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Dr. Greg Buckley
 Education:
B.A., Hartwick College, NY, 1985
Ph.D., Rutgers University, NJ, 1994
Current Positions:
Research Associate, Department of Geology
Professor, Roosevelt University, IL
Field Museum appointments from:
1990-1999 Collection Manager, Fossil Invertebrates
1999-today Research Associate, Geology
The Interview
How did you become interested in fossils and the study of paleontology?
I have wanted to be a paleontologist since I was about 8 years old. I had a place where I would collect fossil shells with my family. Since then, I've been interested in animals of the past and what they tell us about our planet through time.
How long do you have to go to school to become a paleontologist?
It took me 4 years of college and 9 years of graduate school. I got my Ph.D. when I was 31 years old.
Have you ever made a mistake?
Sure. Everyone makes mistakes. Some are minor. Some are huge. That's why you have to be very careful, do the best job you can, and catch some of your own mistakes before the rest of the world does. The important thing is that when you make a mistake, you admit it and go on from there.
Is it hard figuring out what bones fit together?
Not usually. Unless you have a really strange animal.
Do you dig the fossils? What do you do with the fossils?
Do I dig them? As in, do I think they're cool? Or do you mean with tools? The answer, either way, is YES! The most fun of being a paleontologist is finding the fossils, being the first person to see an animal (or plant) that lived millions of years ago. Once they are found it is important for them to end up in a museum where everyone else can get to see them.
What was the most important archaeological dig that you, as a paleontologist, have been on?
First of all, archaeology is the study of human artifacts. Very different from paleontology. Indiana Jones was an archaeologist. Second of all, all of the digs (not just those that I've been on) are important. Each one tells us something about the past. Every dig usually fills up some gap in our knowledge. The most fun I've had was on digs in Argentina and Madagascar.
What is the coolest fossil you ever found?
The coolest fossil I ever found was a 17-million-year-old armadillo from Argentina. It was in perfect condition. Laying right next to it was the skeleton of a modern armadillo that had probably died the previous winter. Seeing them both together, relatives separated from each other by millions of generations, was pretty neat.
What was your favorite dinosaur you discovered so far?
I haven't discovered too many. Maybe fossils from three or four different species, all from Madagascar. My favorite is probably Majungatholus, a meat-eating therapod that lived about 65-70 million years ago.
What kind of animal bones have you found?
A lot. Birds, dinosaurs, crocodiles, fish, snakes, monkeys and a whole lot more.
What species have you found the most?
There are a few fossils that are really common. Things like pieces of crinoids and fossil shells are probably the most common things you find in Illinois.
How old were some of the fossils that you found?
I've found fossils that were over 600 million years old. Most of the animals that I study are younger than 80 million years old.
Is it awesome working at a museum full of bones and dinosaurs?
It really is awesome to work at the Field Museum. Remember, though, that we have a lot more here than just dinosaurs. It is a great place to learn about our planet as well as some of the great cultures of the world.
Have you ever been on a site where you found a whole dinosaur fossil?
I've never been around for the discovery of a whole dinosaur. You could probably count the number of paleontologists who have on your fingers. The most complete dinosaur that I helped to dig up was probably 80 percent complete.
How long does it take to find and get a whole dinosaur out of the ground?
Sometimes hours, sometimes months. It depends on how big the animal is, how hard the rock is that the dinosaur is in, and how many people you have working on it. Usually, though, you hardly ever find the whole thing.
How do you know if found all the parts (bones) to a dinosaur or not?
We know exactly what bones should be present in a complete skeleton. When we try to put the whole thing together we are able to see what's missing.
Where have most dinosaurs been found in the world?
Dinosaurs have been found on every continent in the world, including Antarctica. North America is one of the richest areas for dinosaur fossils, and some of the best places in The United States are Rocky Mountain states like Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. There haven't been any dinosaurs found yet in Illinois.
Are there dinosaur bones in the desert?
Some of the best dinosaur fossils ever were found in deserts in Asia and Africa. Some of these places, like the Gobi in Mongolia, may have been deserts when the dinosaurs lived there millions of years ago. Other places were very different back then, later becoming deserts because climates changed over time.
Has a human ever seen a dinosaur?
A living dinosaur? Only if you count birds as living dinosaurs, as many paleontologists do. Or if you've seen "Jurassic Park". Other than that, no. Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago, long before humans were around.
How do you know where to find dinosaur bones?
You need to find rocks of the right age that formed in the right environment. If you want to find a dinosaur bone, you don't want to look in rocks that were formed in the bottom of a deep ocean. You usually want to look at rocks that formed in rivers or lakes. It also helps to go to places where people have found some bones before.
How do you know which bones go to which dinosaur?
A lot of times you don't! That's why it's so important to find complete or almost complete skeletons for at least some key specimens. Once you do, you can see what the bones look like for each species, how big they are and how they are different from other dinosaurs. Then in the future when you find only one or two bones, you can compare them to the bones of a more complete specimen of a close relative to figure out which species of dinosaur it is.
What size was the smallest dinosaur found to date? Where was it found?
One of the smallest dinosaurs was Compsognathus, about the size of a cat. It has been found in the Jurassic of Europe (135 to 190 million years old). Another is one of the earliest dinosaurs- Eoraptor- from the Triassic of Argentina (about 228 million years old).
Which theory of extinction of dinosaurs do you agree with the most?
There is a lot of evidence that supports the idea that a meteor or asteroid hitting the earth caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Others think that they went extinct much more gradually. I personally like the asteroid theory. But remember, if birds are dinosaurs, they never really went extinct.
How do you name the dinosaurs?
A: First, it has to be a brand new species that doesnít already have a name. Then you have to figure out how it is related to other dinosaurs. If it is closely related to another dinosaur then you give it the same first name (called the genus name) as the other dinosaur. If it is very different from everything else known, you can give it a new genus name.
If you do find a brand new species, you get to give it whatever second name you want. It can be a word that relates to the size of the dinosaur (rex is Latin for "king"), where the dinosaur is from (for example, Velociraptor mongoliensis, from Mongolia), or you can name it after somebody else (such as Diplodocus carnegii, for Andrew Carnegie, the steel baron).
Did dinosaurs really rule the earth for a billion years?
No. Dinosaurs are probably just the most popular prehistoric animals, and the group was around for just over 165 million years (from about 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago). For backboned animals (vertebrates) fishes have ruled the earth (at least the wet parts), and theyíve been doing it for over 500 million years, but this refers to the success of the whole group- individual species of dinosaurs only survived an average of a few million years each.
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