Digging up the past

Make no bones about it – palaeontology is more than digging up old dinosaurs!

Paleontology looks at the forms of life that lived before us, usually through the study of fossils.

Just ask Scott Hocknull – Assistant Curator of Palaeontology and Vertebrate Palaeontologist at the Queensland Museum for the past two years.

Scott is so passionate about palaeontology that he regards it as a lifestyle rather than a job and that passion saw him named this year’s Young Australian of the Year.

Scott, 24, worked as a volunteer in the palaeontology section of the Queensland Museum for ten years before landing the position of assistant curator. He became Australia’s youngest museum curator at 22.

In 1993, Scott discovered and named a new species of fossil, a freshwater bivalve, and was internationally recognised as Australia’s youngest scientific author at the age of 16.

Scott studied for a further 12 months after completing his degree in Science, Zoology and Earth Sciences at the University of Queensland to complete an Honours Degree – First Class.

“Palaeontology provides practical, valuable information to modern science in areas such as conservation biology and environmental management,” says Scott.

“We look at everything from dinosaurs to climate change. Palaeontology tells us what’s happened over centuries…and knowledge of our past is the key to our future.”