What Got You Into Paleontology?

[The Speeding Carno]

Hey,

 

There are so many people on this forum, I was wondering how everyone got interested in paleontology!

 

Personally, Jurassic Park got me interested in dinosaurs and the Walking With Trilogy cemented it!

[Miocene_Mason]

Walking with Trilogy definitely started it for me, but then I lost intrest for a while, mistakenly thinking that there was nothing but the cliffs nearby. I later would take some online courses, and three (paleoanthropology, dinosaur ecosystems, and Antarctica) were paleontology related. Soon after that, I went on a fossil hunting trip to a place nearby and learned how to effectively use a geological map to find fossils. The rest is history...

[Ptychodus04]

My father started taking me collecting when I was 5. I lost interest (mostly due to adolescent conflict with said father) as a teen. Picked it back up at 21 (along with a renewed relationship with the patriarch) and never looked back.

 

Now, I don't get out collecting very often due to scheduling but I get to work on a lot of fossils doing prep work for individuals and as a volunteer for the Perot Museum.

[ynot]

My story is in the link at the bottom of My posts.

 

[Bguild]

I had a condition I suspect many young boys have... general dinosaur obsession. Jurassic Park and Walking with Dinosaurs came out when I was young and definitely peaked my interest. I remember when Walking with Dinosaurs premiered and my parents let me stay up late as a little kid to watch it.

 

My parents definitely played a role. They were the type of parents that would let me play videos games, but they had to be educational (up to a certain age). I remember my parents frequently taking me to a science store at the mall that has since closed. This is where I started to acquire the beginnings of my fossil and gem collection. Family vacations often involved stops at Ruggles Mine in New Hampshire, or cracking rocks looking for Herkimer diamonds in New York. My parents definitely fed into my interest. Odd considering they couldn't care less about fossils/geology, but they were certainly good sports when I was young and were excited that I was so interested in science.

 

School also played a part in my interest. In second grade our school system covered dinosaurs and fossils.. etc. One day to aid in our learning my teacher brought in fossils for all of us (I still have mine to this day). She personally had a real interest in fossils and did a really did a great job in peaking our interest in fossils and the ancient times from which they came. When my teacher was young she was given a copy of "The Fossil Book" while on a hunt during a vacation out west. At the end of our unit she held me after class and gave me her copy of the book that she had gotten as a girl. She wrote in it "To the most enthusiastic budding paleontologist I know." and gifted me her book. Probably because I was able to answer all of her quiz questions on dinosaurs before she could even finish asking the question . I remember constantly flipping through the pages of this book as a kid, obsessing over all of the ancient creatures in it. 

 

 

My story has many parts to it, but it can all be traced back to older role models of mine stimulating my interest. Fast forward to today... I'm 25 years old with a business/marketing degree. I currently work in the marketing field, but my love of fossils and the long ago times from which they came still remains. My fiery passion for science in general never subsided!

 

This picture of my sister and I as a kid at the Natural History Museum in New York pretty much sums it all up. My sister was also a good sport when it came to my dinosaur shenanigans!

[Troodon]

TV programming was very limited in my childhood but National Geographic Mag. exposed me to fossils.    My father would also take me to the N.Y. Museum of Natural History which developed my interest in Dinosaurs.   Later in life, my wife who studied geology and started taking me to fossil and mineral shows which rekindled my interest in fossils.   Have developed those interest and enjoyed every minute.

[caldigger]

Well I was already far into adulthood when the "Jurassic Park" films came out. I have always been deeply into earths exploration from the earliest moments of childhood. Any trip our family went on it was only moments after stopping someplace that I would quickly disappear into the thicket and off I went.  The earliest memories of specific fossil hunting I believe I was around four or five and our family, all seven of us, went to Wyoming and did fish fossil hunting ( that was back when you could just pull over to the side of the road and have at it). 

Needless to say, I have casually collected fossils all my life. Most of the finds unfortunately, have been lost to time and moves.

It has been only in the last four years or so that I have really allowed it to get into my blood.

Bguild- That book was the first Paleontology book I got!

[PFOOLEY]

For me, it was finding this...

 

 

...hard to believe that was ten years ago. 

[JohnBrewer]

I remember at around 11 years old walking with my parents along Charmouth beach (Jurassic, UK). My mother found a chunk of a pretty large ammonite (she still has it) and myself and one of my younger siblings found quite a few belemnites amongst other bits. As a kid the magic was

 

a- animals/plants etc can turn to stone and

 

b- they're millions of years old, a period of time that is difficult to understand for adults let alone children.

 

Some of my first Charmouth fossils I've kept and have bought a few cheap fossils while on various holidays just as curios with no real info on them. 

 

Visting Charmouth again 40 years later (two years ago I'm 51 now) with my wife and youngest daughter (Violet, my avatar) rekindled the fossil bug and wanting to show Vi the magic I experienced all those years ago.  

 

Finding this forum was inspiring too. The friendliness, help and knowledge shared here is second to none.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

A YMCA counselor in Cincinnati hosted a daily nature and paleo session during my summer camp years circa 1980-81.  We spent most of the time flipping Ordovician rocks in the creek that ran through the Blue Ash YMCA.  Misspent youth, education, girls, and an addiction to deer hunting intervened for decades, eventually landing me in the fossil mecca of Texas.  

 

About 10 years ago, I tracked down that counselor, by that time widowed and in a nursing home.  I visited her and brought her a clutch of Texas fossils, informing her that she had created a monster!  We both found the visit to be equally nostalgic and therapeutic.  

 

I'm glad I visited when I did, as she has since passed.  But I think of her legacy of positive impact on kids each time I collect the Ordovician exposures of the Tri State area.

[Arizona Chris]

For me, it was finding "Petosky Stones" on the shores of Lake Michigan where I grew up.  They are chunks of Hexagonaria corals that are in wave rounded boulders.  That was 50 years ago, and I havent stopped!

 

My wife assimilated a interest in fossils by osmosis.   Resistance is futile.

[JohnBrewer]

2 hours ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

A YMCA counselor in Cincinnati hosted a daily nature and paleo session during my summer camp years circa 1980-81.  We spent most of the time flipping Ordovician rocks in the creek that ran through the Blue Ash YMCA.  Misspent youth, education, girls, and an addiction to deer hunting intervened for decades, eventually landing me in the fossil mecca of Texas.  

 

About 10 years ago, I tracked down that counselor, by that time widowed and in a nursing home.  I visited her and brought her a clutch of Texas fossils, informing her that she had created a monster!  We both found the visit to be equally nostalgic and therapeutic.  

 

I'm glad I visited when I did, as she has since passed.  But I think of her legacy of positive impact on kids each time I collect the Ordovician exposures of the Tri State area.

What a wonderful story

[izak_]

One day when I was 4 I found a gastropod at a local beach and from then on I was hooked.