Old Earth (8 page)

Kavanaugh’s efforts helped provide greater, quicker and more definitive research; research that wasn’t intended for the pages of
Voyages
. This was special information culled from the field, from the media, and from the Internet; information that ultimately made it to Martin Gruber’s desk. A desk that soon would belong to Colin Kavanaugh.

Twelve

MAKOSHIKA STATE PARK, MT
THE NEXT DAY

“What do we know about where we are, people?” McCauley asked his full team. They were assembled for an early morning orientation under the food tent, each in a folding chair facing McCauley who stood next to a five by seven foot dry erase board set on an easel.

The professor drew a big question mark on the board.

“Anyone?”

He wrote the name Makoshika on the board.

There were a few whispers. Nothing more. The group hadn’t begun to gel yet.

“Look around. Kind of mysterious and eerie. The Native Americans called it Makoshika. Translation—
bad earth
or
pitiful earth
. Why?”

Still no answers.

“You’ll find out soon enough. But here’s a little history for you. The Sioux and their ancestors who lived here were humbled by the quiet. It was, in their experience, truly pitiful, unforgiving. Hot in the summer, freezing in the winter. Some of which you’ll experience. But it wasn’t always this way. You’re sitting on what used to be a humid lowland tropical swamp. As humid as Florida is today. Maybe more so. And then?”

“It got a lot colder,” one of the men said. It was Tom Trent from Northwestern.

“Thank you, Mr. Trent. Big time colder,” McCauley underscored. “With tons of ice reshaping the terrain.”

The Yale professor surveyed the group. “Okay, anything else about Mah-KO-shi-kuh?” he said with intentional emphasis.

“Montana’s state dinosaur is the duck billed hadrosaur,” said Leslie Cohen.

“Planning on finding one yourself, Ms. Cohen?”

“Love to. Where do you think, Dr. McCauley?”

“Dig your heels into the ground. Your hadrosaur might be right under you. You never know. It could be your invitation to a formal Penrose dinner.”

This brought applause. The Penrose Medal was the Geological Society of America’s highest honor. However, it would take more than one exceptional fossil to merit the prestigious award.

“Ah, my group lives,” McCauley said. “And now welcome to home for the next six weeks. Look around. It doesn’t get any better than this. I mean it. This is as good as it gets.”

The students scanned the foreboding terrain. To some, it appeared prehistoric; to others, post-apocalyptic.

“So, back to my question. This time with answers. What do we know about where we are?”

“It’s God-awful hot,” said UC Berkeley’s Al Jaffe.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” McCauley responded.

“That will be difficult, you’re the professor,” the Harvard woman offered under her breath.

“It’s Ms. Chohany, right?”

“Yes, Dr. McCauley.”

“I imagine that if you display that attitude defending your dissertation it will be a very short session.”

“Yes,” she said sheepishly. “It would.”

McCauley liked attitude, but he figured he needed to establish lines of authority first.

“Then enlighten us, professionally.”

“Well, we’re in the heart of the mother lode of archeological and paleontological sites. There have been more than nineteen thousand digs in the immediate area. This is the home to one of the most famous T. rex—”

“No abbreviations,” McCauley interrupted. “These creatures deserve our respect.”

“…one of the most famous Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever unearthed…” she said, thinking
fuck you.
“…nearly ninety percent complete.”

“Ever or in the area?”

“In Montana,” the University of Michigan’s Rich Tamburro interjected.

McCauley nodded. “And its name?”

“
Her
name,” Chohany declared. “It’s a
she
. Sue.”

Quinn McCauley was actually pleased that personalities were beginning to emerge with spirit. He needed to gauge their strengths and weaknesses. So far he was seeing clear distinctions from three of his students; Chohany being the strongest.

“And do you know where Sue was discovered? Let’s hear from the so far silent Penn Stater, Mr. Lobel and our representative from Madrid, Mr. Rodriguez.”

“Well, right here, on former Sioux land,” Lobel replied.

“And how long ago? Again, to you Mr. Lobel.”

“Sixty million years. Sixty-million-ish.”

Leslie Cohen, Adam Lobel’s girlfriend, cringed.

“More accurately.”

“Sixty-seven?” he asked.

“Look it up,” McCauley stated. “What else do we know about Sue?”

“She had awfully huge hips,” Tamburro joked. “About twelve feet wide. She was forty-two feet long. A big, big woman. Not the kind you’d want to get mad.”

“Sue was born mad,” McCauley corrected. “And you’ve all done well for any eighth grade general science student who could type Tyrannosaurus rex into Google. Who’s got more?”

“I do,” Carlos Rodriguez offered. “Sue is really just one of many on the tyrannosaur family tree. We happen to know more about tyrannosaur genera than any other classification of dinosaurs, even more than some other groups of living organisms. They range from Sue’s build right down to others about one-hundredth the size. And some of her cousins go back a good one hundred million years earlier.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. And welcome. And to everyone, congratulations. You’re up to ninth grade. Now show me I made seven good decisions about my choices for this team. Mr. Jaffe, aside from digging up the fossilized bones, what are we finding?”

“Finding? We haven’t started yet.”

“Oh yes, we have. Everyone get up and walk around.” McCauley was opening their eyes to what they hadn’t seen.

Chohany stood and headed fifty yards south. She saw a canyon and a drop she calculated at nearly three hundred feet. She gasped at the natural beauty. Magnificently colored sedimentary layers, every inch representing eons with history ready to be unlocked. All exquisite. There were reddish-brown layers of stone laced with orange, yellow, and green where the irons and other trace metals had oxidized.

The others came back with similar reactions and descriptions of more minerals and colors.

“Okay, now that you’ve done a site survey, give us some geological forensics about this place.”

“I’d say these rocks were formed when water carried particles of sand down a river delta. There used to be a sea here and streams would have fed it.”

“Did you deduce that or read it on the park website, Mr. Trent?”

“One hundred percent observation. Look at the slope of the strata. The signs are all there.”

“You’re right, but there are larger rocks within the shale,” McCauley noted. “Anyone?”

Chohany spoke again. “Well, if the streams dried up or slowed down, the heavier rocks would have settled to the bottom.” She pointed to an area she’d seen. “And then as things speeded up again, other particles would have been trapped creating bands of sandstone, each representing distinct geological periods.”

“Very good,” the teacher said. “Now, let’s get to what this can mean for us. What good can come from all this work beyond tagging some fossils?”

The team didn’t seem to understand the question.

“I’ll try it another way. Are there any breakthroughs you can report? The things that get journal attention? Your ticket to tenure.” McCauley laughed at his own comment. However, he looked around, hoping for more in the way of a response. “Mr. Jaffe, show us how bright you are.”

“Well, on the medical side, cancer research has benefited from paleontological discoveries.”

“Welcome to tenth grade.” This was an answer he hadn’t expected. “Go on.”

“Molecular paleontologists have actually extracted hardy, fibrous protein collagen from a Tyrannosaurus rex thighbone found in the Hell Creek Formation. Other researchers discovered soft tissue in,” he paused, “may I please just say T. rex, Dr. McCauley?”

Quinn McCauley laughed. “Only because you’re on a roll.”

“Well, pathologists and mass spectrometry experts at Harvard sequenced peptide fragments which produced evidence that T. rex was actually a BFUC.”

“A what?” Leslie Cohen asked.

“A ‘B-F-U-C.’” Jaffe spelled out the letters. “Big Fat Ugly Chicken.”

Everyone snickered.

“And what does that have to do with the price of eggs?” McCauley asked.

“Molecular evidence that can be extracted from fossils is a door opener,” Jaffe continued. “We see links between extinct species and modern day animals. Animals like us. The study is leading to more understanding about tumor growth. From just a minute amount of material they’ve been able to work on ways to sequence
oncoproteins
with the hopes of ultimately determining why an individual gets cancer.”

“Wow, I had no idea,” Leslie Cohen said.

“There’s a lot of wow beneath us and we haven’t even”—McCauley smiled at where he was going—“scratched the surface.”

This was the ice-breaker the group needed. They all laughed.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he said settling them down. “So now we’re ready to get back to my initial question. What do we know about where we are?” He looked around trying to see who would put all the pieces together.

“We’re at the beginning of finding answers,” Anna Chohany said without hesitation.

“Correct, Ms. Chohany. Absolutely correct.”

• • •

McCauley had selected his summer companions on their resumes, the passion in their letters, their recommendations and his teaching assistant’s recommendations. One-hundred twenty had not made it. Seven did. The seven best. Different personalities, all dressed the same—for the heat, the dirt, and the work.

Clothing
de rigueur
was a white or light gray t-shirt, shorts, white socks and a Panama hat or baseball cap. No expensive watches. No fingernail or toenail polish on the women. They wore laced up leather work boots which protected them from cuts and bruises, sprained ankles, or worse.

“Time for a site survey. We’ll initially work in basically one hundred square yards. But it’s not what you see that matters. It’s what’s below. So let’s walk and talk.”

Now they were clicking as a group and displaying their individuality. Chohany distinguished herself as a great pick, willing to get out in front. Tamburro’s acerbic personality was emerging. Al Jaffe was smart as a whip and someone to lean on. Leslie Cohen and Adam Lobel were clearly a couple, with Cohen being the driver. Trent was still quiet, but he looked like a dedicated worker who would undoubtedly help everyone. Rodriguez, the Spaniard, was an unknown quantity.

Jaffe walked closest to McCauley. He took a series of photographs with his iPhone.

“The first time I did a dig, my site director told me to save my film for later,” McCauley said.

“Later?”

McCauley laughed. “Film. It used to be expensive.” He stopped and turned around facing his team.

“Okay, listen up. Look around. You’ve got a clear view of some sixty miles. And wherever you dig, it’ll be almost impossible not come up with something. Dinosaur Alley is one of the world’s most impressive burial grounds. Maybe that’s another reason to call it pitiful. But now let’s see where your $200,000 in tuition is going.”

“Try upwards of three hundred,” Tamburro joked. “Adding on the cost of a PhD without a full ride, which I don’t have, and…”

“Right. So, Mr. Tamburro, give us a history lesson
Jeopardy
-style. The answer is
3.8 to 3.9 billion years old
.”

“What are the oldest rocks on Earth?”

“Correct, but…”

“I’m not finished. Some sedimentary rocks include embedded minerals that are as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. These are relatively rare, but they’ve been excavated at sites around the globe from Africa to Asia, Australia, Greenland and North America.”

“Very good. Next answer—three isotopes of lead that are contained in meteorite samples.”

“I know,” shouted Leslie Cohen. “What’s the best measure for determining Earth’s age?”

“Take it further, Ms. Cohen.”

“Well, the baseline comes from critical estimates of when common pool matter was formed and then uniformly distributed in the solar system. Over eons, pronounced changes in the isotopes occurred. Computing these changes against the uranium-to-lead ratio gives us the ability to determine how much time has passed since galactic pool matter became separated.”

Cohen stuck her tongue out at her boyfriend. The others laughed.

“Very, very good. Double Jeopardy, where everything doubles. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Dr. McCauley,” said Tamburro.

“Yes, doctor,” smirked Chohany.

“The answer is,
They think you’re crazy
!”

“Got it!” Six of the seven yelled in unison. Rodriguez was trying to figure it out.

McCauley held up his hands, not certain whom to go to. “Looks like a tie, so, ladies first.”

“Ms. Cohen?”

“Easy. Young Earthers.”

“Incorrectly stated.”

“Who are Young Earthers?” Al Jaffe said.

The group laughed.

“No laughing gang. They’re serious about their beliefs, so no editorializing for now.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jaffe offered. “Well, according to them, smarty pants scientists…”

“Snarky.”

“Sorry, Dr. McCauley.
Many
scientists maintain that Earth, as a whole, has to be as old as any of its parts. If we were to light birthday candles, we’d have about 4.55 billion, about the same number, give or take 1%, we’d place on the solar system’s cake. But Young Earthers or Ultra-Creationists base their beliefs in strict biblical interpretations and by the rate at which rivers deposit metals into the oceans. They claim that the true age of the oceans and therefore Earth is merely, I don’t know, more or less six or seven thousand years.”

“Theology over geology?” McCauley asked. “Isn’t there room for both?”

“Science demands strict testing. Religion requires strict beliefs,” Jaffe continued taking the middle of the road.