Joan Cartan-Hansen, Host: What is a fossil?

Do you know how the process works?

Well, it has to start somewhere.

[MUSIC] Say you're a Hagerman Horse.

That's a horse-like creature, something closer to a zebra, that lived about 3.5 million years ago.

And say, you have really bad luck... [UH OH] fall into a lake, and die on the lakebed.

[CONFETTI POPS] Congratulations,you're on your way to becoming a fossil!

[APPLAUSE] Macie Menard,Cultural Resource Intern: Where it's going to quickly, quickly get covered by sediment and dirt, the sediment will layer on top of it and compress and mineralize the fossil.

The bone slowly, it's not bone anymore, it becomes rock, it becomes a part of the earth, and the shape is still the same as the original bone.

And eventually, after millions and a million years of compression and cementation, it will become a fossil.

Cartan-Hansen: Right now, no one knows you're a fossil.

To become a recognized fossil, someone first has to find you.

Menard: Most of the time, paleontologists will never know a fossil is there unless something is exposed.

It's far too difficult to just walk around and start digging holes.

And so we need to know it's there in order for us to know where to dig.

Cartan-Hansen: That's why we're here.

Michael Irving, Chief of Interpretation and Education: Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument was established back in 1988, and the reason it was created was to protect some unique fossil deposits that occur in the bluffs along the Snake River near Hagerman.

Cartan-Hansen: Here, paleontologists found something special.

Irving: They began to pull out complete skeletons of what's now known as the Hagerman Horse.

And that's actually pretty rare when we're talking about fossils, to be able to pull out complete skeletons of prey animals.

Cartan-Hanse: So, you've been found.

Now what happens to you?

Well, the next step might involve toilet paper.

Menard: Our specimens are brought not just in their pure fossil form, but they are wrapped up in these protective casts called jackets.

And these jackets are made out of toilet paper, plaster of paris, and layers of burlap.

And these are meant to protect the very fragile fossils while they're being moved in transport.

So we first receive them like this, but obviously we can't display a fossil in this way, so we have to prepare it.

So this room right here is our fossil prep lab, and this is where we do all the preparations so that we can move these beautiful fossils into storage.

To prep a fossil, it takes hundreds and hundreds of hours.

It takes so much manpower, it takes so much patience.

It's not something that could ever be done in a day.

Cartan-Hansen: Preparers use tools to remove the sediment around the fossil and add glues to harden the sample.

So, now your fossil has been prepared, but it's not yet official.

Menard: So now we are going to take this fossil into our collection space where we'll identify it and make sure it's safely housed.

This is the area after we prepare a fossil, we're going to bring it into this space, which is our backlog space.

This space is for areas of fossils that aren't fully ready to be put into the collection.

And so once it gets to the collection, we're going to have our scientists or my fellow interns look at it and try to figure out what type of fossil is it?

Is it a Hagerman Horse or is it just a bone fragment that we'll never know what it is?

That's a really important part of the process.

And so after we identify our fossil, we're then going to move it into its proper container.

Once it's all ready and we put it into our collection database, which is a big book of all our fossils and where we found them and all the information, we'll usually put a little slip and we'll write the number of the fossil there.

So this fossil, it's a megalonyx, so it's a ground sloth fossil.

That cat number is going to be 4-9-9-3.

And so that number is going to forever be associated with this particular fossil.

And once we do that, we'll move it into the rest of the room where we store items by species.

Cartan-Hansen: So, you've been found, identified, cataloged, and you are now on display.

Congratulations, you are a recognized fossil.

But you do more than just look pretty.

Irving: You know, we should care about fossils because of what it tells us.

To understand our history is to understand us now, and it also helps us to understand our future.

Cartan-Hansen: And working with fossils opens up a number of job opportunities.

Menard: You can be a field paleontologist, you can be a lab prep, you can be a resources manager, you can go be a collections manager or you can be a curator.

There's so many different levels to this field.

It's not just go be a paleontologist.

Irving: If you love science, if you love solving puzzles, if you love spending time outside, being a paleontologist could be a great career path.

Cartan-Hansen: If you want to learn more about fossils, check out the science trek website.

You'll find it at science trek dot org.

[MUSIC] Announcer: Presentation of Science Trek on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis Family legacy of building the great state of Idaho; by the Idaho National Laboratory, mentoring talent and finding solutions for energy and security challenges; by the Friends of Idaho Public Television; and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.