Fundy’s Fossil Coast: Special Episode with Dr. Jade Atkins and Danielle Serratos on the Bay of Fundy

Join host Veronica Klassen in Nova Scotia for this special episode on location at the Bay of Fundy! Dr. Jade Atkins, Curator and Director of Science Research at Joggins Fossil Cliffs, and geologist Danielle Serratos, Curator and Director of the Fundy Geological Museum, reveal the region’s one-of-a-kind fossils and dramatic geologic history. Along the way, they share the twists and turns of their unconventional paths into paleontology—and offer candid, inspiring advice for students and anyone charting their own career journey.

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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

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beneath Your Feet. Today is a super exciting day and one that I have been looking forward to for a long time because I’m actually here in Nova Scotia visiting the Bay of Fundy, which has the world’s highest tides, as well as the oldest dinosaur fossils in Canada.

Danielle

And even more importantly since we’re here at Joggins…

Jade

We have the world’s oldest amniota reptile fossil.

Veronica

Well there you go! Today, I’m going to be talking to Dr. Jade Atkins, who is the Curator and Director of Science Research at Joggins Fossil Cliffs, as well as geologist Danielle Serratos, director and curator at the Fundy Geological Museum. Today we’re gonna be talking about the really unique geology of the Bay of Fundy area. We’re going be talking about life advice, career advice, some common misconceptions about geology and paleontology, and so much more. So thank you so much you two for agreeing to be on the podcast.

Danielle

Thanks for having us.

Veronica

Awesome. Let’s jump right into it. So start just by telling us a bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

Jade

Okay, so I’m Jade. I am not actually a geologist. I am a biologist that learned geology on the job.

Veronica

Okay fun.

Jade

At every sort of point in my career, I gained a little more geology knowledge, but I do have a biological background, so I approach fossils from a little bit of a different perspective than than your average paleontologist I think.

Danielle

And, Danielle speaking here, I am more of the stereotypical paleontologist. I grew up in North Texas, so I was surrounded by some really fantastic fossil sites and loved it from an early age. I went to University for my Undergrad, have a degree in Geology. Then went on to Grad school and became a specialist in marine reptile paleontology.

Veronica

Wow. That’s awesome. All right. Do you mind telling us a bit more about your respective organizations and what they do?

Jade

Absolutely. Yeah. So the Joggins Fossil Cliffs is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We were inscribed in 2008. And the reason for our inscription is that this is the best and most complete record of the late Carboniferous that you can find in the world. So it’s 15 kilometers looking out any window kind of in any direction at this point of a cliff face that has fossils is very fossiliferous. Sort of twice a day the tides come and they rework the beach and also the cliffs, and we have new findings every day.

Danielle

So I work at the Fundy Geological Museum. It’s in Parrsboro, about forty-five minutes from Joggins, where we are right now. We are a part of the Nova Scotia Museum. So, Nova Scotia has the largest most decentralized museum system in Canada.

Veronica

Wow. That’s a lot.

Danielle

Yeah. Most of them are heritage homes, but the Fundy Geological Museum was established in 1993, so we just celebrated our thirty-first year, thirty-second, something like that. I can do simple math. Our mission and mandate is to record Nova Scotia’s geological history, specifically around the Bay of Fundy. Because we’re situated on the North shore of the Minas basin, that is primarily where we collect fossils and minerals and do our research, however, because we are Nova Scotia’s geological museum, like the provincial museum, we also have specimens from all over the province.

Jade

Including from here.

Danielle

Yep.

Jade.

You do have some specimens from the Joggins formation. But that’s fine, fossils from the Joggins formation are found all over the world.

Veronica

They travel a lot?

Jade

They did. They are more well travelled than I am.

Veronica

That is awesome. And how did both of you end up here? So what was the spark that started you on this journey exploring rocks and fossils? And why did you end up here specifically?

Jade

It was a complete accident for me. I was not into, I was not into geology. I was not really into rocks as a kid. I wasn’t really into nature either. I didn’t meet a scientist. I’m from rural Nova Scotia. I didn’t meet a scientist until I went to university. So I went to university wanting to be a medical doctor because that is all I saw.
Those were the people doing science in my community. Were teachers, and I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher, although I do teach now, and medical doctors and nurses. And I thought, okay, I could do that.

And then I took a biology course in my first year and I am dating myself a bit. But Tiktaalik had just been found.

Veronica

Sorry just for the non geologists, do you mind just explaining quick what Tiktaalik is?

Jade

Yes. So Tiktaalik is called a fishapod because it represents this transitionary animal from fish, lobe-finned fish that are tetrapods who are amphibians and reptiles, including birds and mammals. So things that live on land. So lobe-finned fish which are our closest relatives in the water and early tetrapods or amphibians. So it’s an intermediary fossil and it was a really important find at the time. And it still is an important find. Yes, it currently resides at the Canadian Museum of Nature.

Veronica

Okay, cool. Amazing. And so you were saying that you took a biology course and Tiktaalik had just been found?

Jade

Yeah. So I thought that Tiktaalik, which is from northern Canada, was a really good example of researchers working with Indigenous communities. And I thought and saw for the first time that perhaps I could do something other than medicine. So I started to take more biology courses and I started to learn a lot about evolution. And I was actually really interested in the Devonian, which is the time period before the Carboniferous because that captures that transition from the water to land. But then I fell in love with amphibians and fossil amphibians and fossil reptiles, and that’s more Carboniferous into the Permian.

How I ended up here, I did my Ph.D. at Carleton University, and my supervisor, Dr. Hilary Madden, conducted research here at the time I was doing my Ph.D.. And I came here and I thought, one day I will work here. And then everything just kind of fell into place when I finished my Ph.D..

Veronica

That’s amazing. That’s so smooth.

Jade

Yeah. I mean, I’m giving you the smooth answer. There were there are a lot of things along the way.

Veronica

Yeah, for sure. All right. How about you, Danielle? How did you end up here?

Danielle

Oh, so I ended up in Nova Scotia about six and a half years ago. Prior to working at the Fundy Geological Museum, I was running the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines and Tech. That University, they really specialize in Eocene fossils because the South Dakota Badlands really preserves kind of those and early horses and dire pigs and things like that really well.

And so a lot of my experience working there was learning and expanding my knowledge into the more recent fossil timeline. But my graduate work was in Cretaceous marine reptiles. So specifically the middle of what is now North America was underwater it was called the Western Interior Seaway, and there was marine reptiles that lived all up and down the entire continent. So that was my area of specialty back when I was in school, which was the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

So yeah, I kind of had this weird round about path from Texas to Alaska to Colorado and then South Dakota and then Nova Scotia. And it’s just because, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to be really transient in my life and my spouse and everything that’s happened to me, we’ve just always kind of been those adventurous people that are happy to move and try new things.

And yeah, I just, I liked exploring new areas and learning new types of geology and paleontology. And Nova Scotia ended up being a really fantastic place for us to start raising our family. We were here during the pandemic, which was amazing. So, so much better here than it was everywhere else I’d been previously. Yeah, so I think just that willingness to wander and explore with our lives and, um, you know, be willing to take some chances about where you end up. And that’s really what got us here.

Veronica

So you both had kind of roundabout routes to get here. You’re from close by, but you left and came back.

Jade

I think it’s an important story to tell, like these roundabout ways to get into the field because we so often see, you know, like the kid who was really into dinosaurs and then grew up to study dinosaurs and then became a dinosaur professor. That’s that’s often the story that media tells or that media picks up. And I think like when I give lectures to students, I always tell them about the roundabout way I entered the field so that they don’t feel like they have to immediately know what they want to do at 18 years old.

Veronica

Yeah, for sure. And that’s kind of a theme that I’ve been finding with other people I’ve interviewed is like a lot of people take a lot of time to figure out what they want and they explore different things and that is totally okay to do.

Danielle

Yeah, I mean, my my trajectory for my career, it wasn’t quite as drastic of a change as Jade’s was, but I actually started my undergraduate degree in marine biology because I thought that’s what I wanted to do with my life. And it wasn’t until I was in my first geology course that I realized I could take that love of marine animals and apply it to the fossil record.

And that really combined two aspects of science that I didn’t realize that I loved as much as I did and kind of made the perfect blend for me. So, yeah, like being willing to just sort of try new things and explore your options and, you know, even in university and in some high schools, if you’re in a populated enough area, take that yoga class or take your sociology course that’s not required. Yeah, just go out and explore because you never know what you’re going to learn and what you’re going to fall in love with.

Jade

You know, the same thing pretty much happened to me. I was, you know, wanting to study development. I was really into studying how things grow from like a fertilized egg into adulthood. And the fossil record also captures that development. And I thought, Oh, I can just study ancient development instead of current developments. It’s really just finding, finding what you’re into and paleontology probably offers it.

Veronica

Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. So you both ended up here in Nova Scotia, Bay of Fundy area. So what was it that drew you here specifically? What’s so unique about the rocks, the geology, the paleontology, fossils of this area in particular? Like what makes it so unique?

Jade

Well, I like to tell people that. So of course, this is Mi’kma’ki, the traditional Unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. And Mi’kma’ki encompasses Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, parts of New Brunswick, Gaspé in Quebec and parts of Newfoundland. And if you look at that map, you can superimpose this thing called the Maritimes Basin, and it’s the same map almost.

So the Maritimes Basin is where our rocks were deposited at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, the oldest part of the Maritimes Basin is actually Miguasha in Quebec. And this area has been really important for a long time to Mi’kmaq because it’s a site where you can get a lot of natural resources: coal, salt, where you can use the basalt in making the canoes and you can use the minerals that you find, especially the Parrsboro shore for like to decorate items to make jewels, jewelry and things.

And then it was really important when this area started to be colonized because they needed coal and wood and salts to send all over the world. And so if you then take a map of the Carboniferous rocks here in Nova Scotia and the coal mines, that’s also the same map. So this area has been worked by mining since the 1600s, commercialized mining since the 1700s.

That’s a very long time for a fossil locality to be worked constantly. And that means that we have found a lot of things in that time period that then kind of piqued the interest of geologists and they came and collected things and studied them. So the fact that this site is so important and well known is really because of colonization, which is sad. But then we get to know a lot of things, which is good. Net good, probably not, but still better, better than colonization, right?

So, yeah, and this site has a lot of firsts. So we have the oldest known amniote, which is Nova Scotia’s provincial fossil called Hylonomus. And it’s really important because prior to Hylonomus, you needed to return to water for all or part of your life cycle. So only amphibians existed. Frogs and salamanders have to return to water to lay their eggs, otherwise they dry out and die. Amniotes take that water with them in the egg. So that allowed amniotes to move into drier environments.

So that’s why you might not find many frogs in the desert unless they have other adaptations. But you’re definitely going to find mammals and reptiles, who are amniotes, birds who are amniotes. That’s the same in like northern communities. You’re not going to find a lot of frogs or salamanders, if any, but you are going to find other animals that that don’t need to be in the water to lay their eggs.

Veronica

Okay. Okay. Super interesting. Okay. So if I’m understanding correct early, we’re talking about the transition of animals from water to land and how now they’re able to sort of bring the water with them. Is that correct?

Jade

Yeah. So so the transition from water to land as in living on land happened in the Devonian and then this is the next step. So this allows you to move even further from water. You don’t need to stay in a damp, swampy environment. You can move into drier climates, which was really helpful because at the end of the Carboniferous, we had the Carboniferous rainforest collapse and then we moved into the drier Permian and then even drier in the Triassic, I believe, but Danielle knows that a little better.

Veronica

Okay, Amazing. Thank you for that explanation. How about you, Danielle? What do you think is the most unique thing about this area and what brought you here?

Danielle

So, yeah, my answer is going to be very different from Jade’s, because even though we are so very close to each other, geographically speaking, Cumberland County is also, well, Cumberland and parts of Colchester, which is the neighbouring county, are home to Canada’s oldest dinosaurs. So this is really fascinating because you’re talking about organisms that really were kind of fulfilling these ecological niches that were… Basically there were animals still in them, mostly archosaurs, but you have this change over of global climate and the separation of Pangea, the supercontinent that was around from around 300 to around 200 million years ago. So as this continent is breaking apart, you’re actually introducing a whole new climate system along all of those fault lines where those continents are breaking apart. So where I do my research in this part of Nova Scotia, we are dealing with end-Triassic and early-Jurassic basically desert like environments. And as you get further away from that end-Triassic mass extinction, those environments become more wet, more seasonal, essentially.

And so it’s really fantastic for especially finding those early dinosaurs footprints. So that is primarily what we find along the north and some of the south shore of the Minas basin within the Bay of Fundy of Nova Scotia. But we do also find body fossils too. So we like to talk at the Fundy Geological Museum, specifically about coelophysis, which are these incredibly interesting, small early theropods. And they are really interesting because we have a whole growth series for them. In fact, a lot of people talk about, oh well, we have growth series of Tyrannosaurids. Of course that’s much further along in the fossil record than what we’re talking about now.

But with coelophysis, we have multiple bone beds all over the world. So we actually have everything from just hatched footprints and egg fragments to full grown adults that are actually showing disease in their bones and old age. And those like suture lines that are really well developed that tells us these organisms were at the end of their life.

So in Nova Scotia, we actually only have one definitive bone of a coelophysis, but we have hundreds, if not a thousand, of their footprints preserved in our collections. So it’s really fascinating because then you compare all of those different sized footprints, everything from newly born juveniles to full grown adults to the same like skeletons that we find in places like Ghost Ranch in Arizona or, you know, all over the world, really.

And so when I talk about why this part of Nova Scotia is really important, it’s really fascinating because, yeah, you get to talk about the first reptile, some of the earliest dinosaurs, there’s also some cool stuff about land snails.

Jade

Yes, we have the oldest known land snail.

Jade

Yeah. We also have here Dendrerpeton, which is the oldest member of a group that contains today’s frogs and salamanders. And then further north, outside of our sites, we have the oldest evidence of parental care in Cape Breton. It’s just really interesting. And we also can talk about large scale climate change. So we here like to talk about how this is a relatively peaceful time in Earth’s history. Continent wise, Pangea has formed. Everybody is sort of living their best life. And then you drive 45 minutes down the road and you see that evidence of that violence breaking up of Pangea.

Danielle

Yeah. So yeah, it’s 100% correct. So the major field site that we operate out of is called Wasson Bluff. It’s really fascinating because you go there and we find fragments of reptile and dinosaur bones every time we go to the beach, Right? That’s the beauty of working on the Bay of Fundy is that stuff is always eroding out. But you also, whenever we’re lucky enough to find really sizable bone beds, which the last one unfortunately was found in the early 2000s. But it’s fascinating because those bones, as we pulled them out, you can see the offset of the earthquakes that are happening in that bone structure after they’ve started to fossilize and as the continent is pulling apart.

Veronica

Yeah, really cool.

Danielle

It is really cool. Yeah. So, yeah, there’s a lot of really interesting stories to be told in such a small location, really. You know what I mean?

Jade

I always say that every tour is just different because I can talk about so many different things. Like there’s the history of colonization and there’s Mi’kmaq land use. There’s the the story of the terrestrial environment or the story of how the environment changed. And then there’s also the marine environment, too. There’s just so many different things that you can talk about that it just kind of depends on your audience that day.

Danielle

Yeah, that’s true. In fact, we don’t talk about marine or lacustrine environments too often, but we actually just refound a fish deposit site last summer. One of our summer students, Sydney, she found it. And that’s really impressive because that site had been referenced in field notes from about 50 years ago and no one in living memory knew where it was. And she went through notes and said, I think it might be somewhere in this area. So she just spent like a week or two out there and eventually found it again. So yeah, she found a really gorgeous fish scale that’s like full on the size of a baseball.

Veronica

Oh my gosh that’s amazing.

Danielle

Yeah, it is.

Veronica

Okay. So cool. Okay, There’s so many ways that I want to go with this, I don’t know where to go first. So just to go kind of like back to the basics, so moving through time, here we are at Joggins, which is Carboniferous which is earlier.

Jade

Yes

Veronica

And then we move down south towards Fundy Geological Museum, we’re moving forwards in time. So we have here it’s more Pangea, like you said, calm environment. And then as we move further south, we’re getting the breakup…

Jade

The breakup of Pangea…

Veronica

And a lot more wild things going on. And more dinosaurs. Yes. Okay. I’m just trying to understand.

Jade

We’ve gone from the first amniote, a little teeny tiny lizard named Hylonomus–reptile, I mean, not a lizard. To true lizards at the Fundy Geological Museum, so, like, 100 million years forward. Now, this lineage that starts with Hylonomus is thriving and diversifying and really succeeding.

Danielle

Absolutely.

Veronica

Okay amazing. And so remind me just what specific time periods we’re talking about here. We’re about was it 300 million years ago?

Jade

So so here we’re about 315 to 300 million years. We record 15 million years of time and then we move forward 100 million years in the future, right?

Danielle

Yeah. So the site that we work at specifically Watson’s Bluff, is around 201 million years. And the age of that has been debated quite a bit because unlike that Joggins where you can actually do some really solid chemical testing to determine ages. The environment over on our side of the shore is not quite as definitive. And so there is a range there and actually there’s a few papers that have just come out that are saying that we may actually be looking at the transition of the end-Triassic to the beginning of the Jurassic. So we’re actually talking about there’s somewhere captured along those cliffs is that story of the mass extinction event and where exactly it is is a little bit up for debate.

Veronica

Interesting. So it’s possible that as research continues, that this will become more clear?

Danielle

Yeah, for sure. So one of the hardest things about kind of mapping and understanding the ages and the layers of rock on the Parrsboro side of the shore is that things have been really jumbled up because of that breaking apart of the supercontinent Pangea. I’ve talked to you. So again, I’m really a paleontologist. I do have an undergrad degree in geology, but that’s not my love, that’s not what I’m an expert on. I had talked to so many sedimentologists who have come to that shoreline and just been astounded by how complex it really is. So that’s kind of fascinating because then you think about, well, we have a decent understanding of how rocks and continents have moved relative to one another during that time period. And the fossils do a great job of kind of helping us pinpoint where we are in the fossil record. But there’s still some room for interpretation for what comes first, what comes next. Are the bone beds that we’re finding a direct result of volcanic activity as the continents pulling apart, or is it just a localized natural disaster? Things like that come into question.

Veronica

Okay. Interesting. And so I feel like there’s a common misconception in geology that, you know, it’s very static and maybe boring or unchanging. But in reality, you know, geologic research is very dynamic. And so I feel like this is maybe a good example of that.

Danielle

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, so it’s 2025 right now. The techniques that we’re using for academic research and even science communication with the general public is pretty different now than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Jade

Or 200 if we’re talking about here.

Danielle

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s kind of interesting to think about, you know, as paleontologists, we have a tendency to view time differently, right? I think in terms of millions, if not hundreds of millions of years being a long time, most people think of like 10 to 20 years being a long time. So, yeah, I think you have to really put yourself in place. Whatever you’re talking about, whatever your audience is, you kind of have to take into account for where people are coming from, what their backgrounds are, what their interests are. So yeah, like I’m moving on a little bit into science communication and how we talk about and how we do educational outreach. But I think that’s important, especially because we do work in museums and that is the major goal, right?

Our job is to one, care for the collections and find things that are of scientific significance and two, interpret and share those stories so that people have a better understanding of the world around them and their place within it.

Jade

And I also think now 2025, that thirdly our job is to really tell those hidden stories. So the history of this area and areas of the world have been quite whitewashed. Yeah, so it’s telling those hidden stories. It’s diving deeper, it’s allowing every child to see the possibilities for themselves. So like I said, I didn’t meet a scientist until I went to university. My goal is that every kid in this county meets a scientist before they finish high school.

Danielle

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, there’s so many things about geology that are stereotypical, right? It’s this lone wolf, you know, white dude out in the middle of the Badlands with his rock hammer and his bandana and, you know, cowboy hat or whatever. Like, that’s not the reality.

Jade

It’s not the reality. And it’s not even the reality for them, because these people are not talking about the Indigenous guides that kept them alive and showed them the bone beds. They’re not talking about, you know, the wives and partners at home who edited their work and made sure that it was legible and coherent for public consumption. It’s not, they’re not talking about the people who funded the research or that they’re independently wealthy. Right? Like science doesn’t occur individually in a vacuum. There are so many people who help you make science happen, even for those lone wolf types. They are lying. Not lone wolves. They are in a pack just like the rest of us. They just keep their packs silent.

Veronica

Yeah, totally. And it’s so true that history most often gets presented in a very whitewashed, individualistic way, which is not accurate to reality.

Jade

And, you know, we have those stories here. Like there are some famous geologists who came here and they had Mi’kmaq guides who kept them alive, and they never once recorded their names. They would draw them. They would talk about how these guides would make meals out of porcupine for them. You know, they kept them alive. They got them here. And then once they got here, they would spend a day or two or a week. But really what they were doing, they were picking over the findings of the people who lived here. So the locals were really who had keen eyes, were out every day working in the mines, were often people of colour, poor. They were the ones who were collecting the fossils daily. And then these, you know, rock stars, as they’re referred to, I’m doing air quotes, in case you’re not watching the video. They they would come and they would sit with the mining manager and they would pick the best ones. Sometimes they would, you know, they would do research and come out here. They would map the cliffs. A couple of times they dynamited the cliffs because they didn’t want to wait for erosion. But these are not people who are here every day, they don’t know the area. They needed help to survive here, and they needed help to find those cool fossils.

Danielle

Absolutely. Yeah.

Veronica

Yeah. And so since we’re talking about misconceptions, what do you think are the most common misconceptions that you hear about geology in particular?

Danielle

Okay, I want to take this one.

Jade

Okay, Do it.

Danielle

So I have two big misconceptions that I constantly battle with when I’m doing public outreach. The first one is that just because it’s a fossil doesn’t mean it’s a dinosaur.

Jade

Yes.

Danielle

Especially as someone who works in marine reptiles, like, that’s a really big sticking point for me. Because I specifically worked with marine reptiles that were swimming around in the oceans the same time T-Rex was walking on land. And so a lot of people were like, oh, well, it’s just a dinosaur in the water. But no, that’s not actually true.

Jade

You know, they say it about us. They’re like, these are just old dinosaurs, the grandparents of the dinosaurs. And it’s like, no.

Danielle

Not quite.

Veronica

So if you had to correct that misconception for someone who knows nothing about paleontology, like what specifically is different about them?

Danielle

Well, I mean, life in the fossil record is infinitely more complex than it is today. Just because you’re talking about such a long stretch of time period for things to change over time versus today, you know, we have billions of species once you start counting everything up. And that complexity would have been present in the fossil record at any point in time once you got to the Cambrian Explosion and on.

So yeah, when we talk about fossil diversity and what we what we collect, what we have in collections, what people can access both in museum galleries and research repositories, you know, that represents roughly 1% of life that has ever existed on this planet, right? So if we’re talking about, you know, the differences between a flying reptile and a marine reptile and a dinosaur, which all lived 70 million years ago, you know, you’re completely ignoring the fact that there were bugs, there were early birds, there were small mammals, you know, there were reptiles and amphibians and, you know, fungi and lichens and goodness, all the marine invertebrates that were moving around. Yeah, it just it gets really complicated, but it’s the same as it is today in that respect, right? Like you don’t have a functioning ecosystem without that diversity of life.

And so yeah, when people say things like, oh well, your plesiosaur is just a dinosaur in the water, it’s like, well, no, that would be like saying, you know, a seal is the same thing as the dog walking around, you know, on land. But they’re not the same. In fact, they’re more closely related than the marine reptiles and dinosaurs are.

Yeah, so honestly, but that answer is just kind of me being cheeky, I guess, for lack of a better word. The real big misconception that I like to talk to people about whether I’m visiting a classroom or giving a lecture or doing something at the museum, I like to talk about how geoscience is for everyone.

That’s something that both Jane and I have spent our entire careers making sure that we’re sending that message to everyone that we talk to, whether they’re young or old or in-between. Science has a place for everyone and every capability, right? Whether you want to be a citizen scientist who goes out and finds things and lets your local museum know about what you found; or you are a fourth grader who’s curious about minerals and rocks and fossils and wants to go out and explore and see what you can find, see what you can discover; or whether you’re someone who has limited mobility, right, but still absolutely loves to explore with your hands and uncover fossils that have been brought in and have to be removed from the rock in the lab. There are so many opportunities for people. Yeah, like there’s statistical analysis. So we have computer programmers that are paleontologists, right? Like you don’t have to spend a single day out in the field to be a successful paleontologist or geologist.

So yeah, I like to talk about that just because there is that misconception that geology is like, you know, the outdoorsy science. In some ways that’s true, but that’s not the only option.

Jade

No, it’s not.

For me, I like to, I mean, in addition to everything Danielle said, I like to talk about how we’re all connected. Certain cultures of human like to consider themselves to be outside of nature, separate from nature. But we are all connected. We are all related. And when you look at the paleo environment, when you look at the late Carboniferous or the Jurassic Triassic boundary, you are looking at an ecosystem preserved and we can use these ancient ecosystems to think about how our ecosystems are changing today and how things are going to look in the future, especially when it comes to things like human driven climate change, where we’re changing things at such an accelerating rate, but we have to live here too. And so if we don’t want to be fossils, we have to figure out a way to live in the environment and keep it safe.

And I also like to tell people that science is always changing. We always have new techniques, different techniques, new fossils, different fossils. So things that may have been true 50 years ago are not true today. And it’s always changing. So the things that I’ve written about and studied and published on someone in 10, 15 years is going to come along and say it’s something totally different and that has to be okay. You have to be okay with with progress and with not always being right.

Veronica

That’s so true. And so good. And I love how you both talked about how geology changes and how it’s always yeah, we’re always learning more and we’re always growing. So I think that’s, that’s super cool.

Danielle

Yeah. It really is a global academic community, right. I know there’s especially in vertebrate paleontology, there is a misconception because there’s so many people that get territorial about their research and that makes for bad science. It really does. Like if could influence the next generation of paleontologists with one thing, it would be work together, make sure everyone can work together. Because honestly, that’s the only way you’re doing good science is by building off of whatever people are doing befor you and beside you and behind you.

Jade

Which of course means that you have to be a good, kind, conscientious human, because no one wants to work with jerks.

Veronica

So true. And so we already touched on this a little bit, but do you have any specific advice you would give for students who are still trying to figure out what they want to study, what they want to do for their career?

Jade

I really liked what you said about exploring and about trying different things. And I realize that can be hard for people in rural and remote areas, for people who who don’t come from like a blessed socioeconomic background. I know that can be hard, but there is a lot of information on the Internet. There are a lot of programs that that go into schools and will like do video chats with rural and remote schools. There’s a lot of things that you can do to to sort of help yourself and guide yourself as you move forward. I know it’s hard. I experienced it growing up, but you can start with your local institution, like whether that’s a little community museum or anything else, just just try to talk to as many people as possible and try as many things as you can.

Danielle

Yeah. Yeah. Jade’s 100% right. You know, I was very privileged growing up, and so I had access to a lot of people and museums, institutions growing up, you know, just outside of Dallas Fort Worth. Yeah, Yeah. I had a lot of opportunities, and I recognize that that’s definitely not the case for a lot of people all over the globe.
But Jade is also right and that the Internet is a fantastic resource that really opens up doors for so many opportunities. And there’s a really good chance that, you know, you find something online you’re interested in, you find out who’s behind whatever the story is, reach out. There’s a really good chance that they’ll respond in a positive way, right? Like we get emails all the time and we make time out of our busy schedules to respond to, especially kids. Just because, you know, people encouraged me. People encouraged Jade when we were younger. We want to do the same thing for them, right?

Jade

And then if I could give advice to the adults listening, it would be it would be two things. So the first thing is that you should be the adult that you needed as a child. So I needed a scientist in my life as a kid, and now I aim to be that scientist for kids today. And the other thing is to involve local communities in your work.
Don’t be a parachute scientist. Involve local communities, inspire nations and communities to build their own museums, to to curate their own collections. Stop stealing.

Veronica

Yeah.

Danielle

Absolutely.

I’m going to take a bit of a different track because I know your audience is primarily like high school and undergrad student, undergrad, university college students. I’m going to say don’t be all about what your work is. When I was teaching and running some previous sites, I had mostly undergraduate university students working at the museum that I ran, and I was always astounded by how many of them let their lives and their personalities and everything about their existence be defined by their obsession with paleontology.

Jade

Yes. Yes.

Danielle

Yeah. I would say for people who are really passionate and possibly even obsessed about dinosaurs, fossils or rocks or whatever the case may be, it could be space, it could be, you know, whatever you’re into, cars, it doesn’t matter. It’s great to have that love. But there’s so many cool things in the world like don’t limit yourself to one experience, I guess.

Jade

Yeah. Don’t burn out. Like when I think about all of the things we do that are not our job. Like we play DnD together. I’m like a runner, a hiker, a camper. Danielle’s doing a community theater play right now, like The Hobbit.

Veronica

That’s so cool.

Danielle

I’m a scuba diver.

Jade

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like life is gorgeous when you explore what it has to offer.

Veronica

Yeah, that’s so awesome. You guys are putting on The Hobbit?

Danielle

Yes

Veronica

That’s so fun.

Jade

No, yes, it is. And like when I’m camping, I very rarely look at rocks. I just want to be, I want to be looking at the trees and the moss and the animals. I don’t want to be looking at the granite, not into it.

Veronica

Okay. That’s so cool. And I feel like that’s not advice that I typically hear. Because I ask a lot of people this question and usually people say, you know, find what you’re passionate about and things like that. But I appreciate that you’re adding to that and say, yes, find what you’re passionate about. But also remember that there are so many cool things in the world and you know, your life shouldn’t be just about one exciting thing that you’re into.

Jade

Yeah. Like, why are we here? It’s that age old question, and we’re here to–I mean, capitalism and everything else has really ruined it–but we are here to live and have a good time and to love each other and be kind to each other and to live a life where you have left things a little better than you found them.

Danielle

Yeah. And you don’t have to be defined by your career to do so.

Jade

No

Veronica

We’re getting so deep. It’s awesome.

Danielle

This was not what you were expecting.

Veronica

No, it’s perfect.

Jade

Yeah, you’ve got the two people who are, like, really into their personal lives too. I have special interests, it’s not this.

Veronica

And that’s amazing. And so just before we run out of time, are there any particular projects that you would want to draw attention to? I know both of your organizations are doing really awesome science communication. So is there anything that you’d want to talk about?

Danielle

Yeah. So the Fundy Geological Museum, we have really taken a step into the unknown since the pandemic and we have kind of excelled at creating these experiential tourism opportunities. So for example, this weekend I’ll be doing a fossils on horseback adventure.

Veronica

That’s so cool, wow.

Danielle

Yeah. So that’s where we partner with a local ranch who has trail horses, and we partner with an overnight accommodation at the Sunshine Inn, and yeah, we bring people from out of town. They stay the night they have, you know, home cooked breakfast in the morning. They meet us at our fossil locality. We ride on the beach, you know, along the Bay of Fundy, and then we teach them how to excavate fossils. And we talk about the history of the geological history of the fossil record and all those things. And yeah, it’s fantastic.

So taking that experience and kind of expanding upon it, we have recently written a book about some of the really fascinating sites that you can walk to around the Parrsboro shore. And we’re calling it the Field Guide to the Fundy shore. And yeah, it’s just an opportunity to kind of blend that public education and science communication piece with a little bit of that geological academic research that’s going on.

And so people have an opportunity because we know not everyone enjoys having a guided tour, right? Some people really thrive off of being explorers on their own, but you also want people to learn something during their adventures, right? So, yeah, doing a field guide, obviously this has been done for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but we really felt strongly about taking that field guide approach from a museum perspective where we’re putting in a little factoids like tidbits and things like that, that, yes, we want this to be a memory making experience for people when they’re outside doing things, but we also want them to have like one or two really cool facts that they can share with people around them after the fact. Right? And that’s kind of the approach that we’re taking, and how we do our science outreach.

Veronica

Yeah, that’s so cool. How about you, Jade? Is there anything you would want to highlight?

Jade

I have just yeah, I’ve just started a new project taking a look at the nodules or concretions that are found in the Joggins formation. So these are really cool little circular spherical bits of rock that often have fossils inside them. And the most complete fossil to come out of the Joggins formation Dendrerpeton that ancestor of the modern frogs and salamanders and cecilians was found in a nodule.

And the rock is very hard to prepare. It took Diane Scott like nine years to prepare half the skeleton after Dendrerpeton was found. And we can use CT scanning microscopy scanning to to visualize the fossil within that matrix. So with the support of Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Museum, we’re collecting nodules and CT scanning them to take a look at the fossils inside. So we’ll be posting on our social media about about cool things as we find them. But it’s, it’s a really big project with a lot of really cool collaborators, so I’m super excited for it.

Veronica

So cool. Do we know, like, how the nodules form? Like why are they there?

Jade

They tend to form around the fossils. Sometimes they don’t have fossils in them, though. It’s just the result of like minerals and and bits precipitating out of like a still water or something.

Danielle

For most nodules to form, you have to have some sort of organic nucleus to act as a catalyst that will then chemically react with the sediments and the groundwater around it, which actually form that nodule as as both the organism and the sediments are being lithified or turned into rock.

Jade

Yeah. And when I say some of them are empty, we’re finding out that they might not actually be empty. A colleague of mine at Brymbo Fossil Forest, Dr. Tim Astrup, thinks that it might actually be forming around like poo. Yeah. So they look empty, right? But if you look at them closely, it’s not quite empty.

Veronica

Okay. And so are there still things that we can learn from poop?

Jade

Absolutely. You can learn a lot about the environment, who’s eating who, what’s in the environment. Yeah.

Veronica

So what is one cool fact that you want people to take away?

Danielle

We’ve covered so much good stuff already. The tides in the Bay of Fundy, so the water that cycles in during a full like low to high tide back to low tide. That amount of water is more than all of the rivers in earth combined.

Jade

The freshwater rivers, yeah. And actually the tide comes in with the same force as a category three hurricane.

Veronica

Yeah. Wow.

Jade

Yeah. So that’s why we, that’s why we tell people to be off the beach at high tide because you don’t want to try to swim in something that’s hitting you at the same forces as a hurricane.

Veronica

Wow, that is so intense. All right. And the question that I always on my podcast with is what is your favourite geologic feature in Canada? It can be somewhere close to here or somewhere far away, anywhere you’d like.

Danielle

Do you mind if I go first? Okay, so my favourite geological specimen, not feature, specimen, is actually going to be Albertonectes. So this is a long necked plesiosaur, which is a marine reptile that was excavated over in Alberta, of course. And it is so the specimen is, I think, 11.1 meters long, but more than 60% of its body is neck.

Veronica

Wow. Okay. I’m imagining like a giraffe, sort of?

Danielle

But in the water. Yeah. So Albertonectes holds the world record for the longest neck of any animal to have ever lived on the planet, as well as the most cervical vertebrae of any animal to have ever lived on the planet. It has 76 neck vertebrae.

Veronica

Wow. Yeah. How many do humans have?

Jade

Seven. All mammals from animals have seven.

Danielle

So even giraffes only have seven.

Veronica

Really?

Danielle

They’re just really elongated.

Jade

It’s a fixed trait. Yeah, but birds and reptiles tend to have more of a range.

Veronica

That’s awesome.

Jade

I actually studied the neck as part of my Ph.D. Yeah, so my favourite, I have two. I have two favourites, so. And they’re both, of course, from Joggins fossil clothes. I love Dendrerpeton because I was able to work on that fossil during my Ph.D. It will always have a place close to my heart for that reason. But I also really love to talk about Arthropleura because Arthropleura was a carboniferous invertebrate that was the largest land invertebrate of all time. It looked like a millipede, but it could grow to be over two meters long, which I am 155 centimeters. So like, it’s just me, and then another foot. It’s just so big. It’s so big is just so big.

Veronica

I’m not sure I’d want to run into that to be honest.

Jade

So, yeah. Sometimes I look at humans who are over six feet and I’m like, wow, if you lay down, you would be the size of Arthropleura.

Danielle

I mean, they were detritivores, right? So they were just eating the refuse that would be on the ground. Yeah, like, yes, they were massive and probably really gross looking because they’re bugs, but,

Jade

They were pretty peaceful, they were not carnivores, they were not hunting, they were they were not mean like wasps are today. They were just hanging out on the forest floor eating what they could find because they were very big.

Veronica

Right. Okay. Okay. This was so fun. I have so much more that I want to talk about but for the sake of time…

Jade

No, it’s okay

Veronica

I’ll let you all go. Thank you so, so much for joining us. I have enjoyed this so much and I’m so excited and I hope that everyone listening has learned something new.

Danielle

That’s all we can ask for.

Jade

Yeah, that’s the dream.

Veronica

So thank you for having me. Thank you for having me? Yeah, I guess that makes sense, actually, cause I’m here. Usually I don’t say that, but I am here.

Danielle

Thanks for asking us to be on the podcast.

Veronica

And thank you for tuning in to this episode of Beneath Your Feet, where I got to talk to Dr. Jade Atkins and Daniele Serratos about their career paths, about fossils, about the really cool geology in the Bay of Fundy area. So thank you so much again to our lovely guests, and thank you for listening.

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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