East Bay Science Cafe: Tar Pits, Tropics & Ice Age Fossils | Albany

Submitted by the Event Organizer

CANCELLED: East Bay Science Cafe | Albany

> EVENT UPDATE: This event is no longer taking place.

The East Bay Science Cafe is an informal forum for discussing interesting and relevant scientific issues and is held on the first Wednesday of every month at Cafe Valparaiso in Albany.

Join a casual evening of conversation with members of the scientific community presenting different topics each time and encouraging audience questions during and after the event.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015
CANCELLED: East Bay Science Cafe | Albany

Dr. Emily Lindsey presents: “Tar Pits in the Tropics: What the exceptional Ice Age fossil localities of coastal Ecuador and Peru can tell us about ancient ecosystems, species ecology, and the future of biodiversity”

Asphaltic paleontological localities, known as “tar pits,” are valuable scientific resources because they can contain rich accumulations of ancient plants and animals even in regions of the world where fossils often don’t get preserved. In this talk Dr. Lindsey will discuss some of her research on the tar pits of southwestern Ecuador and northwestern Peru that contain records of ancient tropical ecosystems shortly before an extinction event that wiped out most of the large mammals in South America around 10,000 years ago. Not only do these sites shed light on the Ice Age environments of this little-known region and the life ways of animals that lived there, they also challenge longstanding paradigms about how tar pit fossil sites develop and what kind of data they may hold for paleontologists.

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