If I only had the time...

I've been eager to answer my first "Ask a Science Blogger" question:

Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?

If I could pursue my dream science job, you'd find me off in some remote region, hacking at rocks, looking for transitional fossils. One of the biggest reasons I'd study paleontology is the severe shortage of specialists out there. So many untold stories lie between layers of rock--organisms which lived from thousands to billions of years ago--and relatively few people who actively search for them. Plus, fossil collecting gets you out in nature, in direct contact with the rock, often in some awesomely beautiful places.

I have a personal reason for choosing it, as well.

My grandfather was a paleontologist, specializing in ammonites. (He's quite retired, now in his 80s.) He was the one who showed me how to search, and handed me his hammer to crack open my first fossil: a lovely scallop shell, about 3 inches across.) Some years ago, he used that same hammer to defend himself against a large buck that attacked him while in the field. (They never determined exactly what caused the deer to charge, but local residents said it had been acting strangely.) Because of that, paleontology has this sort of superhero aura about it, for me.

The photo above is a series of dinosaur footprints we saw on the return from Las Vegas. They are located on the western side of the San Rafael Swell, on a large boulder which fell from the Molen Reef, in the Coal Cliffs.