Time Scavengers

Sarah and Jen here –

Our local museum, the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, has a rotating small exhibit in their permanent geology gallery. They often contact the graduate students to showcase current research within our department (Earth and Planetary Sciences).

Our lab group (at the time) had three students, Sarah, myself (Jen), and Ryan. Each of us work on a different type of echinoderm (sea stars, sea urchins, sand dollars). Sarah works on these strange creatures called diploporitans, Ryan works on heart urchins, and I work on blastoids! We did an exhibit showcasing each of the different things that we do with our fossils. This ranges from finding new fossils on field excursions, visiting museums to study their collections, or running new experiments. Even though we study different organisms from different time periods, we all share a similar goal: to better understand these animals so that we can better assess relationships through time.