Rooted in Time: Living Fossils

Join us and the North Carolina Fossil Club for a special presentation with paleontologist Dr. Carole Gee! Dr. Carole Gee is a paleontologist who specializes in Mesozoic and Cenozoic plants. After graduating with a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Texas at Austin, during which she spent a year in Sweden as a Fulbright scholar, Carole first moved on to ETH Zurich in Switzerland for a postdoc to study fossil pollen and spores, then to Bonn in Germany to return to fossil plant research on the organismal level. Dr. Gee was a paleobotanist, botanist, and professor of paleontology at the University of Bonn from 1990 until her recent retirement in January 2026. One of Dr. Gee’s interests that started at UT Austin involves living fossils: What are they? How can we sort out living plant and animal species from their morphological lookalikes in the fossil record? Should living fossils be considered primitive forms or viewed instead as unique examples of our evolutionary heritage? Find out more at this public meeting of the NC Fossil Club! This presentation is a collaboration with the NC Fossil Club.