AROUND TOWN
We started university with 50 people on the course but there are now less than 20. Many quickly realised it was harder than they thought and that it’s not all about dinosaurs – we even have to study fossilised pollen.
Ichthyosaur Vertebra
Only in his late 20s himself, Dean encouraged Emily to weather the long education path ahead and get experience out into the field to ready her for a very competitive career.
“When I met Dean, he introduced me to Fizzy, an Ichthyosaur who had been hiding in the museum’s 12,000 specimen collections since the 1910s. They thought it was a plaster cast but Dean told me how he spent five years researching to discover it was actually a real fossil, and a new species that he’d uncovered.
“It was from here that I knew I wanted to do this job. He encouraged me to start writing and I’ve had three articles published in palaeontology magazines, even one in America.”
After school, Emily attended Thomas Rotherham College where she studied Geology, Geography, History and Applied Science and an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) ; she left with amazing grades of DS*AABB, gaining the University of Leeds Geology Prize for being the only student to gain an A in geology.
Emily also won a Young Darwin Scholarship in 2014 through the Fields Study Council
where she had the opportunity to go back to the birthplace of natural history on a residential to Darwin’s home in Preston Montford.
Her time at TRC laid the foundations for her commitment to the field, taking part in expeditions and trips away for geology digs.
“On one trip for Geology, we were walking back to the minibus when I saw a small rock with a slight pattern on it. I dug it up and it was huge, but covered in mud. I cleaned it up when I got home and it was a fossil coral known as Favosites – even my tutor didn’t realise what it was at first.”
While many people probably think of palaeontologists as dinosaur hunters, the industry is a complex and varied discipline with a scientific epicentre.
“We started university with 50 people on the course but there are now less than 20. Many quickly realised it was harder than they thought and that it’s not all about dinosaurs – we even have to study fossilised pollen. “
Before her final year begins this September, Emily has spent her summer weeks carrying out dissertation fieldwork where she is looking at ammonites on the North Yorkshire Coast.
“During my project, I’m investigating why
the ammonites died, whether by natural death or predation, and what minerals replaced them during the fossilisation process and why.”
With the rocks at Whitby thought to be around 180 million years old, Emily and her parents spent weeks searching various beaches along the coastline looking for fossils.
“I’ve got them well trained in what to look for. They even cancelled their summer cruise to help me. I also often go fossil collecting with my partner Jacob. We met at college but he’s gone on to study Geology at Derby University. He’s the expert on minerals, but anything fossil related – I’ve got this.”
After university, Emily hopes to visit the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre in America and gain hands-on palaeontological experience with the largest and most unique fossil collections in the world.
“More than anything, I’d love to teach and share my enthusiasm. My dad is a teaching assistant at Wath C of E Primary School and I’ve visited his classes a few times to talk about fossils during their rocks and minerals topic. The children absolutely love it and I’ve even inspired a few budding palaeontologists there.”
Harpoceras falciferum ammonite
Fragment of a large ammonite called Phylloceras heterophyllum
Belemnite
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