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interviewed by Gabrielle Lyon
photos by Mike Hettwer
Greg looks
at an unidentified tooth under his magnifying
goggles.
Perhaps there was
only one indication that Greg Wilson might
end up becoming a paleontologist - he loved
to read Encyclopedia Brown detective stories.
"Parents, teachers, no-one could get me
to read anything unless it was some sort
of detective story, mystery or challenge."
Now, as a paleontologist searching for mammals
that lived during dinosaur times, Greg has
embarked on one of the great detective stories
of geologic history.
Greg grew up in Kalamazoo,
Michigan, where both his Colombian mother,
Aminta and his father, Phil, encouraged
his interests in athletics and academics.
The middle child of three, Greg delighted
in torturing his younger sister, Kristy,
and did a far share of bickering with his
older brother, Jeff. But it was when the
brothers teamed up to organize grand-scale
endeavors like "Neighborhood Olympics" that
the pair were at their finest -especially
when all of the competitions revolved around
the boys' best soccer skills.
Soccer was a big
part of Greg's life throughout school. In
junior high school he was voted "most likely
to become a professional soccer player"
and in high school he was rated second in
the state his senior year; in college he
served as captain of Stanford University's
varsity soccer team.
Greg was a good student
who found himself increasingly interested
in biology and anatomy, but when his brother
Jeff launched into investigations of plant-eating
dinosaurs called sauropods - the largest
land animals to ever have walked the earth
-a door was opened onto an entirely new
field of science: paleonontology
If Jeff is after
the metaphoric 'elephants' of the dinosaurs
world, Greg is after the mice - literally.
As the only mammal worker on a dinosaur
expedition, Greg is on a quest to shed light
on mammal origins. Half-way through the
expedition, however, Cretaceous mammals
from Africa, are proving to be a Holy Grail.
A combination of
joking and sincerity are Greg's trademarks
and his wide, easy smile flashes readily
throughout the interview . I spoke with
Greg over lunch in late October at Camp
3.
Greg tightens
the strap around a 800 lb fossil jacket
in order
to slide it onto the truck.
What fascinates
you about paleontology?
I can remember as a
kid looking at the big Life wildlife books
and being boggled by all the different colors
and forms of the animals - they were running,
flying, swimming - I think that diversity
is still what I am interested in. The main
question for me now is where did all diversity
we see in the world today come from? The
answers are somewhere in the fossil record.
Another great thing
about paleontology is the range of experiences
and skills that it draws upon. It's one
of the aspects that's particularly exciting
to me about the field. You are involved
on a daily basis in things as practical
as physics, map reading, driving cars across
the desert, how to get water in the Sahara.
Those sorts of problems.
When did you begin
to consider pursuing paleontology as a profession?
I wasn't one of those
kids who was always into dinosaurs; I didn't
know all the names of the dinosaurs - I
probably saw that as rote memorization.
I liked puzzles a lot. I enjoyed things
like geometry, chemistry, where there were
riddles to solve, or it was a challenge
to come up with the answer. Finding answers
to questions is what has always intrigued
me more - and that's how I see paleontology
now.
Paleontology isn't one
of the core elements taught to undergraduates
so even though I was interested in biology
and anatomy in college, I wasn't exposed
much to paleontology until my older brother
Jeff got into it. His interest opened up
an entirely new dimension of biology I hadn't
considered at all before. All of the things
I was learning about living animals were
even more difficult to track down for animals
of the past. I was almost done with college
before I started to think about doing paleontology.
Besides my brother,
who drew me into paleontology, both Paul
Sereno (University of Chicago) and Bill
Clemens, my advisor at Berkeley, are people
who have mentored me. Bill in terms of mammalian
paleontology, the history of the field,
and micro collecting. Paul has been a big
influence in terms of larger scale fossil
collecting, hard-core field work and relevant
biogeographical questions.
Unlike some paleontologists
who move directly from college into graduate
school, you took some time off between college
and graduate school, didn't you?
When I finished college,
I really didn't know exactly where my interests
were leading me or what to do with my education.
I was considering medical school, paleoanthropology,
veterinary school. I was also thinking of
teaching - maybe high school biology or
overseas teaching.
I took two years off.
First I spent some time working with microfossils
from Morocco in Paul Sereno's lab at the
University of Chicago. Then I went to work
as a sales consultant for a surgical supply
company. I was working full time and it
was the first time I had my own apartment,
my own car.
So it was a big decision
for me when Paul invited me to go on the
1997 Expedition to Niger. I had to think
about for a while.
What tipped the
scales in favor of the expedition?
I think what tipped
the scales was the opportunity to go to
Africa and to be part of this set of expeditions.
These were expeditions that had been producing
amazing stuff and also highlighting paleontology
to the public. Scientifically I wasn't mature
enough to understand the significance of
the expeditions. I didn't know why going
to Africa and looking at Cretaceous age
rocks was important, or that almost nothing
was known about Cretaceous level dinosaurs
in Africa.
Why are you particularly
interested in mammals - and why study mammals
that lived during the time of the dinosaurs?
Mammals are unique in
the way they've been able to adapt to all
different parts of the environment. It's
a really diverse group - they have a wide
range of forms, lots of different lifestyles,
and live in all kinds of climates. There
are mammals that fly, swim, glide, burrow
- there's tremendous diversity.
The Cenozoic Era - which
started 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs
went extinct - is known as the "age of mammals."
It's the age we're in now. Mammals were
around when dinosaurs were alive, but they
hadn't evolved the ecological dominance,
or the range of body forms and lifestyles,
they have now.
What led up to the diversity
and dominance? I want to understand what
mammals were like and what allowed them
to persist and diverge into all these forms
when dinosaurs went extinct. That's why
I have to go to the roots of all this. To
study mammals that lived in prior to all
of this diversity, I have to track the story
of mammals in the Mesozoic, mammals that
lived during the time of the dinosaurs.
Many people are
familiar with some of the issues being investigated
by dinosaur paleontologists - for instance,
what caused dinosaurs to go extinct? Were
dinosaurs warm or cold blooded? Did dinosaurs
care for their young? What some of the issues
in the field of mammal origins?
One of the biggest questions
is, simply, how did mammals evolve? We know
they evolved from a pretty reptile-like
lifestyle. During the Mesozoic (140-65 million
years ago), they evolved the ability to
sustain activity, generate their own heat,
digest food and move around - all things
that allowed them to be more active. How
did these changes take place? That's a big
question.
Another big question
has to do with the pace at which different
mammal groups evolved once the dinosaurs
went extinct. Did the main groups of mammals
develop rapidly, say, over 10 million years?
Or did most groups have origins in the Mesozoic
and we just haven't found the fossil record
yet?
There are some biogeographical
questions debated in my field that are similar
to questions in dinosaur paleontology. Just
like with dinosaurs, much more fieldwork
has been done in the United States, Asia
and Europe, and far less on southern continents.
Places like Argentina, Australia, India
and Africa are starting to give us more
information about the fossil record, but
it is still considerably less than what
we know from northern continents. So another
of the big questions is about how mammals
(and dinosaurs) evolved as the continents
split apart - and how mammals from different
continents are related.
Tiny theropod
and ornithischian teeth.
How is looking
for mammals different from looking for dinosaurs?
Dinosaur bones are typically
large and visible to the naked eye from
a distance; dinosaur paleontologists can
walk around and spot bones far away exposed
on the surface. I spend most of my time
crawling around.
Mammals during the Mesozoic
were small animals; their bones were delicate
and are much less easily fossilized. Actually,
most early mammal material tends to come
from teeth, which are pretty hard.
The largest of the Mesozoic
mammals were about the size of a raccoon.
The teeth of these mammals are usually between
half a millimeter to five millimeters long.
Keep in mind the width of a dime is one
millimeter.
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