True North: Hunting Fossils Under the Midnight Sun - Paperback

by Lou Marincovich Phd (Author)

As a bored child in a working class family, Lou Marincovich imagined a life of adventure and strong emotions-and got far more than he anticipated. Inspired to become a paleontologist by a children's book on dinosaurs, he plunged into realms of life where intellectuals rarely go, working hardhat jobs on offshore oil drilling platforms in equatorial Africa and Alaska to put himself through grad school and laboring beside cutthroat coworkers, one of whom he was barely stopped from murdering. Later, as an internationally recognized paleontologist, he spent three decades researching fossil mollusks in the surreal landscapes of remotest Alaska, Arctic Canada and Siberia. In the course of documenting faunal and climate changes in the Arctic over the span of 60 million years, he solved the mystery of Bering Strait's age; discovered an unnamed river; survived a helicopter crash, several bush plane accidents, a near-drowning in an icy river, landslides, and punishing storms; and saved his own life by shooting a charging grizzly with his last bullet. In addition to finding the adventure he craved as a young man, Marincovich was rewarded by surprising and profound spiritual experiences, during one of which he found his soul mate. This is a unique story of youthful yearning, high adventure, moral lapses, scientific discovery and love.

Author Biography

Lou Marincovich, PhD, is a paleontologist who specializes in studying Cenozoic marine mollusks of the North Pacific and Arctic oceans. He is the only scientist fortunate enough to have focused on this topic for an entire career. During his career with the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Academy of Sciences, he documented the changing climate of the Arctic over sixty million years as evidenced in the shifting migration of mollusk species between Asia and North America. He was the first to show that ancient lineages of mollusks considered extinct at the end-Mesozoic extinction some 65 million years ago continued to dwell for millions of years in the Arctic Ocean beside newly evolved Cenozoic species. And his fortuitous find of a fossil clam specimen in a museum collection led him to solve the mystery of Bering Strait's age. Dr. Marincovich has authored more than 100 scientific articles and books. He is a Research Associate in Geology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. As a child, he was inspired to become a paleontologist by a children's book on fossils, and he hopes to pass along this lifelong inspiration through the pages of True North: Hunting Fossils Under the Midnight Sun. Visit the author online at www.loumarincovich.com.