#Paleontology job

[strangebiology]

Paleontology Job Opening!

If anyone is looking for a paleontology job, this one in the Green River Formation in Wyoming is hiring! It's a lot of 52-MYA fish. TONS of fish. Very occasionally, there's other stuff like bats, birds, and very early horse ancestors.

$19/hour

Full time with federal benefits

App due November 25, 2024 or when they receive 80 applications (whichever comes first, so hurry!) Requirements:

One year of experience required (paid or unpaid, professional or volunteer) in "the fields of paleontology, geophysics, or geology; assisting fossil preparation, field work in paleontology, paleontology research, paleontology database management, paleontology monitoring, paleo art, or specimen management of fossils; assisting with natural resources research projects; compiling and analyzing scientific data into reports; operating complex sampling, monitoring, and laboratory equipment; or using computer programs such as databases to compile, store, retrieve, analyze and report resource management data. Experience as a laboratory mechanic or in a trade or craft may be credited as specialized experience when the work was performed in close association with physical scientists or other technical personnel and provided intensive knowledge of appropriate scientific principles, methods, techniques, and precedents."

Successful completion of at least a full 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree (a) with major study in an appropriate field of physical science, such as paleontology, geology, earth science, earth history or (b) that included at least 24 semester hours in any combination of courses such as physical science, engineering, or any branch of mathematics except for financial and commercial mathematics. 

I don't know if paleontologists usually have to have higher levels of education, but I think this job is called "physical technician (paleontology)" to evade that.

If you're interested, go ahead and send in an application sooner rather than later. You can always withdraw later.

This is very close to me, so if you have questions about life here (that aren't easily Googlable) I'm happy to help! It's quite rural. If you're wondering what the rental market looks like, here's a Facebook group where people post rentals. I'm mostly JTM (just the messenger) but I may have a little more insight.

[alphynix]

Crassigyrinus scoticus was an early tetrapod from the early Carboniferous Period, known from ancient coal swamps of Scotland, Nova Scotia, and West Virginia between about 350 and 330 million years ago.

Around 2m long (6'6"), it had an elongated streamlined body with tiny vestigial-looking forelimbs, and a pelvis that wasn't well-connected to its spine – features that suggest it had re-evolved a fully aquatic lifestyle at a time when its other early tetrapod relatives were specializing more and more for life on land.

Fossils of its skull are all rather crushed, and traditionally its head shape has been reconstructed as unusually tall and narrow. But a more recent study using CT scanning has instead come up with a wider flatter shape more in line with other early tetrapods.

Its mouth also had a very wide gape and a strong bite, and it may have occupied an ecological role similar to that of modern crocodilians, lurking in wait to ambush passing prey.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Twitter | Patreon

[raskolotlegs]

Every earth science major I’ve met is the coolest person ever, by way of being the type of person to choose a difficult major despite it not assuring financial success, out of a genuine desire to do good for the world

[invertebutch]

Giant eurypterid body pillow is back in stock and it's currently taking all my willpower not to buy it

[eldaryadiary]

I was quite excited to finally watch Life on our planet. 10 seconds in, already disappointed - upset, even.

Sharks, living fossils.

As a paleontologist, hearing the words living fossil hurts. They souldn't be used, especially in a scientific context.

A fossil is, by definition, dead - usually an organism that has been dead for millions of years.

" Living fossils " has been used to talk about living organisms - extant species - that look very similar to their fossil - extinct - ancestors (coelacanths, sharks, dragonflies,...). It implies that these organisms have not evolved for millions of years (reminder : all currently living organisms are exactly as evolved, we've all been evolving for the same amount of time since LUCA). It is used by ignorant journalists and, most importantly, by creationists who are using "living fossils" as a proof that evolution isn't real.

So, yeah, you could say it's just a journalistic oxymoron. But using it when adressing an audience is hurtful to evolutionary biology / paleontology.

The prefered term is panchronic species :)

[hasellia]

Tierzoo is making Death Battle with prehistoric creatures, I can't see this backfiring at all!

[hotniatheron]

listening to this dude talk about paleontology on youtube like you are so sexy.....you are so studious and excited about trilobites, please tell me about the carboniferous period over dinner

[captain-lovelace]

🔥 Paleontology

Silly opinion: the fact that the paleontology tag on tumblr is “palaeoblr” sucks. Like I know it’s to avoid interfering with paleo diet blogs using “paleoblr” but also we deserve that tag and they don’t

Slightly more serious opinion: While I understand that making an argument for why your research matters is important in science, I also just. Am so so tired of justifying my entire field of study. People don’t see paleontology as immediately applicable to their lives (which is unfortunate given that understanding the history of life on earth is hugely important, but I’m not going to get into that), and I don’t work in a particularly “entertaining” part of paleontology either, so there’s a lot of mainstream ignorance on a scale from a well-meaning lack of knowledge (which is fine) to disdain and dismissal (which sucks). I would kill to never answer the question “why do you care”, as asked by someone who doesn’t care, again. Unfortunately, though, that’s not how the world works.

[warcrimesimulator]

every so often hit with the desire to become a volcanologist

[alphynix]

Strange Symmetries #08: A Different Diplocaulus

With its bizarre boomerang-shaped skull, Diplocaulus is probably the most iconic ancient amphibian. (It even inspired the design of the pokémon Dragapult!) It was part of the lepospondyls, a diverse collection of early tetrapods mainly found in Europe and North America between the Early Carboniferous and the mid-Permian, about 350-270 million years ago.

But one species hung on a bit longer into the late Permian, about 259-254 million years ago, and this late-surviving lepospondyl was perhaps the oddest of them all.

Diplocaulus minimus was the only lepospondyl known from the supercontinent of Gondwana, found in what is now Morocco in northern Africa. About 70cm long, around half of which was its long tail, it had the distinctive elongated skull of a diplocaulid – but in a bizarrely asymmetrical shape.

The left prong of its skull was long and tapering, but the right was shorter and more rounded. This doesn't seem to have been due to individual deformity or distortion of the fossil material, since more than one skull has been found with the same features, but the reason for such a striking amount of asymmetry in this species is unknown.

Diplocaulids' head shapes are thought to have acted as hydrofoils, providing lift while they were swimming. Perhaps Diplocaulus minimus' much more wonky skull means this species wasn't relying on that hydrodynamic function as much as its relatives, and something else was going on with its ecology.

…Although, that weird head does bear a surprising resemblance to a proposed asymmetric "flying wing" aircraft design from the 1950s, so it might have worked better for underwater flight than it seems at first glance.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Twitter | Patreon

[good-night-space-kid]

Wait what do you mean I’m actually a paleontologist that’s real

[billyshakesp]

One for his Lyctors

Something that will never cease to amaze me is how well TazMuir writes the Lyctors. So I'm making it your problem ;). CW: Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth.

Let's start off by stating the obvious: the Lyctors are old. Whenever I mention "the Lyctors" in this post, I'm referring to Jod's original crew of eight Lyctors, and, more specifically, Augustine the First, Mercymorn the First, Gideon the First, and Cytherea the First. Those four are the ones we have met at the time of writing this. And they are old. They are each ten thousand years old. However, ten thousand is a number which may not mean much to you since you (presumably) have not even reached the age of two hundred. To quickly contextualise how colossal a number ten thousand years is, just remember that written history only extends as far back as five thousand years. In not so many words, my bbygirls are not actually very baby, and are, in fact, fucking ancient.

We, as humans, do not have any living reference for a ten-thousand-year-old being, aside from an occasional tree or a sponge, or perhaps a condiment bottle so deep in the back of your fridge that it would warrant a paleontological dig, but I digress. So how does Muir write her Lyctors so effectively?

Vicious dehumanisation

One of the most striking things about the Lyctors is the dehumanisation they have suffered over the past myriad. The first thing I noticed while diving into this subject (and by diving into, I mean I took a long shower one day and pissed off my family) is that the Lyctors do not have last names, and their first names function more as titles. Furthermore, the Lyctors are referred to as the hands, fingers, and gestures of the Emperor. In short, the readers and the characters of the Locked Tomb, including the Lyctors themselves, don't see the Lyctors as individuals anymore. Rather, their sole purpose in life has been reduced to just a soldier of the Emperor. Muir really shows the effects of the Lyctors' age; they are ancient, to the point where they have lost their own humanity and the only reason for their existence that they still hold onto is to serve the Emperor.

2. Their morals

Are extremely fucked up. Like, I cannot emphasise enough how fucked up the Lyctors are as people. Their morals are twisted in a way which can only come about from ten thousand years, rotting in deep space. For example, G1deon probably makes like 56 attempts on Harrow's life, and he doesn't give a second thought about it. When the other Lyctors find him, they don't really condemn his actions the way a human would expect another human to condemn attempted murder. To the Lyctors, life and death are both abstract concepts: life has lost all its meaning to the Lyctors, and thus, they do not see value in others' lives, especially the life of another Lyctor. Especially the life of a "Half-Lyctor." Additionally, Cytherea's plot to destroy the Nine Houses, while technically noble in its intent, is just insanely messed up. Yet, it makes sense in the context of her being a Lyctor, and, furthermore, someone who has suffered abuse for the last ten thousand years. She wants to bring justice to Jod, and for her, a small genocide is completely insubstantial. These people do not value nor understand life the way a human would, because they are unbelievably old.

3. The ways they break

Every one of the original Lyctors we see has a point in which they break, and when they break, we see a glimpse of the humanity peeking through. I could do character analysis on all of the Lyctors, but that would take a really long time. In short, we, the reader, get to see shreds of the people the Lyctors once were, and yet this only demonstrates just how shattered they are under the inexorable weight of time (yes, I use inexorable excessively now that I've read these books). Muir feeds us these pieces of the Lyctors' former selves to show just how buried that former self is.

In short, Muir does such a good job writing her Lyctors. They really are some of the most beautifully tragic characters I've ever read. I'm really just compiling some of the elements which I think Muir used to achieve the effect of "this character is bloody ancient." Feel free to add anything you feel that I missed (and I'm sure I missed a lot of stuff), and thanks for reading!

[basoogil]

couldn't reblog fast enough i am literally all of these things wahoo

I was being cancelled because apparently it was classist to put feathers on dinosaurs.

Both dream me and irl me were very confused.

[phantoms-world-and-more]

Ellie takes an interest in paleontology, her main obsession is Discovery as in learning new things and unlocking their secrets. She starts reading and studying as much as possible. She eventually gets a part time job at a museum in Gotham since she's fully stable while going to school for paleontology, archeology, and biological science all the while using Vlad's money to pay for everything since he decided to be less of an ass and give her enough so she won't end up with crippling student loan debt. While she enjoys teaching people about the past of the creatures that once roamed the planet, she feels that modern science is a little behind since the realms are full of ghost dinosaurs and other prehistoric Flora and Fauna. So what does Ellie do? She goes out and buys small lab stuff, uses intangiblity to get fossilized bone marrow samples from the dinosaurs in the museum and attempts the Jurassic Park them via cloning on her free days. Needless to say she accidentally catches the attention of the bats for an unrelated incident (stealing tires off the batmoble as a dare from a classmate) and now they're thinking this college student is becoming a new rouge.

.

[nazrigar]

Weretober 2024 - Komodo Dragon and Marine Iguana

Some of Myles' lecturers. They're both pretty important people in Myles' life, be it as people he looks up to or because he just loves being one of their students.

Mary Mantell is a respected woman of many talents and the lady that basically revolutionized how people see dragons, among other contributions to literature, paleontology and archeological studies. She is a professor of draconology.

A prim and proper lady that, while at first glance seems aloof, she keeps her friendships close.

Miguel Guerrero is Myles' primary ecology professor, and a bundle of anxiety. He loves and dreads his jobs in equal measure. Loves it because he gets to share stories and pass down knowledge and explore nature. Dreads it because he's smol in comparison to his much more physically powerful students, who, at a whim, probably will throw down with a wild, territorial animal. Myles did it before, and the memory of Myles vs. a Cassowary in Basilisk form remains fresh in his mind.