Honors rising junior Delaney Ryan is in New York City (NYC) this summer interning with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Richard Gilder Graduate School. Ryan is a geology major with a concentration in paleontology. She was also offered an internship at the Smithsonian Institution but chose instead the Biology Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (REU) with AMNH.
The AMNH internship runs from May 29 through August 5, 2018. For the first eight weeks of the internship, Ryan is in NYC working in the museum, and for the last week and a half to two weeks, she will be doing fieldwork in South Dakota and Montana. Ryan is studying Ammonites in Methane-Seep Environments from the Cretaceous under the mentorship of Dr. James Witts, Post-Doctoral Candidate, and Dr. Neil Landman, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology. The AMNH website describes Ryan's internship,
"In this project, the REU student will study the ammonite fauna from Upper Cretaceous methane seep deposits from the last epicontinental sea that covered the interior of North America during the Campanian and Maastrichtian (84-66 million years ago) time periods. The student, relying on museum collections at the AMNH, will make detailed comparisons between the composition and distribution of the ammonite faunas at these methane seeps and at nearby age-equivalent non-seep sites. Such a comparison may reveal the role of ammonites in ancient methane seep ecosystems, as well as answer questions about the ecology and evolution of these charismatic fossils"
Click here to read more about this and other AMNH REU internship opportunities.
Top photo shows Ryan working at the AMNH in NYC. Photo submitted
Story by Garrett Alexandrea McDowell, Ph.D.
