Saturday, June 18, 2016

Migrations!

My sister came up to visit for a couple of days so that she could see the museum's planetarium and meet some of the astronomy and physics people. When she wasn't nerd-ing with them about things that are (literally) way over my head, we went out and were the ultimate tourists- Times Square, Chinatown, Brooklyn Bridge, and of course the Statue of Liberty.
Nowadays, if you're cheap tourists like us (or even if you aren't cheap), the best view of the Statue of Liberty is the half hour trip on the free ferry to Staten Island and back. They're pretty used to the occasional (frequent) tourist with a camera hanging over the railing, staring at what they see every day, being excited over a statue that's been standing in the same place every day for years.

Not so long ago in comparison to the age of the Earth, folks coming over from the other side of the Atlantic by boat had to go through NYC first. Many came hoping for work, to make their way in a new world, and to find something better than they left behind. Although I haven't had much luck tracing our family history, I wonder from some of the stories our great grandmother told us whether some of our family passed through Ellis Island, right next to Lady Liberty. Names got mixed up, and not everyone made it through the medical exams and questions needed to pass through. But people tried, because this is where they wanted to come. The boats would've been more packed, and cheers erupted as the smell of salt water gave way and the statue came into sight. It was the first view of America.
OK, OK, you say. It's a paleontology blog, don't start bragging about your country. Actually, Bea (my little triceratops friend) got really excited to see this. Her ancestors actually came from another continent too. Back in the age of dinosaurs, there was a connection between Asia and North America. My first impression of one of my professors was at a talk she gave about her research on dinosaurs that traveled from Asia to America this way. Cretaceous fossils found in the Midwestern states that we normally think of as 'ours' are directly descended from ones found in Asia, which suggests that there was a migration of dinosaurs from there that replaced those that were on the land that's now our country before that. There was no statue to greet them, and it was a much slower process, but the bones- just like the statue- have their own story to tell. We're just still teasing it apart.




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My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.