I’m thrilled to report that several professional paleontologists have graciously taken time to share some answers to the challenging questions you all posted on Week 5 of this blog. Please read over their comments (linked at the end of this post) and then provide your own response to what they shared with us. Please do also acknowledge the time they spent to contribute their experiences and insights to our learning! These are the scientists who answered your questions:
Dr. Mary Schweitzer is a Professor at North Carolina State
University as well as Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the N.C. Museum of
Natural Sciences. As we know from our
textbook reading and from recent news reports, she is the first researcher to discover
dinosaur soft tissue still present within the femur of a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus
rex! Dr. Schweitzer recently
published a personal and wonderfully engaging commentary that can serve as an
answer to the question: “Why Study Dinosaurs?”
I encourage you to read it here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dinosaurs-offer-a-rich-field-for-study-of-the-human-era/
.
Dr. David Fastovsky is a Professor and Chair in the Department
of Geosciences at the University of Rhode Island. He is also, of course, a co-author of our class
textbook. His worldwide research has
taken him to Mexico and Mongolia and to many locations across the Western
U.S. This website http://web.uri.edu/celsnews/dinosaur-expert-finding-the-past-is-a-window-to-earths-future/ provides a nice news report on his recent work on the
very earliest dinosaurs. By the way, Dr.
Fastovsky likes to bring his viola on his field trips perhaps to serenade the
ancient bones being revealed!
Dr. Jerry Harris is an Associate Professor and Director of
Paleontology at Dixie State College in Utah.
He has traveled throughout the world from China to Patagonia to right next door
in Montana and New Mexico to study dinosaurs and their contemporaries. He has especially researched trace fossil
evidence of ancient behaviors of a menagerie of creatures including dinosaurs,
flying reptiles (pterosaurs), ancient crocodile relatives and early birds. Above all, Dr. Harris is an extraordinary
educator whose well-designed teaching materials (like the slideshows we have
seen) clearly explain important concepts as well as capture his wonderfully
perceptive and engaging sense of humor. Here is a nice interview with Jerry: http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2008/04/24/paleontological-profiles-jerry/.
Dr. Stephen Brusatte is a Vertebrate Paleontologist and
Evolutionary Biologist at the University of Edinburgh. He has undertaken field research throughout
the world from places like New Mexico and Montana in the USA to Portugal,
Romania, Poland and China. Dr. Brusatte
has published many accessible books on dinosaurs including two of my
very favorites: A more technical book “Dinosaur
Paleobiology” (2012) and the awesome “Dinosaurs” (2008), a
wonderful “coffee table” book which is (appropriately) the physically largest
book ever published on dinosaurs. His website at https://sites.google.com/site/brusatte/home links to much more about his research studies and
publications as well as to the educational videos he has produced. Did I mention that he also was a consultant
to the “Walking with Dinosaurs” movie that was in theaters last year?
Here is the link to the personal comments that these paleontologists shared with us: http://facweb.northseattle.edu/tbraziunas/geol106tb_canvas/studentquestions_responses.pdf
Thanks for your reporting back to them! Dr. B.
19 comments:
Wow! What an honor to have all of our questions answered by these awesome paleontologists! I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the responses. I would like to thank everyone for taking the time and careful consideration in their responses. I would like to personally thank Dr. Mary Schweitzer for responding to my question. I am personally thrilled as I find her research amazing and am so excited to attend her lecture at UW this Friday! I know she worked with Jack Horner who I am very fond of as well. I grew up in Havre, Montana and know the Montana area very well and I know they have both spent much time prospecting there! I also loved Mary’s response to Jacob’s question regarding evolution. Once again thanks you to everyone for your time and wonderful responses!
Thank you all the professional paleontologists for the great responses, and I have learnt a lot by reading them. I found one interesting question asked if they were chased by a wild animal or not. Dr. David and Dr Jerry provided the stories and i enjoyed reading them. Dr. Jerry said that people working in Canadian Arcic were trained to use a rifle because polar bears are common in that area. The dig trips are dangerous, but they are also a very good life experiences. Once again, thank you Tim for such an interesting question and all the paleontologists for all the responses.
What a neat experience, to have your question asked by real paleontologist. It was a pleasure to read all the different answers to the students questions. A special thanks to Dr. Mary Schweitzer and Dr. Stephen Brusatte for answering my question. Without a doubt there are still dinosaur fossils to be found. I appreciated how Dr. Stephen Brusatte conveyed that I could find a fossil and after I did I could send it to a lab to be researched by scientist in that field. You just never know what you might find if your hiking through some mountain terrain and you happen to come across something magical.
I feel so honored to have been a part of this, and to have my question directly answered by someone I have read so many things about. It is a validating feeling. I also wish I had the opportunity to ask questions later on in the class, because I do feel like I know so much more than at the time of those questions. Thank you Dr. B for making this happen, and thank you to all of the paleontologists who took the time to answer our questions!
Thank you all so much for your wonderful contributions, and giving us your personal thoughts on the questions we asked! I am sure I can speak on behalf of all of us that we are very grateful to have such insightful responses, no doubt some of the questions were pretty good ones, too!
I am particularly interested in Mary Schweitzer's responses, because I am very interested in knowing more about her discoveries with organic tissues in fossils! Undoubtedly the lecture at Burke tonight will provide some fantastic information on the current events of paleontology.
Thank you so much for making this happen! What an awesome blog!
Talk about our textbook coming to life, Dr. B! Thanks for reaching out like that and thanks to Dr. Mary Schweitzer for taking the time to respond to my immature question (honestly didn't think anyone would).
Having read up on theropods in our textbook after I raised the question, it's no longer a surprise to know that we have definitive proof that T-Rex's skeleton is really his. He was a solitary animal so it seems unlikely that his bones would be mixed up with others. Thanks everyone!
I’m so excited the Dr. Mary Schweitzer answered my question! What a great collection of responses from people with the inside scoop. I appreciated how honest Mary was when talking about some of the complications inherent in her research including making sponsors happy and doing things outside her comfort-zone to keep her work going. I can’t imagine the dealing with the expectations of people or institutions handing over millions of dollars for what might be seen as “controversial”. I admire all of the work she does to forward the science of paleontology. The other responses my fellow classmates got were just as delightfully insightful. I can’t believe how giddy it made me to know that some very famous scientists still care about individual students.
Thanks to all for taking the time to respond to our humble blog!
I found the respect that Dr. Fastovsky mentions (handling fossils with the utmost respect and only using land with permission) to be incredibly important! Im sure that in the short term this may cause some problems (not being able to access areas and possibly having to relocate) but keeps the major issues out of the picture (run-ins with the law for trespassing, etc).
Thanks again!
Well who would have thought we would get the awesome opportunity to hear from individuals (paleontologists) who get to see the things we have been reading, talking and learning about! I am pleased to be able to read the answers and expertise from these individuals. It is also extremely humbling for them to take the time to share with us. When you have great knowledge it really isn't helping anyone if you can't or won't share, so this is pretty fantastic. Dr. B., you rock for having such a network :) Really cool stuff.
Special thanks to both Dr David Fastovsky and Dr Jerry Harris for taking the time to respond to my question plus other. As well as all the other paleontologists answering the other questions, it really means a lot and never before have had this happen in a class.
I like David’s response of just dropping it (dealing with fossils that are sacred) and not negotiating and letting it be and move on, even if his colleagues want to continue. Also with wanting to be prepared for this when going to a dig site.
Dr Jerry’s insight from the U of T at Austin is great “Navajos believe (as I am told) that the remains of the dead, human or not, should remain buried” he goes on to say that there was a negotiation and they are pulling out great fossils.
Again, big thanks to these people taking time out for us.
*a tip of the hat
Oh my gosh, this is amazing! I'm so honored to have had my question and our class's questions answered by some big names in paleontology.
First of all, my question had to do with there being a "holy grail" of dinosaur specimen. Dr. Mary Schweitzer provided a great response in that a lot of "holy grails" have already been found! I thought in general, she provided some awesome responses. I particularly liked both her and Dr. Stephen Brusatte's responses to Kim's question about how many dinosaurs there are left to discover. One dinosaur a week is so awesome to think about. No wonder you had us look for current events in the dinosaur world, Dr. B. It really is constantly changing.
I also liked your response to Lei's question, Dr. B. I wonder if we will ever discover the ONE true common ancestor of all dinosaurs.
Anyways, thanks so much to all of the paleontologists who contributed to this. I really enjoyed reading it all.
What a wonderful and overwhelming experience! I love how all of the answers were so diverse and honest to our questions. Thank you so much for taking the time from your busy lives! DNA sequence data will always be on my radar moving forward and I feel fortunate know put so much humanity in the context of paleontology, a field that is categorized often in a single story.
Thank you Dr. B for arranging to have our questions put out there for some of the paleontologists to answer. I appreciate Drs. Schweitzer, Fastovsky, Harris, Brusatte, and (Dr.) Atterholt for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer our questions. I enjoyed reading about their personal experiences and advice. There's the struggle to get money for the research, dealing with the hazards of being isolated, diplomacy, beautiful foreign worlds and the excitement of hope in finding a piece of the puzzle that will further our knowledge by leaps and bounds. Dr. Schweitzer's answer to my question reminded me that unfortunately politics do get into every corner and her statement of 'not everyone wants to know the truth' sums up many a road block.
Thank you Dr. B for arranging to have our questions put out there for some of the paleontologists to answer. I appreciate Drs. Schweitzer, Fastovsky, Harris, Brusatte, and (Dr.) Atterholt for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer our questions. I enjoyed reading about their personal experiences and advice. There's the struggle to get money for the research, dealing with the hazards of being isolated, diplomacy, beautiful foreign worlds and the excitement of hope in finding a piece of the puzzle that will further our knowledge by leaps and bounds. Dr. Schweitzer's answer to my question reminded me that unfortunately politics do get into every corner and her statement of 'not everyone wants to know the truth' sums up many a road block.
I would like to say how awesome it is to have our questions answered by experts in the field of paleontology. Thank you to all five for making time and taking an interest in our learning. With a special thanks to Dr. Mary Schweitzer for answering the question I asked for week 5. There was so much insight into the experiences they all faced in the field.
The part that I enjoyed reading the most was the interview with Dr. Jerry Harris. Here is my favorite part from that interview where Dr. Harris says "I don’t know why children are fascinated by dinosaurs, though I really like Dave Barry’s explanation that (paraphrasing) “dinosaurs are much bigger and more powerful than mommy and daddy, and wouldn’t have to put up with being told to eat their vegetables or go to bed…they would just flick their tails and swat mommy and daddy through mommy- and daddy-shaped holes in the wall.” I thought this was hilarious mostly because I had those very same thoughts as a kid!
Dr. Mary Schweitzer article was very interesting with how she was one of the first people to find tissue to the T-Rex remains. I also want to thank all the Paleontologist for taking time out of there busy schedules to answer our questions.
Ian
I am slightly disappointed in the number of wild animals that they've seen on digs that chased them out, but it was cool of them to share anyway. And as I've seen a sunset in the desert before I agree that it is one of the more beautiful things I've ever seen. I wonder what it was like to be trained with a rifle in case a polar bear comes by. And Dr. Jerry Harris mentioned thunderstorms, which I love, and I realized that Seattle does not have them all that often.
I wanted to say thank you to all the scientists that took the time to answer some questions from us beginners.
I really want to thank all these scientists who honor us by answering our questions.It is really great to read all this from them. i do not have any preference about their interventions for the simple reason that they are all edifying for me.thanks again
I would like to thank all of the paleontologists for taking the time to answer questions from our blog; it was very enjoyable to read the answers. I found Dr. Stephen Brusatte’s answer to Kim’s question of “From your professional and personal opinion, do you believe that we have a chance to discover a new dinosaur species” very intriguing; he answered “About 50 new species are being described each year, so that means that once a week (on average) somebody around the world is finding a totally new type of dinosaur”. I knew that new dinosaur species were being found, but I did not know that they were being found at that fast of a rate; I would love to find a new dinosaur species and be able to name it. Also, a big thank you to Dr. David Fastovsky, Dr. Jerry Harris and Dr. Jessie Atterholt for responding to the question I posted; I have been interested in volunteering at an excavation site and your answers have helped me get a sense of what it would be like, so thank you.
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