Fossil marine mollusks from California's Central Valley
Seth Finnegan, Professor
Integrative Biology
Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.
For tens of millions of years large parts of California’s Central Valley were flooded by the ocean, creating an inland sea with a unique ecosystem including now-extinct species of clams, snails, sand dollars, corals, and other groups familiar from modern California beaches. Some of the species that lived in this seaway still survive in the oceans today and give clues into the ideal environment for the fossil mollusks. The inland seaway experienced a series of environmental changes during which many species became extinct. This gives us an opportunity to ask questions about how the changing environment impacts the structure of the ecosystem and allows us to try to connect environmental change to the odds of a species going extinct. We do this by studying the fossil shells preserved during the time of the inland sea to slowly puzzle together what living there was like for these marine invertebrates. This seaway provides us with a natural experiment that allows us to study the causes of extinction in marine ecosystems which can be applied to conservation efforts today.
Role: Working on this project entails handling fossil shells to image and measure them using a stacked imaging camera, digital software for analyzing or calipers. During this process students will learn about the morphology of mollusks as well as which environmental changes impact them. Students will also have the opportunity to learn about database structure as the data they will collect will be incorporated into the database created for this project.
Qualifications: Having interest in the impacts of environmental change on ecosystems or being excited to hold fossil shells and learn about how bizarre the phylum mollusca is. Able and willing to do somewhat tedious tasks and are open to adapting to changing data collection protocols. No prior research experience is required!
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Kayli Stowe, Graduate Student
Hours: to be negotiated
Related website: http://finneganlab.org
Biological & Health Sciences