but, once again, it's been quite a while so I might be wrong.

What about Galopim de Carvalho, ever heard of him? He's a portuguese paleontology expert. I used to be dinosaur-fanatic when I was kid, so it is revisiting those old memories.

 

[Morm]

Never heard of that place, nor have I heard of that dinosaur, nor have I heard of that man.

hehe, there's alot of paleontology experts. There's also shitloads of new dino species out there, I'm not a dino specialist by any means. Also I'm not too familiar with alot of sites, especially the ones that aren't outstanding. By outstanding I mean something as awesome as the valley of the moon in Patagonia, Argentina.

I take it you're from Portugal? I'm not too up and up on my Portuguese paleontology, sadly :(

Edit: also, new species don't always have to be outstanding and amazing. Infact, most just pass under the radar. It often takes something earth shattering to really catch the eye of alot of people, something like Mapusaurus or whatever that genus of bat was that they just discovered, proving that bats flew before they had echolocation.


Edit2: Anti requested on MSN that I put in more girl stories so here we go. The other day I was at a bar and I went up to the sexy bartender and said "I'm DNA Polymerase and I'm here to unzip your genes". Naturally, this line is about the best line ever. However, she looked down to check what she was wearing and said "but I'm not wearing jeans" and walked off.
I don't know if she was rejecting me or was really that dumb...

 

[Yagami Light]

Haha, what an awesome job. Out of curiosity, how long did you have to work to get your degree to be qualified to do your type of work?

 

[Morm]

It took me 5 years but it's usually 4. The problem is that my job is super rare. Nowadays you basically need a PhD with a few years of post doc experience to get a job in paleontology. At the very least it's almost always a masters.

I lucked out!

 

[DragonPoke]

"I'm DNA Polymerase and I'm here to unzip your genes"

OMG. So hilarious. LOL.

But you must agree most people don't know what DNA Polymerase is or what it does, and she must have heard jeans... so, I wouldn't blame her :p

And tell us, is there like a dream you have as a Paleontologist? :p

 

[Morm]

Actually my dream was to be a paleontologist. I find that if you really want to find something, you'll start seeing it everywhere even if it's not there. So I try to keep an open mind about everything so I can make observations without having a bias about what I want to see.

I honestly don't aspire to make huge discoveries. I don't want to find a giant dinosaur, nor do I want to find something like the most basal molluscan. My dream I guess is to see as much of it as I can and learn as much as I can about the science behind it, as well as the related sciences.

 

[DragonPoke]

Nice! I hope more of my friends would think the way you do... most of them want to do whatever it takes to just earn a shitload of money, instead of learning things.

Are you interested particularly in any branch of the field?

 

[Morm]

I've specialized in microvertebrate fossils in the late Cretaceous, so things ranging from tiny fish teeth to turtle shell fragments to dinosaur teeth. I've also done a week at the Burgess Shale doing actual work as well as various other invertebrate sites. I'm pretty sure I could pick up reptilians as well if I had time.

I've been described as a "jack of all trades but a master of none" because I also know alot about entomology, herpetology etc etc. I have too many damn interests, the whole field keeps shocking me. I hate scientists that pidgeonhole themselves.

 

[Doomsday]

Never heard of that place, nor have I heard of that dinosaur, nor have I heard of that man.

hehe, there's alot of paleontology experts. There's also shitloads of new dino species out there, I'm not a dino specialist by any means. Also I'm not too familiar with alot of sites, especially the ones that aren't outstanding. By outstanding I mean something as awesome as the valley of the moon in Patagonia, Argentina.

I take it you're from Portugal? I'm not too up and up on my Portuguese paleontology, sadly :(

That's a shame. Yeah, I'm from Portugal, and Lourinhã (and some few other cities) are probably the only places where you can find a Dinosaur Museum. I've been to quite a few of these in my life! There are also some Dino footsteps in a region close to where I live currently.

Post more stories, I enjoy reading those!

 

[Morm]

Here's a story just for you doomsday:

A few summers ago a close friend invited me to work at a world heritage site called the Burgess Shale. This Cambrian site, if you're unfamiliar, has a HUGE diversity of basal organisms and has representatives from every major group, including our own (the chordates). There are some animals, like Opabinia that have unknown affinities...5 eyes and a freaking trunklike appendage. Mind you, these things are rare there. I found some interesting stuff there however. I, of course, jumped on the opportunity since only around 50 people or less have ever worked here before.

So It ended up that I got to pick the other person coming with us. I also drank wine every single night and took rock samples from the famous outcrop infront of astonished tourists. Did I mention this site is on the side of a freaking mountain overlooking the gorgeous emerald lake and various waterfalls?

Also I should take a moment to point out that there is a section, where the exhalite juts against the dolomite cliff, that I excavated. Since it's under a shitload of loose material on it, I became the second person ever to see the actual contact. Subsequently, if the paper is ever finished (it's coming, no worries) the contact will be named after me. For what it's worth, it's something named after me at a world heritage site. However, nobody will really ever need to see it again as it's already re burried.

Suffice to say that being paid $100 a day to work there was a priveledge. People pay through the teeth to hike an 11 hour round trip just to spend a bit of time there. They come from all over the world and book months in advance- if it rains though, the trip is cancelled and there are no refunds.

I guess I forgot to say that I called shotgun in the helicopter as it came to fly us through the mountains at low altitude towards the site. Also a few of my friends were very, very mad. I had the worst grades in the department and I did fuck all for homework but I also have some high power friends in paleo. Also probably a few high power enemies, hehe, but those enemies will never get to work at the shale!

 

[BARILLIAN]

Whoa. Burgess Shale is more or less my favorite when it comes to that, since while dinosaurs are awesome and all my heart will always be with invertebrates. I envy you.

That being said, I'll have to add that Opabinia will always remind me of cookies, because over here we have those round cookies with chocolate droplets that look like eyes. If anyone in family knew how to bake them, I'd definitely be trying for Opabinia cookies this summer.

 

[Morm]

My best friends make trilobite cookies all the time. I love having cool friends.

I hope I'm not coming off as bragging or anything, I'm really just wanting to contribute to Smogon in a way that I'm actually good at since I'm not the best at Pokemon.

 

[BARILLIAN]

Nice, take pictures of those next time. Though there are some trilobites I wouldn't want to eat...

 

[Morm]

Those are nothing. Check out the ones from Morocco but make sure it's the younger ones. They have retarded amounts of spines, cephalon ornamentation etc. I won't get into it too much, but some of those spines aren't just for defense- they also probably were to help the trilobite traverse the boundary layer at the bottom of the ocean (hydrodynamics stuff) and also to allow certain ones to be pelagic or fall slower/in the right orientation from up in the water column.

Also baby trilobites are fucked up looking compared to adults, much like naupliar larvae are today.

edit pics. I'm not sure if they are all moroccan, I know some of them are. Well known area for spiny trilobites though:

 

[Morm]

Helicoprion. Thoughts/comments?