Science at UM [S03-ep23]: Fossils under a rocket
This week in Science at UM Pierre-Olivier Antoine, paleontologist at the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences in Montpellier, tells us how tens of thousands of fossils discovered beneath the Ariane rocket launch site shed new light on the history of French Guiana. A program co-produced with Divergence FM and broadcast every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on 93.9.
And today we're heading to French Guiana, or more precisely to Kourou. Sorry to disappoint space exploration enthusiasts, but we're not inviting you on a space trip, but rather a journey through time. It was at the Ariane rocket launch site that an international consortium of paleontologists, geologists, and biologists had the idea to excavate and dig, and the least we can say is that they had a nose for it. Between 2017 and 2021, scientists coordinated by the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences in Montpellier unearthed tens of thousands of fossils covering a period of 130,000 years.
This discovery provides us with information about the animal and plant biodiversity of Pleistocene andHolocene French Guiana, but that's not all. The journey through time I mentioned earlier should be understood in both senses, as this collection of fossils also tells us a great deal about the Earth's past and future climate.
We'll tell you more with our guest, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, a paleontologist at ISEM, who coordinated this study. He is the author of the article we are discussing today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
To go further:
- Read the press release A rich 125,000-year-old coastal ecosystem discovered under Ariane 6 in French Guiana
- Read the publication A Late Pleistocene coastal ecosystem in French Guiana was hyperdiverse relative to today
- Listen also to the programs Fossils of Caribbean rodents in the ISEM sedimentation room and From giant sloths to the sclerotron platform with Pierre-Olivier Antoine.
In the second part of the program, we invite you to discover an episode of Lumlu, the podcasts of Lum magazine, by listening to Le sanglier de la discorde(The Boar of Discord). Raphaël Mathevet, a researcher at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, talks to us about the delicate coexistence between humans and animals.
- Read the article The boar of discord
At UM Science, you have the program, so let's get started!
Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Aline Périault / Lucie Lecherbonnier
Production: Alice Rollet
Listen to the program “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
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