In this month’s Weird Science, PRE’s Annette Weston looks into the much-revered field of paleontology, made famous by Hollywood, but perhaps even less glamorous than you might think.
Dinosaurs and the science of studying them have fascinated people for at least a century.
The Lost World is a 1925 American silent fantasy monster adventure film adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel of the same name. The Flintstones, which debuted in 1960, was a staple for GEN-X kids back in the day. The Jurassic Park series drew in millions, beginning with the first namesake movie in 1993.
But as much as the topic of paleontology has been explored, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in uncovering the ancient past that most people aren’t privy to – according to a North Carolina expert.
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North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences‘ Paleontology Lab Manager and chief rock licker Eric Lund said, “One of the things that we do to be able to distinguish if something is a fossil or a rock is we’ll lick them. And the reason that works is, obviously, your tongue is wet from saliva, and fossils tend to be porous, so when you stick the bone on your tongue those pores will suck up the saliva and the bone will stick to your tongue.”
It’s a topic I completely unwittingly – almost against my will – learned much about when my preschool-age son decided years ago that he wanted to dedicate his life to dinosaur bones and live in a tent in the desert.
“We do live in tents for months at a time,” Lund said, “So, we’ll set up sort of the main sort of our hub area with our big kitchen tent and our equipment tents, and then everyone will sort of disperse out into the area and set up their own little personal home, their own personal tents.”
So, the living arrangements aren’t 5-star hotel accommodations, but Lund said they can be a little more like glamping than rustic camping.
“I like to cook, so I’ll experiment with different recipes or things to make, and then I try to figure out a way to transition those out to the field,” he said, “But we do have a full kitchen, so we work hard and we try to eat well.”
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
But since most specimens are discovered far off the beaten path, away from civilization, he said sometimes they run out of things they need and can’t just run to the store to pick up more supplies – like water used to make the plaster “jacket” that protects the fossils while they’re being transported. So, they improvise with what they do have on hand, sometimes from that kitchen.
He said, “I can tell you that spoiled milk is no good as it will wet the plaster and you can make your mixture, but then you put it on and you’ve got a stinky jacket; and also with the Gatorade, there’s just too much salt in there and so the plaster tends not to set up, but you try to adapt to the things that you have around you.”
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The same goes for the protective cloth for the jacket. Lund said, “We’ve used everything from people who are willing to give up their pants or a shirt to be put into a jacket, to Delta blankets — those flight blankets that you used to get for free on planes. Now they sort of collect those away from you when you empty the plane.”
The airplane blankets were free – while supplies lasted – but he said the cheap option didn’t do the job all that well, “Because they’re designed to be hydrophobic so that when you spill your drink on yourself in a plane, then they’d sort of keep the drink off of you. So using airplane blankets doesn’t really work, but using jeans or cotton T-shirts does work well.”
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
Most people have heard about the Leave No Trace principles of visiting national parks and other natural areas best left undisturbed, and Lund said that’s a fundamental paleontologists also follow when taking a specimen from the field to the lab.
“Can’t use wheels, but we can drag it and so one of the things I’ve done in the past is we’ve gone to a junkyard and we’ve bought the hood off of an old car,” he explained. “Then you can put the fossil jacket on a hood, strap some ropes to it, and then sort of human mule it out.”
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Spending so much time far removed from civilization, without the comforts of home many of us take for granted, can be a dirty job.
I asked, “I have to assume then after you spent all those months out in the tent, maybe that that first shower when you get home is … kind of feels a little good?”
“Oh, it does,” Lund replied, “You know, we’re limited on resources like I said before so we don’t have a bunch of water to be able to sort of sponge bath ourselves. But we do find ways around showering. I think most of us have gone to buying a bunch of baby wipes and so we’ll do a baby wipe shower. But you’re right, that that first real shower when you get home and you can actually have hot water is probably one of the best things from returning from the field.”
For the record, that preschooler with dinosaur dreams is now a 30-something information technology – IT — manager. I guess living in a tent lost a little of its luster.
People can meet Lund and learn more about paleontology when they visit Dueling Dinosaurs at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The fossil contains the skeletons of two extinct animals— a tyrannosaur and a Triceratops, and Lund is among the scientists working to figure out how they came to be buried together 67-million years ago.
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