Pittsburghers celebrate Fossil Day

Scientists across the country will celebrate the first annual National Fossil Day today in… Scientists across the country will celebrate the first annual National Fossil Day today in conjunction with Earth Week and Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Paleontology Month.

The U.S. National Park Service and the American Geological Institute created the event to promote appreciation of fossils’ value in the scientific community.

Along with Fossil Day, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology will finish its 70th annual conference this afternoon at the David Lawrence Convention Center, located Downtown. More than 1,000 scientists are scheduled to attend the conference, which started Sunday and ends today, according to the society’s website.

Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Pitt, plans to attend this afternoon’s portion of the conference and believes the study of fossils is fundamental to learning about the natural world.

Schwartz said fossils are a unique source of information on evolution, the picture of evolution and the element of time — information that cannot be provided by solely studying living forms.

“And the other thing is their existence can’t be denied, and neither can the evidence they provide that evolution is something that occurs in the natural world,” he said.

Professor Charles Jones, a lecturer and adviser in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science, believes that paleontology should be of central importance to a science education.

“We are living things and paleontology is the history of life. It tells us where we came from and there are a lot of twists and turns in the story that is revealed only from paleontology,” Jones said.

Schwartz’s current research is mostly concentrated in evolutionary and theoretical biology, but used to consist of early fossil primates. His most recent study — an analysis on virtually all of the potential human fossils — was among the first research of its kind.

Today, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology will hold an open forum discussion during the lunch hour. The topic will be the U.S. Paleontological Resource Preservation Act of 2009 that President Barack Obama signed into law last year.

The legislation is designed to protect paleontological resources on federal land using up-to-date scientific principles and expertise.

The celebration of all things fossilized will not end today: October is also Paleontology Month at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The museum will offer workshops, lectures and hands-on activities focused on paleontology throughout the month.

Admission to the museum is free with a valid Pitt student ID.

Paleontology Discovery Day — the largest event held in observance of Paleontology month — occurred last Saturday, said Leigh Kish, communications and media relations manager of the Carnege Museum of Natural History.

The event was oriented toward families and children, according to the museum’s website, but there are a number of attractions for college-aged people.

“We also have our Benedum Hall of Geology, PaleoLab and Dinosaurs in Their time, all permanent exhibitions that include fossils,” Kish said.

The University Honors College was given a 4,700-acre Eastern Wyoming land grant back in 2005, which has been used to augment the study of paleontology at Pitt.

Jones believes that field experience provides an essential tool to supplement classroom learning and breaks the mental model that the human mind tends to construct by oversimplifying complex concepts.

“If you actually go out in the field and you start collecting the data you realize two things: One, life seems more complicated — the reality, the world, whatever you’re studying is more complicated than you would’ve imagined,” Jones said.  “And two, there’s often limits to what you can extract from the rock record, and if you are actually faced with those limits it gives you much more appreciation of what you’re trying to pursue.”

Paleontology and the evolution of life is a science that is capable of touching more closely to people since “Where did we come from?” is a central human question, and therefore much more engaging, Jones said.