Part of a series of articles titled Park Paleontology News - Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring 2023.
Article
Fifty Years of Adventures in Paleobotany: A Tribute to Herb Meyer
Conni J. O’Connor, Museum Technician
Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado
Introduction
In the spring of 1994, Herb Meyer contemplated his future. He had just completed an employment application while sitting in a camping chair on an alluvial fan in Death Valley. The application was for the newly created paleontologist position at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. However, his journey to becoming Florissant’s first Paleontologist began years earlier.
The Early Years
The way Herb tells it, his interest in geology began in Salem, Oregon while in fifth grade as he was starting a mineral collection. His teacher, Mr. Mulkey, read a book to Herb’s class. The book was a fictional story about a boy who went to a place called Camp Hancock, a science camp sponsored by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) located in what is now John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. It was only later that Herb became aware that Camp Hancock was a real place where kids interested in geology could actually attend, and, by high school, he attended Camp Hancock and collected his first fossils in the summers of 1969 and 1970.
As a high school sophomore and a member of the Mineral Minors club, Herb and other members traveled to the “Lyons” locality in northwestern Oregon to collect fossils. This led him to choose the Oligocene Lyons flora as his project when he became a member of the OMSI Student Research Program since he already had a fossil collection and wanted to build it up, do the research, and describe it. Thus, this work—started in 1970, his junior year of high school—marked the first of Herb’s paleobotanical endeavors.
After that first collecting trip, Herb and future University of Florida Curator of Paleobotany Steve Manchester returned to the Lyons locality many times. Steve was Herb’s “field assistant” a lot during those trips. They would drive there in Herb’s dad's pickup and then climb up a steep hill to their fossil locality. In the beginning, Herb didn’t really pay attention to all the poison oak and dearly paid the price.
Following some lessons learned, part of the protocol was no splitting onsite because that was just too much time being exposed to poison oak. The whole objective was to climb up there, get big blocks, put them in flour bags, and tie them tightly. Herb would pack a can of bright red spray paint to make the outside of the bags visible. Once the bags were packed and painted, they were tumbled down the hill into a thicket of maple and – of course – poison oak. The second part of the trip was going down to the bottom of the hill, trying to find all the bags, and then carrying them over to the truck. After returning home, the final step was splitting boulders with a hammer and chisel to find the fossils. Most of the exciting fossil discoveries of mysterious plant parts were made on the cement steps in the back of Herb’s house.
By 1971, there were two National Science Foundation-funded student research teams set up at Camp Hancock; one for paleontology and one for archaeology. Naturally, Herb joined the paleontology team. During his second year in the OMSI Student Research Program, Herb was encouraged to submit the project report he was writing to the nationally recognized Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Though thousands of applicants applied, Herb was in the top 40 and was chosen to travel to Washington, D.C. for the final competition. This triggered a media storm, and Herb found himself pictured on the front page of the Salem Oregon Statesman on his 18th birthday.
Then, in the summer of 1972, he had his first paid job in paleontology, working as an assistant on the student research team for OMSI in the Ochoco Mountains searching for ammonites. This experience would anchor his 50 years of employment in paleontology.
The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries invited Herb to publish a condensed version of his Westinghouse submission in the monthly Ore Bin. That would be his first publication, which came out a year later in 1973. Theoretically, there was a trophy and more that would be presented to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search student at their high school graduation. But Herb never went to his senior graduation. He graduated early and started at Portland State University.
The College Years
Herb was a geology student at Portland State for two and a half years. Then, in 1974, renowned paleobotanist Jack Wolfe asked if he wanted to be a Physical Science Technician with the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California starting in July 1974. Herb accepted the invitation. He took a year off of school to work on cleared leaves (modern leaves that have been chemically processed to make their venation patterns more visible) and transferred to the University of California Berkeley, which had the nation’s only Department of Paleontology, where he would spend the next eleven years.
Herb completed his undergraduate degree in December 1976, then went on to continue as a graduate student from 1977 through May 1986. He earned a Master's degree looking at fossil pollen, and continued working towards a PhD. Bill Berry, the former director of UC Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology, later coined this time as Berkeley’s “Golden Age of Paleontology”. If you ever mention other paleontologists in passing while talking to Herb, more than likely they went to grad school at Berkeley at the same time as he did.
Initially, Herb started working again for the USGS as an opportunity to begin his dissertation project on the paleoelevation of fossil floras from the Rio Grande Rift area, which would include Florissant. Unfortunately, budget cuts forced him out of USGS and into the classroom as a T.A. and Graduate Student Instructor where he taught paleobotany, introductory paleontology labs, and undergraduate seminar classes, among others. Herb’s graduate advisor, Wayne Fry, always selected Herb to be the Teaching Assistant, which Herb loved doing.
It was while working on the cleared leaf project that Herb first met Harry D. MacGinitie, or “Mac” as he was known to his friends, who had published the 1953 monograph Fossil Plants of the Florissant Beds, Colorado. Mac had been on the faculty at Humboldt State in northern California and after retirement moved to Napa, just north of Berkeley, with his wife, Bea. As a Research Associate, Mac would visit campus once or twice a month, arriving in the morning and heading back to Napa mid-afternoon. During this time, Herb got to know Mac and another paleobotanist, Howard Schorn, talking about all kinds of topics and, of course, fossil plants. In a letter (FLFO archives) to Estella Leopold in 1979, Mac wrote “I have a young friend who is a graduate student … in paleobotany. He is a good and capable lad … and does good and reliable work.”
Mac became a mentor of sorts and although he wasn’t on the committee, he reviewed Herb’s dissertation, which substantially disagreed with his own interpretation of the paleoelevation of Florissant. However, Mac wasn’t one to become caught up in his own dogma; he was a very open-minded scientist. Mac saw the internal logic of what Herb had done, the methods used made sense to him, and Herb’s results followed that logic. Even though he didn’t necessarily agree with it, Mac could see where Herb was coming from. Right around the time Mac turned 90, Howard and Herb drove to Mac’s house to pick up Herb’s dissertation. This was the last time Herb saw Mac. He passed away the year after Herb finished his dissertation. Herb says if he could go back in time, he would tell Mac “Hey! Look where I ended up!”
The VW Years
After grad school, Herb got a used VW van and traveled extensively throughout western North America from 1986 to 1994, including one trip he calls “The Great Rocky Mountain Odyssey of 1988”. However, from 1990 through 1992, he was a postdoc at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History. Herb collaborated again with Steve Manchester, who had been newly appointed as a faculty member at UF, and returned to his old stomping grounds in central Oregon. For two years he and Steve studied the Oligocene flora of the John Day Formation, which was eventually published as a monograph in 1997 by the University of California Press.
While traveling, Herb would periodically take breaks. It was during one of those breaks in 1994, while teaching an Elderhostel course (a learning program for older adults) on geology, that he heard there was a position opening at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Florissant was appealing because of his interest in plant community and climate change during the Eocene-Oligocene transition period. Herb contacted the Monument and spoke to Chief Ranger Maggie Johnston, who put his name on the list, and Administrative Officer Sheryl Sether, who mailed an employment packet to his home in Salem. Herb’s mom would gather any mail received and send it general delivery to a post office at his next destination in anticipation of his arrival. Herb picked up his package and headed for Death Valley. On a warm spring day, he got out his camp chair on a remote alluvial fan and filled out the employment application. He always had his CV and other important documents in a file folder with him. The next day at the little general store in Shoshone, California, which also happened to have an official post office located in the back, Herb mailed the application, making sure the postmark date was clear.
One of the other things that was happening that spring was a special symposium and field trip about Florissant organized by Emmett Evanoff and Kate Gregory at the Rocky Mountain Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America held in Durango, Colorado. A portion of the presentations dealing with aspects of Florissant flora were later published in volume of the Proceedings of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. One of those presentations was Herb’s about the paleoelevation at Florissant, which was part of his dissertation. During the conference, he camped with Steve Manchester and sat in the audience next to Ted Fremd who was the Paleontologist at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Herb spoke to both about the Florissant position.
After the conference, Herb left Durango and headed to New Mexico. During a resupply trip to Santa Fe, he found a payphone. Herb called his answering machine back in Salem to pick up any messages. There was one message from Steve who said that he had been contacted by Dale Ditmanson, the Superintendent at Florissant. Encouraged by this news, Herb went grocery shopping. On his way back to the van, he decided to check his answering machine again. Another message. This one was from Dale asking to do an interview. He dialed the number left on the message. Standing in a supermarket parking lot worrying about the rapidly melting ice cream in the cart he was holding, Herb interviewed for the Florissant position.
A couple of days later after heading north, Herb checked his answering machine again. Another message from Dale. Dale’s wife answered the phone and said Dale was mowing the lawn. Herb waited for a bit while Dale was summoned from the backyard. After Dale picked up the receiver, he offered Herb the position. Herb thought it was unusual that any kind of position would be offered before meeting the potential candidate. They agreed on a date and time to meet in Colorado. During that meeting, Dale gave Herb a very short deadline for accepting the position.
Driving west after the meeting, Herb thought he should get more information about what it was like working for the NPS as a paleontologist. He stopped at a payphone in Hartsel and called Ted at John Day. Ted, of course, was encouraging about the position. Herb’s mind was at ease. His next call was to Dale. Herb accepted the position as the first permanent Paleontologist at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.
Herb didn’t have much time to get back to Oregon and pack up his life. He wanted to get a feel for what he was about to start and was able to gather input from other NPS paleontologists at the time. On the way west, Herb met with Ted at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Greg McDonald at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, and Dan Chure at Dinosaur National Monument. Having started in 1992, Greg was still very new. Dan seemed very comfortable and happy in his position, and so did Greg. Both Ted and Dan had been with the Park Service for years. They were the ones who started paleo positions in the NPS, and always jokingly argued about which of them came first. After several weeks in Oregon, Herb headed east again.
The Florissant Years
NPS photo.
Herb’s start at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (FLFO) on August 8, 1994, could be described as the right place at the right time. During his first couple of months, a volunteer found mammoth chunks emerging from a ground squirrel mound, the Monument celebrated its 25-year anniversary, and the Conference on Fossil Resources was held in Colorado Springs.
During the next 28 years, Herb developed the Monument’s paleontology program. There hadn’t been any major excavations since MacGinitie’s in the mid-1930s. Herb’s first focus was building the collections. With major excavations in 1995 through 1999, the collections grew from 584 to 4,588 specimens. The last major excavation during the summers of 2009 and 2010 added another 4,877 specimens. To date, the paleontology collection contains more than 13,200 specimens.
In 1996, Herb initiated a survey of all the published specimens from Florissant. He traveled to over 15 major museums throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom. Approximately 6,000 specimens were inventoried by Herb and other staff and took over 5 years to complete. The data collected would later culminate in an online database.
The word “database” was not in Herb’s vocabulary when he started at Florissant. However, Ted was using “Idealist” at the time and guided Herb through the arduous process of developing a relational database with the survey data. Eventually, the completed database would be published on the NPS website and accessible to everyone. Being the visionary that he is, Herb knew the NPS would eventually find something that didn’t comply either with the database or the website, which ultimately happened. He spoke to Dena Smith, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, with whom he had worked during her dissertation on plant-insect interactions in fossils from Florissant and they came up with a plan to ensure its longevity. Years later, the database would be accessible on two websites for a time, before the NPS site was deactivated, when it was transferred to the University of Colorado at Boulder where it remains today as a searchable collection. Herb and Dena would collaborate many times over the years, including the 2008 GSA Special Paper Paleontology of the Upper Eocene Florissant Formation, Colorado as editors.
Returning to Colorado from one of his museum trips, Herb looked out of the airplane window and started thinking about all the data he had gathered. There was so much information. What else could be done with it? He decided to write a book. Besides brochures given to visitors, not much had been written about Florissant for the general public. By the time his flight landed in Colorado Springs, Herb knew his next project would be available to an even broader audience. Trying to come up with a title, he was inspired by the book Derek Briggs had just published through Smithsonian Press, The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. In 2004, The Fossils of Florissant, also published by Smithsonian Press, would be a finalist in the Colorado and the West category of the Colorado Book Awards. It would be five years before Herb would get the itch to start writing another book. Published in 2012, Saved in Time: The Fight to Establish Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument was co-authored with Estella Leopold, who, by this point, Herb had known for decades. Estella was a key advocate for the Monument’s designation in 1969 (coincidentally, during the same summer Herb first attended Camp Hancock).
NPS photo.
Before Herb’s time at Florissant, one of the early Superintendents decided that the historic Hornbek Homestead, an interpretive structure, should be the main focus of the Monument’s interpretive program because “[they] didn’t think people would be all that interested in the fossils”. Herb worked to turn around this emphasis on the homestead story by bringing prominence to another homesteader, Charlotte Hill, who actually made scientific discoveries in her backyard. In the 1870s, Charlotte and her husband Adam moved to Florissant. Charlotte’s contributions were documented in the collection records of multiple museums, but she wasn’t brought to Florissant’s forefront until Herb came on the scene. During an interpretive planning session at the Florissant Library, volunteer David Atkins pointed out Charlotte’s importance. He strongly made the point that she needed to be a part of FLFO’s interpretive story. That sparked something and Herb remembered Mrs. Hill/Charlotte Hill recorded as the collector for specimens at the Smithsonian, Princeton, and Harvard collections. He searched through the newly developed database to find at least 167 of the plant type specimens alone had been collected by Charlotte. Her story is currently featured in seasonal training to Monument employees, throughout exhibits, and many websites. In 2009 Charlotte’s relatives among others were invited to FLFO to celebrate her 160th birthday. Although past searches to find her house have been unsuccessful, a 2018 archeological survey of the west side of the Monument uncovered the remains of a small structure where pieces of shale, amazonite, and smoky quartz fell through the floorboards. This may have been a roadside stand where natural objects were sold. Without Herb, Charlotte’s story may never have been told.
Herb has always felt strongly about international collaboration and how it plays into conservation, science, and designation of sites for protection. He has completed a multitude of domestic and international research projects and 16 official NPS international trips to nine countries on four continents. International trips through the NPS are virtually unheard of due to funding and administrative hurdles. One of the workarounds Herb is quite thankful for is support provided through the Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds. The Friends are dedicated to providing assistance “…to projects that preserve the fossils of Florissant, as well as to organize and promote programs and activities that support the Monument’s educational, conservation, and scientific research objectives.” They have always supported (funded) research and conference travel all over the world. The group has also supported outreach that promotes geoheritage. Sexi, Peru is the home of petrified wood and fossilized flora from about the same time and elevation as Florissant. Herb has traveled there six times with close collaborator Deborah Woodcock from Clark University and published 14 research articles and abstracts.
As the fossil survey and database proved years before, little things can lead to bigger ideas. An interpretive geologic map completed in 2014 led to the installation of a new Geologic Trail and its trail exhibits, which culminated in the “Florissant Explorer” mobile application published in 2022 that ties everything together by providing multiple user levels of content. In 2012, a new Visitor Center was just beginning construction and its exhibits were in development. Herb was not pleased with the original design of the exhibits. Fictitious “Dr. Stone” and “Buzz” (a cartoon wasp) were being used as illustrated guides throughout the exhibit and he thought they brought the content’s education level lower than what he wanted to see. Herb wanted to increase the scientific depth of the content, which meant a complete rewrite of half of the exhibits. An inspired conversation in a supermarket parking lot led to featuring nine historical and modern scientists and their research in the new Visitor Center, including Herb.
Undoubtedly, the intern program is one of the most memorable and important contributions Herb has made to the Monument. Herb recognizes that many of the projects at Florissant could not have been accomplished without the hard work of the mostly female interns and museum technicians. He has helped 73 of them with their paleo careers and takes pride in what they accomplished during their time at Florissant. For many interns who went on to graduate school following their time at Florissant, Herb participated in their graduate thesis committees and continues to serve as a mentor to this day. Herb was even instrumental in identifying the need and establishing the first permanent Museum Technician position at Florissant.
The Retirement Years
Herb is retiring at the end of March, but he’s not exactly leaving. This summer marks the most approved geology and paleontology research permits FLFO has seen at the same time. His title will change to Paleontologist Emeritus, which he hopes sets a precedence for future retired NPS paleontologists. Herb will also become a volunteer at the Monument because there’s no clear breaking point where his current projects will be completed. He will continue to be adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder and involved with graduate committees. He is eager to travel and is currently planning a trip to New Zealand in November. He is also overjoyed at the prospect of camping during weekdays.
The future of paleontology at FLFO weighs heavily on Herb’s mind. The establishing legislation of the park in 1969 clearly indicated that a paleontologist was to be hired in the first year. The NPS neglected in its first 25 years to fulfill one of its congressionally defined mandates. Herb feels that FLFO’s Paleontologist position is critical to achieving the ongoing, original legislative mandate that was published by Congress. For continuity, he also feels that the Monument shouldn’t tarry in their search to fill the position.
Herb is proud of everything he has accomplished and all of his contributions to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. As he reminisces on his NPS career, Herb still clearly remembers how his journey began on an alluvial fan in Death Valley.
Author’s note:
I started volunteering at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in July 2010. Obsessed with dinosaurs at an early age, volunteering was the only way I knew to get involved with any type of paleontology activity after moving to Colorado. That year was the second of a large, student-driven research excavation and I was so excited to finally get the chance to find fossils. Most days, there were six of us chattering away while splitting shale. The only time it settled down was when Dr. Meyer joined us. Nobody really knew anything about him until the day I started asking questions. Everyone was quiet as he patiently answered all of them. After he left, someone stated that was the first time he really talked about himself.
After what I like to call my “six-month interview”, I was officially hired at FLFO in December 2010. The temporary Museum Aide position required a minimum number of college credits per semester to keep the position. Needless to say, between family, school, and work, I was busy. At the end of 2016, my position was unexpectedly eliminated due to neglected paperwork. Thankfully, I was hired to my original position in January 2017 and will never forget the phone call “interview” from Dr. Meyer cheekily asking if I was still interested in the position. I finally earned a B.S. in Biology in May 2019 and, thanks to the position Dr. Meyer helped to establish, started on September 1 as the first permanent Museum Technician at FLFO.
Photo by Conni.
Dr. Meyer has given me support, advice, and been a part of tons of memories. He has been my supervisor and mentor, and he’s always been a great friend. My husband Tom and I have hosted many holidays over the years with Dr. Meyer as our guest. My soon to be 15-year-old son Saigg has known him since he was two. Dr. Meyer’s first experience with a two-year old was at DMNS where we had traveled with that summer’s interns for a presentation by Kirk Johnson, now Sant Director of the Smithsonian Museum. During a trifecta of overstimulation, no nap, and hunger, Saigg demanded a piece of gum loud enough and long enough that Kirk stopped his presentation and glared in the direction of the offending noise from the audience. Red-faced, I sheepishly told Kirk we were good, and he resumed his talk. A couple of minutes later, I packed up and hurriedly followed a giggling toddler out of the auditorium. Dr. Meyer told me afterwards that he was glad we weren’t sitting together, thus saving him some embarrassment. I saw Kirk at a conference early the next year and mentioned that I may owe him an apology. He looked quizzically at me and asked, “For what?” I asked him if he remembered a kid screaming at his presentation the previous year. Kirk’s eyes widened and he laughed, “That was you?!?” I apologized and later admitted the confession to an embarrassed Dr. Meyer. Somehow, Saigg has been forgiven.
At a conference in 2012, someone once commented, “I think it’s great that you still call him Dr. Meyer.” Lindsay Walker, a quick-thinking former intern replied, “I’m pretty sure ‘Dr. Meyer’ is on his birth certificate.” Since our first meeting, I’ve called him Dr. Meyer. Changing now would be like calling my elementary and high school teachers by their first name.
Even though he’s said many times to call him Herb, for me he’ll always be Dr. Meyer.
Related Links
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Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado—[Geodiversity Atlas] [Park Home] [npshistory.com]