Searching for the Oldest Animal Fossils

Join us for a talk by Professor Justin Strauss on the search for the oldest animal fossils in celebration of the 2026 Summer Reading theme, Unearth a Story. The Community Reads book we have chosen in conjunction with this theme is Otherlands: A World in the Making. This talk is hybrid: attend in person in the Mayer Room or register here for the Zoom invitation. This program is co-sponsored by the Howe Library and the Hanover Conservancy.

Animals are a relatively late addition to Planet Earth. Professor Justin Strauss of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Dartmouth will guide us through the earliest evidence for animals in the fossil record and what hypotheses exist for driving early animal evolution. In addition to this historical narrative, Professor Strauss will also take us along for a ride into his research in the remote mountains of northwestern Canada, where the search for these fossils also happens to be in the some of the last vestiges of wilderness on our planet.

Justin Strauss is Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College. He is interested in a variety of geological phenomena, from the evolution of Earth's biosphere to the tectonic development of modern and ancient mountain belts. His primary interest is reconstructing Earth's history, particularly the co-evolution of Earth and life during key periods of tectonic and climatic change. Most of his projects are framed through the lens of field-based sedimentology, stratigraphy, and structural geology; however, he also integrates a wide array of tools, such as stable and radiogenic isotope geochemistry, geochronology, paleontology, and geological mapping to explore outstanding problems in historical geobiology and global tectonics.