Meetings

Long before modern paleontologists mapped global extinction events, human cultures have sought to understand the rise and fall of lost worlds. This presentation traces the evolution of extinction theory from Indigenous oral traditions, natural historians of the 18th and 19th centuries, and to the modern paleobiological revolution. By examining how our understanding of deep-time catastrophes transformed over the last 2 centuries, I explore the physical drivers behind Earth's major mass extinctions and the traits that governed which species survived and which didn't. Ultimately, this historical narrative connects ancient biotic crises to the Anthropocene and highlights our place in mass extinction discourse and processes.

Please join us for our annual holiday party with our fabulous auction, pot-luck, optional gift-exchange, and merriment! For those who want to clear out their excess fossil treasures and collections, here is your chance to do that by donating to our auction. We'll be looking forward to all of the great food and great company!

Eric Scott is a vertebrate paleontologist specializing in extinct Ice Age large mammals, particularly horses and bison. He studies the evolution and extinction of North American Pleistocene megafauna, with a focus on biogeography – particularly, how the geographic distribution of species can change through time, and how this can inform our understanding of Ice Age extinctions. He has worked throughout western North America as well as East Africa. He is Vice President and Principal Paleontologist of Cogstone Resource Management and an adjunct lecturer at California State University, San Bernardino. He is emeritus Curator of Paleontology for the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California, where he worked for 24 years. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1990.