FossilTok with Joannasaurus

In our latest episode, we speak with @Joannasaurus — a paleontologist and science communicator who’s using TikTok to make fossils fascinating for everyone. Joanna talks about what it takes to make complex science accessible, the role of humour in online storytelling, and her roundabout journey to paleontology!

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Introduction

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Beneath Your Feet, a geoscience podcast. I’m Veronica Klassen, science communicator, geology enthusiast and your host. Here at the APGO Education Foundation, our mission is to spark curiosity and passion for the geology of Ontario. Whether you’re a geology nerd, science enthusiast, or nature lover, this podcast is for you. Join us as we geek out over fascinating geology, uncover the hidden stories
and secrets of our extraordinary planet and explore the captivating world beneath your feet.

Veronica Klassen
Well, welcome, everyone, to another episode of Beneath Your Feet. Today, I’m going to be talking to Joanna Northover, who is a science communicator on TikTok. We’re going to be talking about science communication, we’re going to talk about her career in geoscience, we’re going to talk about advice for students and all kinds of exciting things. So thanks so much for joining me, Joanna.

Joanna
No problem. It’s my pleasure. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Veronica
Amazing. I’m very excited. All right. So why don’t we just start. Tell me a bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

Joanna
All right. Well, as you said, my name is Joanna Northover, but on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, I go by Joannasaurus and I am a science communicator. But I started out interested in paleontology. So my science communication really centers around paleontology. So fossils, dinosaurs, things like that. And I have loved paleontology for as long as I can remember.

And so it was sort of, I had a few stumbles along the way. We’ll probably talk about that later on. But I did do a master’s degree and an undergraduate degree in paleontology. But then I fell in love with science communication, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Veronica
That’s awesome. So yeah, so going a bit back, how did you originally become interested in paleontology and how has that journey sort of changed for you over time?

Joanna
All right. So I guess a lot of people go through a dinosaur phase when they’re kids, and I was no exception. My was quite early. I really loved dinosaurs, even at a very young age and as young as the age of four, I declared that I was going to become a paleontologist. And that was a dream that I held for a very, very long time until I hit my teens.

And, you know, I kind of got a little discouraged. I thought maybe this wasn’t a practical career, you know, And I thought, oh, well, maybe I’ll be a teacher instead, because I also really loved teaching. Even from a young age. I used to pretend to teach my little brother, you know, with a pointing stick and some little diagrams and stuff.

And so when I was in high school, you know, I kind of pivoted a bit and I thought, Oh, I’ll do a degree, and then I’ll go to Teachers College. And I had really good marks in history and chemistry. So that’s what I applied to. I did actually apply to paleontology as well, and I got in at UofT, but I was too nervous to move all the way there because at the time I was one of the first years to do that double cohort thing where, you know, in Ontario we went from having grade 13 to going to grade 12.

And so I was 17 when I graduated. I wasn’t even a legal adult, and I just felt like really nervous about going too far away from home all by myself.

Veronica
Cause where is home for you, sorry?

Joanna
Ottawa. I grew up in Ottawa and that’s where I live now, so I didn’t want to go too far away from home. So I decided I would go to university at Ottawa U. And I decided to go into history and I did my first year of history and I dropped both of my history courses. So I was like, Wow, wow, this isn’t the right major.

And I was like, well, maybe I made a mistake here, so that’s not a good sign. So I had done actually a first year geology course as one of my breadth courses when I was at Ottawa U. I’d also taken a lot of philosophy and I almost switched to a major in philosophy. My mom actually, of all people, said, Did you know that Carleton has just started a vertebrate paleontology concentration from the Earth Science Department?

And so I applied right away. I switched over. I thought, you know what? I knew more when I was four than I know now. I just I’ll go to school and I’ll figure it out after. I’ll just, I have to study something I love or else this is going to be a disaster. And so I transferred over to Carleton and I started in the Earth Science department there doing my vertebrate paleontology concentration.

And it was just magical. Suddenly it was easy to go to school. I wasn’t dropping my courses. I had so much fun. The department there was great, really supportive, and I liked it so much that after I did my bachelor’s degree, I ended up deciding to stay and do a graduate degree. I did a master’s degree also at Carleton. But while I was doing my bachelor’s and master’s, I started working in the summers at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, where I was working in the Science Education Department.

And also I did some science education sort of part time work at the Canadian Museum of Nature while I was studying. And I fell in love with that so much. So when I came to the end of my master’s degree, I thought to myself, you know, do I keep doing research? I like teaching so much better, you know. Being a T.A. while I was doing my graduate degree, teaching students was so fulfilling to me. I thought I got to run with this.
I actually found a full time job at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, that came up just as I was about to finish my master’s degree, and I applied to it. I actually interviewed for that position the same day that I defended my thesis. So I defended my thesis in the morning.

Yeah. So it’s like, yeah, I went out with my professors for lunch to celebrate and then I drove home and did a zoom session with some headphones? And, and did my interview for the full time position at Tyrrell and I ended up starting that summer and, just had a fantastic experience there, really amazing people to work with. And that’s where I just kept going from there. The science communication just kept rolling from there. So yeah.

Veronica
Yeah, that is so amazing. Sorry if you can hear my cat. He’s being annoying.

Joanna
That’s okay. My cat made a cameo at that interview.

Veronica
Oh my gosh seriously?

Joanna
He came across my lap and I kept being like I’m so sorry. I mean, I knew my interviewers because they had been my bosses for when I was there for summer time. So I was like, I’m so sorry, guys. This is my kitty and she won’t stop jumping up on my lap.

Veronica
That’s so funny. Yeah, zoom life. But anyways, back to what you were talking about. Yes. That is so awesome. Yeah, that’s a really roundabout journey. I feel like starting in history and philosophy, you wouldn’t have thought that you would end up in paleontology.

Joanna
No, I mean, well, also starting at paleontology and coming all the way around. Back to paleontology in the end. And one thing that also kind of discouraged me at first is I loved fossils, but I wasn’t always convinced about the rocks. My aunt is actually a geologist and she was like, Oh, this is cool, you know? And I was like, Maybe I won’t like the rocks enough.

But then that was not a problem. I loved the rocks. I found that I loved rocks almost as much as I love fossils. So that was a happy accident that I ended up doing that because, you know, some paleontology degrees tend to go through biology departments sometimes. So it’s very I really actually, really enjoyed the perspective of doing the paleontology concentration through a Earth Science department.

I learned far more about the rocks that way. I still had lots of biology courses, but it was a it was a it ended up being just a perfect fit for me. I just stumbled into exactly what I should have been doing.

Veronica
Yeah. That is, that is so cool. And I feel like that’s something that I hear from a lot of people I interview is just like it’s, it’s always, it’s always roundabout. Like it’s never just like, so neat or like never really what you expect or what you have planned for your life. And I think it’s I think it’s awesome if you can be like, keep your mind open to that, you know?

Joanna
Oh, for sure. I have to quote Jurassic Park on this one. Is: Life finds a way. You have to find your way.

Veronica
Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Joanna
So you have to have an idea of course. But you got to be open to where life is going to take you and follow your passions and interests and follow the opportunities as well. Right? Follow the opportunities that come and take chances, you know, because you never know where you might end up.

Veronica
Yeah, exactly. So with that, like, what would you say is your best piece of advice for students who are trying to figure out what to study or pursue for a career and kind of have no sense of direction? What would you say?

Joanna
Well, I got some really good advice from my family before I started university. The first thing is you can always change your major. That was the first thing they told me. So like just because you applied to chemistry or something and you got in, just because you applied to biology and got it doesn’t mean you have to stay there.
If you find you really hate it or it’s not what you thought it was going to be, because sometimes the expectations versus the reality is not always matching up. Right? And so don’t be afraid to change. Right? Those courses that you’ve done, they’ll count towards whatever you go forward in doing, you know, and don’t worry about having a finish on time and that kind of stuff.

Obviously you don’t want to take like 20 years. But, you know, getting a little like don’t worry about getting so behind or something like that. It’s more important that you study something that you really like or that you’re really excited to be working in something like that than it is to kind of push through something that you really don’t enjoy.

So that’s one thing. The other thing is that university is about learning how to learn, right? It’s about expanding your horizons. So like, there’s this thing that you’re really interested in, but you’re going to learn a lot of things that overlap with it but also are outside of it. And you might not always see where those connections are going to be made, but they come later on. You will be like I did not think I was going to need to know this, right?
And then suddenly it comes out of nowhere. So, you know, keep an open mind. Even the courses that you think have nothing to do with your degree. You feel like, Why am I taking this? It’s actually a good exercise in learning how to gain knowledge.

Where’s the right place to look? You know, how to make it stick, how to find it again, if you forget it. These are all skills that I use in my life every single day. Oh, and also time, like time management and organization and prioritization. I use it in my non like not even just in my science communication, my day to day life, I use those skills every day.

So university is about developing your mind, developing those learning skills, developing those critical thinking skills. It is also about what you’re learning in the subject matter, of course, and getting you ready with necessary skills that you might need. But don’t discount those other skills that you’re gaining. They’re just as important and in some cases can help your life outside of school more than you might realize.
That’s sort of those are the two sorts of things that I kind of really think are important.

Veronica
Yeah, that’s awesome. And so true. I really like what one of the other podcast guests that I had, Charlotte Spruzen and she said, the most interesting careers come at the intersect of different disciplines, and she phrased it differently. That’s always stuck with me because I’m like, Oh yeah, like I feel like the most interesting things are always a combination of different things and like, it might be multiple things that you really like, like coming together. And I think that’s so unique and like, interesting, you know?

Joanna
Yeah. And honestly, the geosciences I think are a really good example of that because when you’re studying rocks, the science of geology is a merger, a merger of chemistry, biology, physics, you know, environmental science, you know, modern. We have to understand modern processes in order to understand ancient processes. So we’ve got like geography in there. So it’s very multidisciplinary.

And that’s something that really, I enjoyed about it because I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t just studying one thing. I had to kind of understand everything a little bit and be able to, to put that together like a puzzle. So that was really stimulating for me mentally. I found that very exciting. You know, even paleontology, it’s not geology, it’s not biology. It’s like geology and biology got together and had a baby. That’s paleontology, right? You got to know exactly how to do both. Right?

And so that combo that is more exciting to me. So that’s something that I think geoscience has going for it. You never get bored. It’s a little bit of everything.

Veronica
Definitely. Definitely. And speaking of multidisciplinary, now you’re doing paleontology, but you’re also doing paleontology communication and science communication online. So how did that all come about?

Joanna
So after I was done at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, I moved back home to Ottawa. So actually I wasn’t done. I wanted to move back home to be near to my family. And so I had to unfortunately say goodbye to my friends at the Tyrrell Museum. I still miss them very much. I still am in contact with lots of them.

And if there was any way that I could have taken that museum and made it be closer to my home, I would have actually done that as soon as teleportation is a thing, I will be visiting every weekend. Yeah, so but when I moved back home to Ottawa, I was on maternity leave and I was doing some science communication part time with an organization called Mad Science, which does outreach in classrooms.

But then the pandemic hit and I was stuck at home with two young kids, like two years old and under. And they were stir crazy and I didn’t have any time for myself anymore. It was lockdown, right? I couldn’t even give them to my parents or anything.

We were totally isolated. And then a friend texted me, my best friend texted me and asked me a question about mammal evolution of all things. And I sent her this reply and this long reply, and she was like, Oh, you’re so good at explaining things. You should start a YouTube or something. And I was like, Well, YouTube is way too fancy for me.

Oh yeah, I don’t have any of the equipment for that. The barrier to entry is really high, but I’ve heard some good things about this Tik Tok thing, so I’ll try that. So I actually downloaded the app and went right into the recording studio, recorded my first Tik Tok. Yeah. Without ever having gone to the “For You” page, which without ever having looked at anything, I was just like…

Veronica
That’s amazing.

Joanna
I just ranted about how pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, uploaded it, and then when I woke up in the morning because I did it once my kids were asleep, I didn’t want them to be in the recording. So I woke up in the morning and it had like 600 views and it climbed up to about 1300 by the end of the day.

And people in the comment section were like, Hey, I looked on your profile and this is your only video. Like, where is this? Where are the other videos?

So I responded, I said, Well, when my kids are asleep tonight, I’ll make another one. And yeah, the person that asked me that actually was my seventh ever follower. After I responded to that comment, he followed me and he still follows me. So every so often I see him. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah. So I just, you know, I just kept going from there and I found that it was something I really enjoyed.

It was really fun. It was a, it kept me connected to the scientific community because I was constantly keeping my eyes out for new discoveries. And people would ask me about new discoveries, ones that I had maybe missed, and then I could go find where that was and answer questions about it. And it also helped me take skills that I had developed with in-person science communication and outreach and sort of, you know, adjust them for when I don’t have that feedback from the audience until after the post is live.

Right? So that was a different kind of way of doing it. So it was an interesting challenge. I loved the video editing and TikTok has it’s, you know, it has this the thing where you kind of can make it funny, right? You can there’s memes that come along, you know, trends or whatever. And I had so much fun taking those trends and turning them into little paleontology jokes that could, like, secretly teach people a little bit about dinosaurs, while it was happening.

You know, it actually was really fun when I figured that out. When I finally got on the “For You” page and was like, Oh, this is a thing that is happening, great. I don’t have to just talk at the camera and, you know, because my family growing up, we like talk to each other in movie quotes, like text, like all the time.

So the idea of quotes from one thing meaning something and using that in another context is something that was like, that was my language. Like I was like I totally understand that. Right? So I had so much fun taking that and running with that as well. So it just ended up being a really a really fun thing for me and a really fun creative outlet.

So it was like it was challenging me mentally. It was keeping me connected to the scientific community. It was helping me develop and, you know, reinforce my science communication skills. You know, it just was win, win, win, win. And, you know, and then I just kept growing the followers, you know, I just kept growing.
My community kept growing. The followers that I had were just the best, they’re so nice. I know I have other creator friends now and sometimes, you know, some stuff they can encounter is, you know, pretty negative. But I’m very happy to say that so far, at least in all my years on TikTok, that the side of TikTok that I’ve been on has been very, very pleasant, very positive.

Everybody is excited to learn about dinosaurs, you know? Yeah. So yeah, that’s so that’s where that happened. You know, it was really my best friend. So you can, all of you, whether you like me or don’t, can blame my entire online science communication career or what have you to my best friend’s text message. That’s what started the whole ball rolling.

And then it just snowballed from there. And I’ve just been having the absolute time of my life. I love it so much and I don’t have as much time as I used to, I was like an everyday poster for a while.

Veronica
That is impressive.

Joanna
Well, it was a time. I would all day long with the kids and then they would go to bed and I would film TikToks all night. And at some point I had to slow down. Yeah. And then I also started, you know, once lockdown started to end and stuff, I got back into working and things like that, so. But I kept it going.

Veronica
Yeah, yeah. That is so awesome. And it’s so cool how you came about it through a text from your friend, which is so unique, and also that you never, like, watched videos before, like uploading them too. That’s so funny.

Joanna
I know because I knew it was going to be a problem. Like I knew soon as I was on it, I was going to be addicted. But I realized I thought I have to know what’s going on. And also it helped me get inspiration, right?

Veronica
Right. Yeah, exactly.

Joanna
Yeah. So I had to make a balance there.

Veronica
But yeah, no, for sure. It’s definitely easy to get sucked in by. But I appreciate what you said about using humor, especially to communicate. Because I think that’s one of the things that scientists often don’t do a lot. There’s not really a lot of venues for us to use humor in presentations or like.

Joanna
Yeah.

Veronica
Papers, things like that. And so I think it’s really cool to make videos where you’re engaging people in funny and interesting ways. It’s so important.

Joanna
Yeah. Well, honestly, I feel like humor is super important in any kind of science education and communication. I remember jokes that were made in my classes in first year, which now was a very long time ago. I’m not going to say how long ago. Like there was a couple of times where the prof just threw something out there and you just like, and it sticks, right?

Because you know that that engages you in a different way. You know, science sometimes can be very intimidating. And humor is a way to, you know, be approachable and lower, you know, stress and things like that. So I think there is a place for humor. I think sometimes we’re worried that it might come off as unprofessional.

And I get that. But I think if it’s done well and done, you know, not like over the top, I think it can be a very powerful tool even in, you know, more professional circles. You know, I’ve been known to make people laugh in presentations that are even in formal presentations. I you know, I did some contract instructing at Carleton and I tried very hard to bring that a little bit of humor when I could because it breaks things up, right? It perks you up.

It makes you pay attention on a long, long lecture. And then with my science communication, I make the silly ones, I try to make them educational. Like, even though you’re laughing, you’re also learning, Right? And that would then bring people in, right? And then I could use that to then talk about something else. Like maybe they asked me a question and I could do a more formal explanation, that kind of stuff.

Veronica
So right, exactly. Yeah. And I think in our last conversation, you said you kind of did a mix of like, just like funny, like short things and then like, a bit like longer explainers. Yeah. So that’s kind of smart to have a bit of both, I guess. That’s super cool. I did my, like, master’s thesis on the use of humor in TikTok because I did like a Master’s in Science Communication.

Yeah. So like, yeah, the reason why I mentioned it is just like I looked at kind of the ways that humor can either bring people together or also separate people and like in the ways that it’s used either to create community or to exclude people from a community. And I was looking specifically at COVID and like how, you know, joking about COVID could either be very divisive or very like community-minded.

And so anyways, I just think it’s interesting because you also mentioned that you feel like you have a very supportive community on TikTok, and that’s probably also to do with the way that you are using humor to bring people in, because I think that’s a different stance. It’s like, how do we bring people into this community of scientists and science communication rather than, you know, using humor to exclude people. So anyways

Joanna
Yeah, because I guess, yeah, sort of like the difference of like you’re laughing with me versus I’m laughing at you.

Veronica
Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Joanna
No, nobody’s perfect. I know. I’ve made some funny ones where I’m kind of laughing, like, not meaning to, but kind of, you know.

Veronica
It happens.

Joanna
Somebody might feel excluded. But I try to make it so that we’re all laughing together. This silly fossil, let’s say, you know, if I’m or whatever I like, I try to keep that positive. I try not to, you know, be you know, I don’t want to laugh at somebody, let’s say not trying to use humor to, you know, put somebody down.

Let’s say I’m trying to use it to, you know, draw attention to something that I think is funny or cool. And hopefully you think it’s funny, too, that sort of thing.

Veronica
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I’ve, like watched your videos and they have all been very positive and very, you know, inclusive. So I wasn’t trying to critique you at all.

Joanna
But I think it’s important to say that, right, because, you know, there’s different ways to respond because when you do science communication, you’re always going to run into situations where you have people disagree with you. And how you handle that interaction sometimes can reflect on the science communication community and also the scientific community at large. And so one thing that at least for me is very important that when I do engage in some of those interactions, I try to keep it as respectful and positive as I can because I feel like you’re not going to change somebody’s mind by being, you know, dismissive or that sort of thing.

And also, even if that person’s mind, even if they’re, you know, engaging you in bad faith and you’re never going to change their mind, you have to remember that on a public platform like that, people are watching. Right? And you don’t want to alienate the people who are watching either and make them feel like, you know, science is not for them.

Right. Yeah. Or that if they get something wrong that we’re all going to laugh at them. Nobody is going to want to, you know, learn science if they think that they’re going to get laughed at, if they get it wrong. Because guess what? I get it wrong sometimes. And I’ve been doing it for years and years. Science is very complicated and constantly changing and that makes it fun, but it also can make it intimidating.

Veronica
Definitely and it’s important to have that humility. Yeah. Like you’re describing like, it’s okay if we get things wrong.

Joanna
Well, even if something was right, I made a video about it. Like now I’ve been on social media doing this for years. So there’s videos that I made, you know, three years ago and the science has changed. So it’s like it was not wrong back then because that was our best understanding at the time. But now things have updated and you know, that’s cool. That’s awesome. That means science is working! Great.

Veronica
Exactly. Yeah.

Joanna
You know, I have to remember that, like, you know, I have to be conscious that things are going to change and I have to be adaptable to that. And I have to be able to see when I was wrong and right and that it’s okay to be wrong sometimes, because making mistakes is how we learn.

Veronica
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve touched on this a little bit already, but why do you think it’s so important for scientists to engage in online communication in the first place? And we kind of, you know, have talked about community and humor and things like that. But I find, you know, a lot of scientists don’t even necessarily consider like online platforms or other forms of outreach. So yeah, but obviously it’s very important to you and it’s very important to me. So what is it about it that you think is important?

Joanna
Well, I mean, I think it’s pretty well known now that there is a lot of distrust in science. Science, you know, can be seen as maybe closed off exclusionary or like, we’re hiding something. Some people think it’s like a big conspiracy. And I think transparency is our friend in that respect, because if we are open and we’re showing them, Hey, this is what I’m doing today, I’m in the lab and I’m, you know, processing these samples or this is what we just found, this is our new update.

If we’re if we’re actively engaging people and making the science accessible to them. Because I think what I find often in the scientific community is that you forget what people don’t know. Like, we think of things some things in the scientific community. We think of this as common knowledge, but it actually isn’t common knowledge even outside of our own disciplines.

And I think the thing that made me realize this is actually when I was in school, because I was in and Earth Science department, most of my other friends were, you know, in pure earth sciences. So they were studying, you know, hydrogeology or sedimentology or, you know, you know, more traditional geoscience disciplines, if you want to put it that way.

They weren’t studying fossils, right? They had to look at them once in a while and usually be like, Joanna, do you know what’s this fossil? And they’d get me to all identify it and I’d go around the lab. So whenever I was presenting my work, especially like my undergraduate thesis or my master’s thesis, I had to remember that, you know, all the people in the audience, they’re not going to know the names of these fossils.

Right? You know, I know the names of them. It’s common knowledge in paleontology. And even though paleontology isn’t earth science, other earth scientists might not be familiar with these things. And so I had to keep that in the back of my mind every single time I did a presentation in any class. So you have to kind of meet people where they are in terms of what they know.

But with science communication, we also have to meet people where they are in terms of where the audience is. And right now people are on social media. If you look at how many users there are on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram like this is a huge audience. And so a big thing about science is if you learn something new in science but you don’t communicate those results to anybody, then what’s the point, right?

Those results need to be shared. They need to be shared with other scientists, of course, like that is of the utmost importance and you have to tailor that communication in the appropriate way. You know, so scientific journal articles, things like that, those need to be tailored so that other scientists can use that information in a way that they can then further the science, incorporate that new knowledge moving forward.

Right? But it’s also important to make our discoveries accessible to a wider audience. And that’s where social media has a super, is such a powerful tool that we can use to make science more accessible, make us as scientists feel more transparent, right? Because we’re not hiding anything. It’s just that like, you can’t just drop by a lab some time and be like, What are you doing?

Veronica
Exactly.

Joanna
But with TikTok you absolutely can. You can be like, Hey, this is my lab. What you doing right? And everybody can get a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, and see how it’s done. And, you know, I will acknowledge not every scientist is going to be a good science communicator. Like that’s just, you know, just like not everybody is cut out to be a good researcher either, right?

Those are different skills. Some people can do both and they are amazing. Like, those people are so special. Like unicorns. But it is a skill that you can use, can improve, right? It’s something that can be taught. And I’m seeing more and more in universities and other institutions that it’s becoming more valued as a tool. So I think it is improving.

I think people are seeing the value in it. And science communication is is kind of seeing its time because science communication itself is like a unique skill, like how do you take this really complicated thing and make it so that somebody who doesn’t have the background knowledge can, you know, understand at least a general idea of what’s happening in a way that is accurate.

It’s almost like a translation service.

Veronica
Right? Oh, yeah, totally. And when you’re engaging with people online, what do you find actually is like the most surprising thing either about being a paleontologist or a science communicator, like in your videos?

Joanna
This is a hard question, because I’ve been doing both for so long. Again, it’s that perspective, right? I think the thing that I find shocks people the most is that most people think that paleontology is just dinosaurs. Right? Right. They think paleontology, they think dinosaurs. But dinosaurs are actually such a small portion of what paleontologists study, even within the subdiscipline of vertebrate paleontology, which is all the things with backbones, right.

All the things with backbones are within vertebrate paleontology. You can have mammalian paleontology, you can have, you know, ichnology, so fishes, you can have, you know, herpetology like amphibians, reptiles, you know. And even within that, people like drill down. When I was doing my master’s degree, I went to the Arctic with the world expert on fossils rabbits. Like that was her thing studying fossil rabbits.

She was a fantastic lady, Doctor Mary Dawson. She was fantastic. She’s passed away now, but she was such a cool paleontologist. But like, that’s how specific you can get within that one subdiscipline. And then that doesn’t even count the paleontologists that study plants, the paleontologists that study trace fossils, the paleontologists that study microfossils, the site of the paleontologists that study all things invertebrates, so everything from like bugs to clams to like squid, you know. It’s just paleontology is the study of ancient life, right?

So it’s everything. And people, I think, forget that. And when you step back and look its like, whoa, there’s actually way more to paleontology than than just dinosaurs. And so that’s one thing that I try to highlight on my page a little bit, because I think that’s something that’s kind of missing in general.

And also people think that everything that lived long ago is a dinosaur, right? But it’s not. So I tend to spend a lot of time also trying to tell people what is and is not a dinosaur. Yes, because there are a few misconceptions there.

Veronica
You mentioned like your first video was a rant about a fossil that was not a dinosaur. Which one was that again?

Joanna
So Pterosaurs, so flying reptiles. So they’re commonly called pterodactyls, but even that is there’s not such a thing as a pterodactyl. That’s a kind of a whole other really, that’s a whole other tangent we’ll get on to. Yeah. So pterosaurs is the official name for the group. So this is the things like Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus. You know, you might have heard of some of those.

They are not dinosaurs. They split off from the family tree before dinosaurs became dinosaurs. So they do share an ancestor with dinosaurs. So they’re and they’re, they’re close cousins to dinosaurs, but they branch off and this side is the pterosaurs. And then this side eventually leads to dinosaurs. They’re both within this larger group called Archosaurs, which crocodiles are also a part of.

So there’s the group Archosaurs. And this side is like crocodiles and their relatives and this side is dinosaurs and Pterosaurs and their relatives and then you go to this side like Pterosaurs branched off here and then after they branch off, then you have the first dinosaur and all dinosaurs coming from that and then from you have birds.
So birds are dinosaurs.

Veronica
Really?

Joanna
But pterodactyls are not, you know, which is the biggest…. So all living birds are dinosaurs because they directly evolved from dinosaurs. And when you talk about the classification system, like you don’t stop being what you used to be. So it’s like how we are humans, but we’re also primates and we’re also mammals, right?
Birds are birds and also theropod dinosaurs and also, you know, just dinosaurs in general. So they belong to all of those larger groups like a smaller and smaller nest, like those nesting dolls, you know, and keep drilling down into smaller and smaller groups.

Veronica
Huh that’s so interesting. This is something that I didn’t know. So we had Pterosaurs and dinosaurs were living at the same time, though, correct?

Joanna
Yes, they were. They were living at the same time. They both were around and Pterosaurs died out at the end of the Mesozoic, the end of the age of dinosaurs. And most dinosaurs also died. The only group of dinosaurs to survive were modern birds because there are even lineages of birds that are like ancient birds that have like still have teeth, for instance, or have like, like more tails than they should, you know, stuff like that.
So there’s like ancient birds. But all modern birds evolved from an ancestor that survived that extinction. So modern birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived. Everything else: T. Rex, Triceratops, what have you, all toast when the end of the age of dinosaurs came about. Which was the big meteorite impact, which most people know about, I think if you don’t know about, you can go on my social media. I have lots of videos about it.

Veronica
Amazing. Yeah, that’s so cool. Well, there you go. Learn something new every day. Awesome.

Joanna
I’m so glad that I could help you with that. Spread the word. Pterodactyls are not dinosaurs.

Veronica
Yeah, I’m not a dinosaur person, and that’s never been what I studied. So, yeah, I don’t know anything.

Joanna
That’s totally cool. Well, I mean, like, I think it’s kind of like how all shales are mudstones, but not all mudstones are shales.

Veronica
Right. Okay.

Joanna
It’s a similar kind of situation. Some ancient reptiles are dinosaurs because they have the characteristics that define what dinosaurs are. And some are closely related but are not because they are missing some of those characteristics.

Veronica
Right. Right. Okay so cool. Thank you. Amazing. So the question that I end all of my podcasts with is what is your favorite geologic feature in Canada?

Joanna
Okay, this is too hard to answer.

Veronica
Sorry.

Joanna
Because, like, the mountains are fantastic. I used to drive through them all the time because my grandmother used to live in Kelowna. So when I lived in Drumheller, we would drive across the mountains to see my grandmother and get to see all the amazing. It was dangerous. Let me just say, me driving in the mountains was like, “Oh, look, oh oh!”

Veronica
Distracted driving

Joanna
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Don’t worry about cell phones, like geologists and road cuts are what you should be worried about. Like, even now, like, “the children in our car, don’t look at those limestones. But I so wonder if there’s any trilobites in it.”

So. Yeah, but I think. I think I mean, there’s so many. So here’s the thing. There’s so many amazing geologic features in Canada. We are so lucky here that we have some of the oldest rocks on the planet as well as, you know, glacial features left behind by the last ice Age. You find like, you know, mammoths, you know, that were around only a few thousand years ago.

But there’s literally crystals in rocks up in the Arctic that are vying for the oldest rock on earth, right? So we have everything in between. But as a paleontology person, I don’t think I would get away with this question without saying Dinosaur Provincial Park.

Veronica
Okay, yeah.

Joanna
Because geologically, it’s fantastic. If you want to study sedimentary rocks, the layers are just so beautiful, you know? And the feature itself, you know, is formed from glacial meltwater. So you have like some cool, like ice age processes going on there. And the fossils are unbelievable. Like there’s a reason why its a UNESCO World Heritage site. The couple of times that I was able to go and work there, I was in parts of the park that you’re only allowed to be in really when you have a permit because most of the park is closed to the public, you have to have an excavation permit.

So I would go with like a team of scientists, let’s say, on my day off when I wasn’t doing science education. And there were literally times where you couldn’t walk without stepping on chunks of dinosaur.

Veronica
Wow, that’s so cool.

Joanna
It’s the definition of an embarrassment of riches. It’s just unbelievable. So it’s so cool. And so you can’t. I couldn’t say, you know, but I have to also throw in Burgess Shale.

Veronica
Mm hmm.

Joanna
Because what a cool location that is. And the amazing preservation there that gives us a glimpse into what was on our earth half a billion years ago. Like, it’s just such a cool, you know, and there’s so many weird and wonderful animals. And okay so I’ll pick my top three, top three fossil sites are Provincial park, Burgess Shale and then, okay, this is a bucket list, one that I haven’t actually been to myself, but I want to go really bad. Mistaken point, which is in Newfoundland, and it preserves Ediacaran fauna, so it preserves some of the first multicellular life on earth.

The more famous deposits are in Australia. But there are some in Canada and you can go on tour to go see them, I think. And someday, someday I will go to Mistaken Point.

Veronica
Amazing. That’s so fun. I love all of those places that you’ve mentioned and.

Joanna
I could go on all day, honestly, I could go on all day.

I’m surprised I didn’t think of this before. I mean, I also got to go to Devon Island in Nunavut for my master’s thesis and work, we worked in the Houghton Crater. So this is like an impact crater that was formed like when a meteorite hit and then a lake formed in the bottom of it. And so there’s some lake sediments there, and that’s where there’s fossils in those lake sediments.

And the sediments are not lithified, right? So they’re not rock. They’re like it’s like you’re digging in a sandbox and like fossils are coming out. It’s so cool, actually. I know, right? You’re in the Arctic. Devon Island has no permanent human habitation. So there’s no like settlements there. And the location is where like the Canadian Space Agency, like tests rovers and stuff.

They have like a base, they invited us for dinner one time. They had a pastry chef that year. So I are like croissants and muffins and stuff. I was like, how am I eating this in the Arctic? So, you know, there’s other cool science going on there, like a lot of geology and and even environmental studies, you know, soil transects and things like that.

But my master’s thesis supervisor had a research permit to go up and look for fossils. They had found this fossil seal relative, which is what I did my master’s thesis on called Puijila darwini. And so when I started my master’s thesis, they had collected about 60%. But because the sediments are loose still and there’s permafrost freeze thaw in the top layer of it, meant that there’s something called cryoturbation essentially makes these cells of like…

So you would expect soil layers to be flat like this. But actually because of the freeze thaw freeze thaw it actually makes like convection cells.

Veronica
Okay interesting.

Joanna
Yeah. So more kept coming up every year like the freeze thaw would heave more up. So we kept going back to that same site digging and finding more. And so by the end when I published my thesis, we had about 80% of the skeleton.

Veronica
Cool. Okay, that’s amazing.

Joanna
So yeah. Oh, my gosh. I just kept talking and talking.

Veronica
No, no, it’s okay. This is really cool.

Joanna
I love how you tried to ask me for one. And I gave you, like, ten. I just kept going. I could keep going. It’s like trying to choose my favourite child. It’s not a possibility. You can’t do that.

Veronica
I love talking to geologists about the things that they love, because often I get like, I can’t choose one. There’s too many, too many cool things. So.

Joanna
No.

Veronica
Well, I do have one more question for you, and that is, can you tell us about the map behind you? I’m so curious about it.

Joanna
Oh, yeah. So this is actually a map that I got from Studio 252 MYA, it’s like 252 million years ago, that’s the Permian Mass extinction. But it’s a cool site where they host, like a bunch of artists like that do like paleo art and stuff. There’s like merch that you can buy that’s like very nerdy paleontology merch.

But this is a map of the world in the late Permian. So this is before dinosaurs. There’s no dinosaurs at this point, and this is when the continents were all connected in a single landmass called Pangea. It’s the supercontinent Pangea, it’s the most famous. It’s not the only one. But, you know, we got to give due to the ones that came before. But this is the one that’s really the star of the ancient supercontinents.

And on this map, there’s a bunch of creatures that are all found in late Permian Rocks. This is a cool shark called Helicoprion that has a tooth whirl that’s just so bizarre. Like if you see them preserved, they’re like they look just like a spiral of teeth. Yeah it’s very strange. Diplocaulus, this is a little amphibian guy that has a boomerang shaped head.

Veronica
What? That’s so cool.

Joanna
There’s all sorts of ones, like there’s lungfish and this is a weird reptile that has these elongated, like, ribs situation going on. Dimetrodon famous, Dimetrodon Yeah. Dimetrodon are actually more closely related to mammals than they are to dinosaurs.

Veronica
Okay.

Joanna
Yes. In fact, a lot of these animals on here are mammal relatives. Yeah, because in the Permian before the Permian mass extinction, the largest land animals were actually relatives of mammals, so called synapsids. So synapsids are creatures with backbones that are amniotes, which means that their eggs can be laid on on the earth. They don’t need water like amphibians to reproduce.

And once you become an amniote, you can have different holes in your head. Okay. That tell you what group you belong to. Okay, so, Dimetrodon, have one hole in their skull behind their eyes, and that is the group that became mammals. And we still have that. Like we have what’s like our kind of cheekbone situation. How are our jaw muscles go through it? That’s kind of like the leftovers of one hole. And so most of the creatures that ruled Pangea were synapsids like Dimetrodon, some more closely related to us. But Dimetrodon is just is the definition of you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives. Right? Yeah. So there’s lots of weird and wonderful, bizarre synapsids that ruled this world.

But then the Permian mass extinction just wiped the board clean and synapsids did not do well. Only a few small ones got through. Ones that were kind of related to this guy here. They’re called Dicynodonts and Cynodonts. And those eventually became mammals. So the small little synapsids made it through the big ones like this one here is what’s called a Gorgonopsid. They were the first like saber toothed predators and giant saber toothed creatures, but they were, yeah, what we call proto-mammals. So they used to call them mammal like reptiles. But that’s actually a misnomer. They’re not reptiles, they’re more like, reptile-like-mammals. Reptile-like-proto-mammals. Anyway. Yeah. So, so yeah. So there’s all these cool beasties and many of these are our relatives that the Permian mass extinction just decimated.

And then it took several million years for the Earth to recover because the Permian mass extinction was the largest mass extinction in the history of our planet. It was devastating. Like you think the one that killed the dinosaurs was bad? This one was like even worse. Somewhere between like 80% and 96% of all species went extinct. Like it’s it’s bad.

Veronica
But the sharks survived. Is that correct?

Joanna
The sharks survived. The ancestors of Archosaurs, that group that I was talking about that ended up being crocodiles, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, their relatives were there, but they really took over in the Mesozoic, which came after the Permian. Then you have the Triassic. In the Triassic, you know, reptiles start becoming more successful than the synapsids in their way. So in the early Triassic though, there’s almost nothing except for…oh my gosh, I’m having a brain fart.

There’s like this one, this one’s synapsid that made it through and like 90% in certain fossil localities, like 90% of the fossils are just this one, this one Dicynodont. I have made a book cover in one of the courses that I taught. I used to do kind of like little quizzes while it’s going on.

And I did one that was a prompt and it was like, “Give me your titles for your self-help book for How to Survive the Permian Mass Extinction.” Lystrosaurus, that’s it. It’s called Lystrosaurus. Yeah, and one of my book titles was The Lonely Lystrosaurus, how I survived the Permian Mass Extinction because they’re like the only ones there. And it was like this Lystrosaurus in like a desert.

So let’s Lystrosaurus partying in an empty Pangea Lystrosaurus at the end of the Permian Mass extinction. Have I explained the map– have I special interested the map enough?

Veronica
Cool. Yes. It’s a great map, I do like it.

Joanna
It is pretty good. I love the Permian Mass extinction. That’s my Roman Empire. I think about it like at least once a week, everything’s the Permian Mass extinction.

Veronica
Your Roman Empire. I love that.

Joanna
So I was like, I gotta have that.

Veronica
The goal of the podcast is just to talk about special interests. You’re so fine. But thank you so much for being here today and for talking about all the things that you love and for giving us advice for students and how to find your way. Yeah, I’ve really, really enjoyed talking with you. If you’re listening and you want to check out Joannasaurus your…

Joanna
Instagram and YouTube, I’m at TheRealJoannasaurus because Joannasaurus was taken sadly by the time I got there. So I’m Joannasaurus on TikTok and I also sometimes go by The Dinosaur Lady there, even though I talk about other things because people were like, “Don’t be mean to the nice dinosaur lady” I’m taking that now. And then on Instagram and YouTube, I’m at TheRealJoannasaurus.

Veronica
Okay, amazing. So if you are listening, and would like to check out some cool videos about dinosaurs and lots of other things, feel free to check out Joannsaurus. And thank you so much for being with me today.

Joanna
It was an absolute pleasure. I could not have thought of a better way to spend this afternoon. It was fantastic. Thank you so much for having me, it was just a joy, it was just delightful.

Veronica
Amazing.

Outro

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Beneath Your Feet, a geoscience podcast. I’m Veronica Klassen, science communicator and geology enthusiast. As a reminder, please note that the opinions and views expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the APGO Education Foundation. If you want to learn more, visit us at GeoscienceINFO.com, where you can find our GeoHikes, podcast transcripts, and additional resources. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at GeoscienceINFO or on LinkedIn and Facebook at the APGO Education Foundation. Stay curious and keep exploring the incredible world Beneath Your Feet.

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