When Sam Girouard was 8 years old, he visited his grandmother in Alabama. They explored an old mine. What they found changed Sam's life forever. "It was just packed with fossils," says Sam.
Sam has been hunting fossils ever since. The 16-year-old from Bellingham, Washington, is now a respected fossil scientist. He even helped a team from a Canadian museum dig up a T. rex skeleton!
One of Sam's best finds required hours of hard work. He found a tyrannosaur tooth. But it was in about 70 pieces! "I spent the day on my hands and knees, picking up tiny pieces and gluing them together. By the end of the day, I had my tooth," says Sam.
Sam has also found the wristbone of an American mastodon. It was 4 1/2 million years old! Scientists are often surprised to learn that Sam is so young. He doesn't tell them his age right away. "I'm afraid that if people first knew I was a kid, my work wouldn't be taken seriously," he says.
October 3, 1997 Vol.3 No.4