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Café Scientifique

The Bell Museum's Café Scientifique is a happy hour exchange of ideas about science, environment and popular culture that features experts from a variety of fields on diverse and often provocative topics.

November topic: The Lives and Times of Ice Age Mammoths and Mastodons

Mammoths and mastodons are among the most well known species of the North American and Eurasian megafauna, and comparisons by Georges Cuvier in the early 19th century of their bones to those of the African and Asian elephants established the concept of species extinction. This talk will describe how contemporary paleontologists study the anatomy, ecology, and behavior of these emblematic fossil elephants using microscopes, isotopes, and CT scanners.

David Fox's research focuses on the roles of climate and habitat change on the evolution of ecosystems over geological timescales. His projects use the stable isotope geochemistry of sedimentary rocks, fossils, and modern animals and the morphology of teeth to reconstruct aspects of the diet of extinct mammals, including mammoths and mastodons, as well as aspects of their environment. He received his PhD in Geological Sciences from the University of Michigan in 1999 and joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2001.