#gsa2018

@n7-paleontologist presenting his (and others) efforts on combining paleontology, education, and pop-culture. Gabe and collaborators have made huge impacts by bringing natural history into different and unexpected environments. Attending a comic-con events, informal tabling, and more allows these scientists to reach a new audience. They incorporate popular media and culture to reach these groups. People all have different interests but let’s be real, we can cross so many boundaries by combining science with pop culture. 

They have done events exploring paleontology through Pokemon, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and more! A novel way to reach audiences that may not always (or ever) have access to paleontology specimens.  

I could have sworn I took more pictures of Jeff’s talk because he had a really cool plot that I liked!!!! Well anyway, Jeff works on a little bit of everything as it related to echinoids, or sea urchins. He is one of the only workers on Paleozoic echinoids, the sad truth is it is incredibly hard to work on a lot of fossil echinoderms because they fall apart almost as soon as they die so it’s a horribly frustrating puzzle. 

Jeff used statistical analyses to look at the diversification of a specific echinoid group during the Ordovician (485-443 million years ago). He assembled the evolutionary history or family tree of this group and used it as a framework to think about came about when and if these species arose quickly or less quickly. It was an excellent talk! 

Some of our posts from Time Scavengers on the conference! We wrote up a blog on our experience presenting! I gave a summary talk on the project and was so astounded by the audience. I had been sitting in the session for a while - this was on Sunday morning and it had been a pretty solid audience but not crowded. 

When I got up to get ready for my presentation I realized the room was jam packed! There were people standing in the back! I was so overwhelmed and excited. This project has come so far over the past two years - on almost no funds besides what we can scrape together to pay the annual WordPress fees. 

James Thomka and Tom Bantel of the Dry Dredgers presenting their work on diploporitan echinoderms! This was a really excellent poster. Tom was kind enough to give me the run down. They were interested in looking in the preservation of these strange echinoderms between different rock layers. These are the same echinoderms that Sarah studies (see her talk post here). 

These animals, which Sarah refers to as potatoes, are sort of puffed up strange looking beasts that have some symmetry albeit strange and peculiar. So, James and Tom were looking at how smushed these animals were compared to some pristine specimens. The amount of smush can tell us about the conditions of the environment when these animals died and became fossils. The fossils that are still bulbous, still inflated, and not broken were essentially buried alive! Rapid burial allows for really excellent preservation of fossils! 

Jon Hendricks presented on his (and others) recent efforts to create an open access textbook called the “Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life” or DEAL. This is an add on to the Digital Atlas of Ancient Life. This is an excellent effort to increase access to paleontological knowledge. 

Textbooks are EXPENSIVE and this can be limiting for students that cannot afford to purchase lots of textbooks every year. And what about non-traditional learners that may just be interested in learning a subject? It’s difficult to shell out hundreds of dollars on books. 

Further than the increase in accessibility of knowledge, they are also developing a virtual teaching collection. Meaning that classrooms without excellent fossil collections can use their digital fossils to explore the content and ancient life. This is HUGE!!!! Fossil are often broken, incomplete, or rare. This makes learning hard if not everyone gets to see the best kinds of specimens. Through this effort you can look at the specimens wherever and whenever! 

Roy Plotnick, the paleontologist who first introduced me to paleontology, gave a talk on the future of the fossil record. What will future scientists find in the rock record as a snapshot into our time on Earth?

Since livestock cultivation is so high, it’s more likely that future paleontologists will find those types of animals in the fossil record rather than native species. One key aspect to being found in the fossil record is to be abundant. 

The life on Earth will all look to be globally distributed - because humans are really good at moving species around the planet to new locations. It’s an interesting problem to think about and a pretty grim outlook. Will our legacy be garbage and livestock remains?