So, you want to become a fossil?

Palaeo Jam

So, you want to become a fossil? Good luck with that! There’s a whole sequence of things that need to take place in order for that to happen, and in this episode of Palaeo Jam, we explore those steps, and how unlikely it is that you will be able to complete all of them.

Recorded underground in Blanch Cave, in the Naracoorte Caves, South Australia, this episode sees host Michael Mills in conversation with PhD candidate Nerita Turner. Nerita’s work focuses on the modes of accumulation of large animal remains in caves, and we explore the unlikelihood becoming a fossil through the lens of her work. In order to become a fossil in a cave, you need to get into a cave in the first place. How does this impact on the size and kinds of animals that might then become fossils within a cave?

During the conversation Nerita describes the fossil record as “Infamously incomplete”. So, how incomplete is it? Consider the following… There are 1400 dinosaur species of dinosaurs that have been discovered and named across the entire Mesozoic, while right now there are around 11 000 species of living dinosaurs, in birds. How many dinosaur species lived across the entire 186 million year period of the Mesozoic? We will never know.

Of course, what we do know, is truly remarkable, and a testament to the work of so many. Palaeontology is able to provide us with some remarkable insights into past lives. to uncover past lives. It is important, however, to understand, that we get to see will only ever be a tiny glimpse of the extraordinary natural history, of this most astonishing planet.

Nerita Turner is a PhD Candidate at the University of Adelaide. Her research focuses on the modes of accumulation of large animal remains in caves, with a particular focus on fossil sites within the Naracoorte Caves region.

You can find Nerita on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nerita_turner

Check out the following article, by Nerita and Dr Elizabeth Reed…

“Using historical research to constrain the provenance and age of the first recorded collection of extinct Pleistocene large mammal fossils from the Naracoorte Caves, South Australia.”

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/M7JARRBWBXBWDCFDGIIY/full?target=10.1080/03721426.2023.2188442

Michael occasionally pops in to the strange place that is Twitter at @heapsgood https://twitter.com/Heapsgood

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At Palaeo Jam, we now have an Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/palaeo_jam