"There's nothing more fascinating than looking down a microscope and seeing
familiar, and sometimes not so familiar, objects magnified many times," says
paleontologist Godfrey Nowlan. "There's no luckier person than the person
who can make their passion their career."
There's no question that Nowlan has passion for his life's work.
"Paleontology is fun, thrilling and fascinating, but it's also hard work.
It's not 'easier' than the more traditional core science disciplines of physics,
chemistry, biology or geology. In many ways, paleontology is more difficult
than any other science. To be a good paleontologist you must know a great
deal about all of these fields. Paleontology is among the broadest of sciences."
Why fossils? "The physical evolution of the Earth's surface and the evolution
of the Earth's living organisms are intimately interlinked. Without the evolution
of organisms such as algae and cyanobacteria, the atmosphere would never have
become sufficiently oxygenated to support the many forms of life that have
developed."
Anita Brinckmann-Voss is a research associate at a major museum.
"The main motivation for going into the field isn't financial but, rather,
an intense curiosity about the past development of the landscape we see around
us every day," she says.
Jere Lipps of the Berkeley Paleontology Museum is also excited and passionate
about her work. "I particularly enjoy the combination of things that paleontology
has to offer -- from adventure and travel to a combination of different sciences
to graphic illustration and even sculpting to recreate these animals."
The goal of all these activities is the same -- fitting pieces into Earth's
evolutionary puzzle.
"It's a massive detective story," Lipps says. "You've got little pieces
and they're spread around the globe in museums and in specimens people don't
even know about, more than 150 million years of dinosaur evolution. You've
got to become encyclopedic with your knowledge of these bones. You've got
to know them upside down and backward. You forget and you learn again. You
take copious notes and photographs and follow any interesting lead. There's
so much going on in these bones. That's why I became a paleontologist."
A paleontologist's work and research doesn't stop once a fossil has been
extracted from the rock. The fruits of their fieldwork are picked over at
a laboratory equipped with CAT-scan reading computers, microbiological bone-study
labs, and even DNA extraction and analysis machines.
"In the past, all a paleontologist wanted to do was find the biggest fossil
he could and stick it in the museum. But I like to think of myself as a paleobiologist.
I'm interested in seeing dinosaurs not as these big monsters, but as animals
who were very successful inhabitants of this planet."
Paleontologists prize their finds as scarce clues to the Earth's history.
"It is a whole way of looking at life," says Brinckmann-Voss. "It can't
solve every problem, but it enforces intellectual discipline. And we've become
very intellectually undisciplined. Everything hasn't been discovered already.
We need people in the field to continue the work. My job is to make students
and other visitors to the museum see that science is fun. Even if most of
the museum visitors never think of paleontology again, they won't forget their
brush with science. All you can do is expose them."
Paleontologists remark often on the beauty of the fossils they find. But
aside from their artistic appeal, the fossils are invaluable as markers of
time.