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Matthew Borths is a third year student majoring in Geological Sciences and Anthropology with a minor in EEOB. He conducted paleontology research in Dr. John Hunter's lab this past year and will conduct further research on fossils at the University of California, Berkeley over the summer.
What were the benefits of working on this project?
There is no thrill quite like posing a question that has no answer…yet. My research has given me the opportunity to go beyond the textbook and utilize the skills I have acquired through my courses while giving me confidence in my own curiosity. In pursuing different lines of evidence, I have been able to use my advisors’ contacts and communicate with some of the leading voices in paleontology. I also feel prepared to begin graduate school; the idea of a massive research project doesn’t seem daunting anymore. Rather, I am excited by the prospect of a thesis or dissertation. On top of all that, I get to handle ancient fossils of organisms that once called this Earth, deepening our knowledge of this planet and the vast diversity of life!
What specifically do you research? What projects are you currently working on?
The last 600 million years of life’s history have been punctuated by five mass-extinction events, which are cataclysmic episodes that reorganize how life functions in every environment on Earth. I am studying two groups of organisms and how each responded and survived to the stressors that decimated life on earth. One research project concerns crinoids, a group of enchinoderms, during the Ordovician-Silurian mass-extinction 443 million years ago, the second most devastating extinction ever. The animals all seem to shrink near the boundary, and I am trying to discern what body-size reduction implies about the factors driving extinction. The second project concerns our mammalian ancestors who survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. I am trying to figure out if the survivors had any post-cranial locomotor adaptations that allowed them to radiate and diversify across the planet after dinosaurs bit the dust.
How did you find this research topic?
I knew I wanted to do research to see if paleontology was really what I wanted to study. I met with Dr. William Ausich in the School of Earth Science and began discussing his research on evolutionary trends, crinoid morphology and general topics of paleontological interest. I eventually formulated a question I was interested in, and Dr. Ausich pointed me toward the fossils that would help me find an answer. He continues to guide me as I work on their morphological changes during the O-S extinction. For the mammal project, I started out by helping catalogue fossils in Dr. John Hunter’s lab. As I became more familiar with mammalian anatomy and evolution through discussion and papers Dr. Hunter recommended, I began to outline broad questions I was interested in. Dr. Hunter helped me zero in on a particular hypothesis to test and the methods I would use to get results, eventually helping me generate my project on mammalian survivorship.
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