Ian Miller is a Paleontologist who works for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Ian Miller’s problem is that he wants to find out how Western North America changed from the past 100 million years, what past climates were like 100 million years ago and the fossil ecosystems that existed 100 million years ago. Through solving and studying this problem, there have been many obstacles to solving his questions. Although obstacles causes trouble and hardships through experiments and test, Ian Miller has been patient with his research, uses what he has to solve questions, and enjoys his findings to make him not stop researching (DMNS).
Ian Miller has experimented with many findings and has found many things. First of all, Ian Miller was involved …show more content…
He hasn’t solved his experiment fully yet but, Ian Miller has contributed to science today. His first contribution is that using fossils can help determine past climates. He built upon that idea that fossils can make past climate and ecosystem predictions because he found the mean annual temperature in his experiments and experimented with the animal fossils found (DMNS). He uses fossil leaves by seeing if they have foraminifera which can tell the ocean temperatures. He can see if they have dirt residue or a different shape to help determine the climate (Nature). This shows through his studies that scientist can determine past climates off fossil leaves …show more content…
One obstacle is that fossils are really hard to find. “The fossil plants are difficult to find,” (said Dr.Johnson). He has to continually search all around Western North America to find fossils and then he has to dig the fossil’s up which can be scattered across land. It can be hard to find certain forms of sedimentary rock that have fossils in them, it can take a long time to get to the sedimentary rock (Hays). Another obstacle is that he has to base his research about past climate on just fossil leaves. It’s first hard to find fossil leaves but also it’s hard to determine if it’s an actual fossil leave because the shape may come off as a fossil leaf, though it may not be one. Another obstacle to this solution is that it can take a while to find fossils that are still in tact from 100 million years ago. Over time, the rocks could break apart from its’ original full piece and from that rock breaking, it can mess with all info collected because if a fossil leaf was found, then one of the most important parts could be missing like the leaf or because the rock is so old, it may be hard even to see any fossils (malvaceae). One final obstacle to this solution is that testing data for climate change and ecosystems may only depend on one fossil if only one is found. One fossil may give off inaccurate data because it was mistakenly placed their which can give you the wrong info
Ian Miller has experimented with many findings and has found many things. First of all, Ian Miller was involved …show more content…
He hasn’t solved his experiment fully yet but, Ian Miller has contributed to science today. His first contribution is that using fossils can help determine past climates. He built upon that idea that fossils can make past climate and ecosystem predictions because he found the mean annual temperature in his experiments and experimented with the animal fossils found (DMNS). He uses fossil leaves by seeing if they have foraminifera which can tell the ocean temperatures. He can see if they have dirt residue or a different shape to help determine the climate (Nature). This shows through his studies that scientist can determine past climates off fossil leaves …show more content…
One obstacle is that fossils are really hard to find. “The fossil plants are difficult to find,” (said Dr.Johnson). He has to continually search all around Western North America to find fossils and then he has to dig the fossil’s up which can be scattered across land. It can be hard to find certain forms of sedimentary rock that have fossils in them, it can take a long time to get to the sedimentary rock (Hays). Another obstacle is that he has to base his research about past climate on just fossil leaves. It’s first hard to find fossil leaves but also it’s hard to determine if it’s an actual fossil leave because the shape may come off as a fossil leaf, though it may not be one. Another obstacle to this solution is that it can take a while to find fossils that are still in tact from 100 million years ago. Over time, the rocks could break apart from its’ original full piece and from that rock breaking, it can mess with all info collected because if a fossil leaf was found, then one of the most important parts could be missing like the leaf or because the rock is so old, it may be hard even to see any fossils (malvaceae). One final obstacle to this solution is that testing data for climate change and ecosystems may only depend on one fossil if only one is found. One fossil may give off inaccurate data because it was mistakenly placed their which can give you the wrong info