Dr. Laura Vietti, geological museum and collections manager with the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming, will speak about whale falls during the next University of Arkansas at Little Rock Department of Earth Sciences EARTHtalk! lecture series on Wednesday, March 8. 

When whales die, their bodies leave a large amount of organic material on the ocean floor. Scavenging fauna consume the carcass in a multi-stage process, which is known as a whale fall.

The lecture, “Life after Death: Whale Fall Scavenging Successions,” will begin at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 8, in the auditorium of the George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology. The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served before the talk begins.

Vietti received a bachelor’s degree in geology and geophysics at the University of Wyoming and a doctorate in geology at the University of Minnesota, where she researched the bacterial communities involved in the early fossilization of bone.

Her current research is focused on the development and advances in methods for interpreting taphonomic histories of vertebrate fossil material, using a variety of interdisciplinary techniques including molecular analyses and bone surface characterization.

For more information, contact Dr. Michael DeAngelis at 501.569.3542 or mtdeangelis@ualr.edu or visit the UA Little Rock Department of Earth Sciences EARTHtalk! website.