Fall 2026 Thomas Condon Lecture by Jacquelyn Gill

Thinking in Mammoth Time: What Lost Ecosystems Can Teach Us About Our Living PlanetThinking in Mammoth Time: What Lost Ecosystems Can Teach Us About Our Living Planet

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Speaker: Jacquelyn Gill, professor of Paleoecology, University of Maine

Talk summary: Twenty thousand years ago, North America was home to mammoths, giant beavers, massive ice sheets, and ecosystems unlike anything found today. This long-lost world is much closer to us than most people realize, and its legacy is still shaping the ecosystems we live in today. By reading clues preserved in ancient pollen, bones, lake mud, and even DNA recovered from frozen feces, scientists can reconstruct these vanished landscapes in astonishing detail, revealing new insights into how ecosystems respond to profound environmental change. In this journey through the Pleistocene, paleoecologist Dr. Jacquelyn Gill reveals how we study these lost worlds and invites us to think in "mammoth time," discovering what the fossil record can teach us about our own changing planet.