The Local Paleontologists and Fossil Record

  In the 1950’s and 60’s when this instructor was in graduate school there were several hundred paleontologists in the U.S. most of whom were micro paleontologists selling their skills for oil exploration. After the domestic (U.S.) oil industry fell apart and the focus for petroleum became the Middle East, paleontology in North America was less popular as a specialty for geologists and the community began to decline rapidly as our members retired, changed specialties or died. In Oregon in the mid 1960’s there were two to three paleontologists working at each of the three major university geology departments, one each in the smaller colleges, a half dozen in the oceanography department at Oregon State University, one or two in the state department of geology and mineral industries in Portland and another half dozen living in the state and working as professional consultants. Most of the latter group were doing microfossil analysis of oil well samples for drill sites all over the world. (Around 20 to 25 total.) Today there are some 3 to 4 retired inactive paleontologists and 4 who are in academic positions. Oregon enjoys a fantastic fossil record of plants, invertebrates and mammals going back 400 million years largely because of the unique set of geologic circumstances in the state’s geologic history. With the paucity of active workers many of the most interesting questions in paleontology are going unstudied and unanswered. Task: Using libraries, University and College facilities and the internet student will research for their own state (province) or area the available population of professional paleontologists. The list will include as much as possible the area of interest of each professional (specialty) and their present status (active, retired etc) as well as a little of their education and present position (museum curator, college instructor etc). With the same research tools (internet etc.) the student will create a very general (two to three page) summary of the fossiliferous strata and fossil faunas and flora the state is known for. This latter summary may be easily accomplished by looking in the local library for books published on the geology and paleontology of the state.        

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