On Saturday, Feb. 1, Pomona College’s Geology Department hosted the 45th Woodford-Eckis lecture series in honor of its founder, Professor A.O. Woodford. The annual lecture hosts an outstanding geologist who presents their work at a major banquet talk followed by a research lecture and seminar the next day.
This year, the program invited Professor Mary Droser from the University of California, Riverside. Droser, recipient of the 2022 National Academy of Sciences Award in Early Earth and Life Sciences, presented a talk at Rose Hills Theatre, where she spoke about the dawn of all animal life on Earth.
The change Earth undertook to transform from a vacant hurtling rock to a vibrant life source is what geologists like Professor Droser seek to understand.
“The amazing thing is that we can go back and look at Earth at various times in its history, so we can go back in time and look at rocks and interpret that 3.5 billion years ago, Earth was a watery planet,” Droser said during the talk.
Droser’s previous work focused on the impact of animals on sediments. By looking at the sediments themselves and examining the fossils and patterns of sediment disturbance, she was able to record valuable information on early animal behavior and interactions with their ecosystems.
These findings included information on the oldest moving animals, complexities in genetics and early forms of reproduction. Among the organisms that Droser discovered were the “Obamus” — named after the 44th president — the beautiful and plentiful “Dickinsonia” and the asymmetrical bilateral “Ikaria.” This research reveals secrets about evolution and the rise of complex life on Earth.
Droser researched fossils that were part of the Ediacaran Biota, which were all once very similar soft-bodied organisms. They were among the earliest animals on the planet and varied in size from millimeters to the size of a bath mat.
In Droser’s research, she found herself at one of the world’s best windows into the earliest animal ecosystems, the South Australia Nilpena Station, where she began a project that would last for over 25 years. At this site, she discovered entire ancient communities sealed exactly where they had lived over 500 million years ago.
“Most paleontology is done with … the ‘clink, clink’ method,” Droser said. “You go out in the field, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink with your hammer, [then] take the specimen back to a museum or a lab because that’s the best way to look at it.”
Droser said that she did not have to use the method with the Ediacaran Biota fossils.
“We could actually pull these beds out, flip them over and look at these fossils […] actually look at whole communities, literally excavate whole beds and put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle,” she said.
During the following Q&A period, one student questioned what sorts of creatures may have preyed on the Ediacaran Biota. The student asked Droser if she had discovered any fossils that showed signs of deformities, injuries or bites in the original organisms. In response, Droser described a “beautiful world” where organisms lived in a virtual “Garden of Ediacar,” nobody had teeth and there was no evidence of predation — a world vastly different from today.
For some students, the talk served as a way to relate their own studies to geology. Among the attendees was biology major Faben Tesfazion SC ’25. In an interview before the talk, she revealed that she had never taken a geology class.
“I don’t really know much about this, but […] thought it was a cool mixing of the two different subjects and wanted to learn more,” Tesfazion said.
Another community member in attendance, Raymond V. Ingersoll, a professor emeritus at UCLA, expressed similar sentiments.
“Philosophically, the most important thing about geology is the time frame,” Ingersoll said. “I’m used to thinking in terms of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years, and most humans are used to thinking 10 years, 100 years, maybe 1000. But to geology, those are insignificant amounts.”