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Paleontological
Expeditions
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When I tell people I'm a
paleontologist, they think I go out on "digs" and spend most of the
trip literally "digging" in one place for fossils. Although
this
does happen on occasion (in which case it is known as "quarrying"), I
don't do this very often when looking for fossil mammals - mainly due
to the types of rocks we work in and the
way the fossils are preserved. Quarrying is much more common
when
collecting
fossils of large animals (such as dinosaurs) or fossils that are
concentrated
in one place (like plant fossils, fossils of fish and other
water-dwelling
animals, mass death sites, etc.).
Instead of quarrying, the majority of my time in the field is spent walking around looking for fossils; most of these fossils can picked up off the ground or can be excavated with little effort (but often with a good bit of glue!). This is generally known as "prospecting." It's an especially common method of looking for fossils in new areas, when you're not exactly sure where fossils will be found. It's a lot like going on a nature hike, except that you're looking for fossils in addition to enjoying the scenery. A third category of fossil hunting (besides quarrying and prospecting) might be called "crawling" - when a site is so rich with fossils that you have to get on your hands and knees to examine every square inch of ground for bones and teeth. This doesn't occur very often, but in spots where small fossils are concentrated by weathering (i.e., in "microsites") this is one of the best ways to collect specimens. I have worked some sites like this both in dinosaur-age rocks out west and in mammal-bearing rocks in South America. A couple weeks looking for fossil mammals typically will involve lots of prospecting (and collecting isolated specimens), some crawling, and little (if any) quarrying. During my career as a paleontologist, I've been able to participate in a variety of different expeditions (sometimes looking for things besides fossil mammals) and on these trips, the proportions of these activities sometimes change. Below are links to pages with photos and notes from some of the expeditions in which I've taken part. |
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This
page was last updated on March 9, 2008.
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