“I am one of those
dinosaur kids who
never grew up,”
says Owen Blomberg ’22. You know the type
— the little boy or girl who can rattle off dino
names well beyond T. rex and Triceratops (and
does whether or not you ask them to), wearing
dinosaur paraphernalia, sitting in their dino-
themed bedroom, pouring over picture books
of ancient reptiles. “The first thing I ever drew
was a Triceratops,” he says. “I had my first kids’
dinosaur encyclopedia at the age of about four,
and I always had my head tucked in dinosaur
books. I loved going to the Museum of Science
and the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
And yes, there were a lot of dinosaur toys and
clothing.” For most prehistoric-loving tikes, the
fascination eventually subsides. Not so for Owen.
Instead, his passion for all things dinosaurs has
only grown.
“I think my classmates knew that I liked
dinosaurs before they knew my name,” says
Owen of his peers at Xaverian. “In Mr. Gunning’s
bio course, when we got to the parts where we
talked about paleontology, evolution, deep time,
everything like that, he’d sometimes just hand the
mic to me and let me take over.”
Mr. Sean Gunning ’11, chair of the
science department, confirms. “I’d go through
everything and then turn to Owen and say, ‘Did
I get all of that right, Owen?’ He’d say, ‘Yes...’, and
then invariably add more to the conversation.
He’s honestly never short on information.
Considering how many millions of years his area
of interest spans, it’s incredible that he knows so
much about all of it as a high school senior.”
Owen’s knowledge about the history of
vertebrates comes from more than his childhood
encyclopedias. This past summer, he spent
two weeks working with the Bighorn Basin
Paleontological Institute on dig sites around the
Montana-Wyoming line (the Bighorn Basin). This
wasn’t Owen’s first time there either; he had gone
previously for a one-week trip with his father. For
most people, it’s a bucket-list adventure to spend
a brief trip living a childhood fantasy digging for
dinosaurs. However, it quickly became clear to
the professionals at the Paleontological Institute
that Owen was more than a casual dinosaur
enthusiast or adventure-seeking vacationer. His
detailed knowledge and conscientious efforts
were recognized and rewarded. “It got to the point
where they trusted me enough to leave me at a pit
and they would send people over to help me work,”
says Owen. “I got to lead them and be the person
running that area.”
His highlights of the trip include uncovering
a tooth of an Allosaurus and finding the vertebra
of a sauropod that was so well preserved the
hole for the spinal cord was still intact, roughly
150 million years later. Additionally, his favorite
activity, he says, was walking through untouched
areas of the desert looking for “float,” or small
pieces of fossil bone that have broken off of
a larger fossil. “One can follow the float like
following breadcrumbs to find larger fossils. If
the float leads to something significant, then it
could mean the establishment of a brand new dig
site.” Owen hopes one discovery he made will do
just that, and it looks promising. While searching
out in the desert for float one day, he found
what is currently believed to be the vertebra of a
crocodylomorph (think ancient crocodile) from
the Jurassic period. Since the vertebra was found
in an untouched area of land, this discovery
BOYHOOD DREAMS BECOME REALITY
Allosaurus tooth
could lead to a brand new site if more bones are
found. Owen hopes to be able to continue his
search at that site when he returns to the Bighorn
Basin next summer.
In the meantime, Owen is looking at colleges
to find the right program in his pursuit for a
career in paleontology. He notes that there
are very few schools offering this specific
undergraduate focus, but says that if he can
find a strong program in evolutionary biology
or zoology, he feels he will be well on his path.
“It’s always cool to see a student who already
knows what he wants to do with his life,” says
Mr. Gunning. “But with Owen, it’s not just what
he wants to do in the future; it’s what he’s doing
right now. This is what interests him. It’s his
passion.”
This passion for prehistoric knowledge
boils down to a very Xaverian ideal for Owen—
humility. “It’s so interesting, trying to understand
what was here before us. It gives me a sense
of humility, knowing that we are not the only
creatures to have ruled the Earth. This was once
a completely different world, and I want to better
understand the intricacies of the life that once
resided in it.”
Owen’s Favorite Dinosaur
What do you ask every dinosaur-loving child?
“Which one is your favorite?”, of course!
For Owen, it’s the Yutyrannus, the largest
feathered animal thought to have roamed
the earth. It’s an earlier, fuzzier relative of
the T. rex. “Certain dinos had feathers,”
Owen explains. “Albeit not always like
the feathers that you see in birds today—
normally more primitive. Some feathers,
like those found on Yutyrannus, were more
like filaments. I like seeing feathering on
dinosaurs; it makes them feel more like real
animals as opposed to the big, scaly movie
monsters the media tends to portray them
as. Also, Yutyrannus most likely lived in
cooler environments; since I’m a person who
enjoys the cold myself, I have another reason
to like this dinosaur.”
Winter 2022 Xaverian Magazine 5