Undergraduate geoscience
researchers leads study
Date: September 8, 2016
Source: Virginia Tech
An extinct reptile related to
crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been
named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by
Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences researchers.
Leading the paper that names the
previously unknown animal is undergraduate researcher Emily Lessner of Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania, a double major in the departments of Geosciences and
Biological Sciences, both in the Virginia Tech College of Science. Lessner's
paper detailing the fossil of the animal -- jawbones, other skull fragments,
and hip-bones -- appears in this week's open science journal, PeerJ.
Vivaron haydeni was found in
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, in 2009 during an excavation co-led by Sterling
Nesbitt, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin,
and now an assistant professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech. Some of the
fossils remained sealed in protective plaster jackets until 2014, when they
were transported to Blacksburg for study. That's where Lessner enters.
At the time a sophomore majoring
in Biological Sciences with a minor in Geosciences, she was seeking an
independent research experience that piqued her interest and provided a
challenge. She found it with the Paleobiology Research Group in Derring Hall.
Nesbitt had not arrived on campus
yet and was looking for students interested in conducting research projects.
When Lessner heard of the opportunity and the chance to work with Nesbitt and
Michelle Stocker, also a newly arriving paleontologist in the college, Lessner
jumped at the chance.
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