Trax - Miengah Abrahams
Dr Miengah Abrahams: Geologist - Ichnologist. Lecturer at the University of Cape Town. GENUS Palaeosciences We Dig Fossils Grantee.
Her Research: When you think about dinosaur scientists, you probably imagine the incredible fossil bones that some find and study. By studying the bones, scientists can determine many things - how dinosaurs walked, if they could fly, who evolved from who, and much more - but bones are just part of the story and they don’t tell us very much about how these incredible animals lived.
An ichnologist (ick-nologist) studies the traces that animals leave behind - their tracks, the burrows that they make, their nests, even their waste (fossil dung is called a coprolite, and there is even the evidence of fossilised wee called a urolite). Studying dinosaur trace fossils, scientists can determine how fast dinosaurs ran, if and how they lived together, what they ate, and the ecology of where they lived, among other things. It helps tell a much more complete story, not just what parts they were made of.
In Miengah’s case, she studies the footprints of three toed dinosaurs (theropods) that roamed what is now Southern Africa. Working with Dr Emese Bordy, Dr Fabien Knoll and others, this group of scientists has found theropod tracks in Lesotho that have never been studied. Some of the tracks are small little dinosaurs that scampered across the ground, while others have footprints that are nearly 60cm big. Theropods include giants like T. rex but also dinosaurs the size of chickens. The footprints show that these dinosaurs existed here, and as there is no guarantee that fossil bones will be found, that alone is very interesting. Digging deeper into the mystery and using different geochronology (rock aging) techniques such as sedimentology and radioisotope dating, they are able to determine that these dinosaurs lived 200 million years ago and by studying the type of rock and how deep the footprints are they can determine that it was slightly soft mud with standing water. Imaging some of the plants that lived at the time, remember flowering plants hadn’t evolved yet and wouldn’t until 130 million years ago, you can almost paint a picture of these dinosaurs splashing through a mud flat maybe on the hunt or trying to avoid one. Whatever it was, their traces are now rocks that tell a story and there are many more out there to be discovered.
Her Heroes: “My mum and gran - they have a strength and resilience that I admire”
What Sparked Her Interest in Science? “I have always been fascinated by the natural world around me and curious to know more about it.”
Her Top Tip: “Remember your passion. There are many hurdles in pursuing the sciences, but as long as you remain passionate those hurdles will be surmountable.”
Rank in Order of What You Think is Most Important to Succeed in Science? Curiosity, hard work, creativity, communication
What Else Do You Need? Grit and passion
Her Superpowers:
Geochronology - the ability to age rocks by sedimentology and radioisotope dating. Amazingly, scientists can compare the atoms of a specific element in a rock sample based on their weight. You can think of it as if some elements start off “heavy” and over time they lose a neutron and become “light”. Based on what we know about how long it takes for one form of the element to become the other, scientists can estimate the age of a rock with surprising accuracy.
Morphometrics - turning 2D and 3D fossil shapes into mathematical formulas. Once you’ve done this you can compare them to fossils found in other parts of the world, make estimates of the weight of the animal making them, look at if the animal was walking or running, determine how soft the ground was and more
Watch Miengah and Learn About Geologoical Sciences at UCT: YouTube
Funds for the creation of this SuperScientist were provided by a grant from GENUS Palaeosciences