56 | New Scientist | 23 November 2019
The back pages Q&A
Paul Smith’s love of geology and palaeontology
has taken him from museums to mapping
Greenland to being shipwrecked in the wildest
reaches of the ArcticAs a child, what did you want to
do when you grew up?
I read Gerald Durrell’s books over and over and
was attracted to his life of travel and collecting
animals. This is more or less what I ended up
doing – except all the animals are dead.Explain your work in one easy paragraph.
I am director of Oxford University Museum
of Natural History. I also do research and
teaching in geology and palaeontology.How did you end up working in this field?
In my mid-20s, I had a few months spare before
taking up a lectureship and passed the time
working in the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge. I
enjoyed it and shifted direction in consequence.Did you have to overcome any particular
challenges to get where you are today?
As a white male, not as much as some people, but
I grew up in a declining, post-industrial mill town
in east Lancashire and it concerns me that this is
sometimes still seen as an unconventional route.What’s the most exciting thing you’ve
worked on in your career?
I did my PhD on conodonts, animals that lived
between 500 and 200 million years ago. No one
knew what kind of animals they were. I was lucky
to be part of the team that determined that
conodonts were primitive eel-like vertebrates
and among the earliest active predators.What achievement or discovery
are you most proud of?
Aside from the conodonts, I was involved in the
primary geological mapping of Crown Prince
Christian Land in the remote north-east corner of
Greenland. Two of us mapped a 4500-square-
kilometre area of mainly untrodden ground.Were you good at science at school?
I was always keen and good at biology, and
developed a love of geography and history.If you could send a message back to
yourself as a kid, what would you say?
Work harder at the things you
aren’t naturally interested in.If you could have a conversation with any
scientist living or dead, who would it be?
William Scoresby – Greenland explorer
and map maker in the early 19th century,
and one of the first Arctic scientists.Is there a discovery or achievement
you wish you’d made yourself?
The Burgess Shale fossil deposit in British
Columbia, Canada – a remarkable window
on the evolutionary origin of animals in the
Cambrian era around 510 million years ago.What’s the best thing you’ve read
or seen in the past 12 months?
I’m passionate about theatre, and the thing that
stands out is Kunene and the King, written by
John Kani. It’s a reflection on apartheid and South
Africa over the past 25 years, but also very funny.What scientific development do you
hope to see in your lifetime?
On the altruistic side, a way to rapidly sequester
atmospheric carbon dioxide. More selfishly, a
locality with exceptional fossil preservation close
to the start of the Cambrian, to understand better
the initial, rapid diversification of animals.How useful will your skills be after
the apocalypse?
Field geologists are like cockroaches – they will
survive in a post-apocalypse world. Fieldwork
in the high Arctic means being resourceful and
adaptable – as well as tolerant of discomfort, and
I would relish the chance to document the planet
recovering from a major mass extinction event.OK one last thing: tell us something that
will blow our minds...
I was shipwrecked at 76° north whilst doing field
work in Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Arctic. Our
25-metre research ship hit a submerged rock and
sank. No one was seriously injured, but we were
left with only the clothes we stood up in. ❚Paul Smith directs the Oxford University Museum
of Natural History in the UK“Field geologists
are like
cockroaches -
they will
survive in a
post-apocalypse
world”
ELLIE KURTTZ ©RSC