As the tide slowly recedes out of Apalachicola Bay, a rugged swell of oysters breaks the surface. Paleontologist Greg Dietl gingerly navigates the uneven, slippery surface of exposed reefs. Dietl jokes that he’s “now in the oyster business,” but the curator of Cornell’s Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) in Ithaca, New York, has not come to harvest the living assemblage of eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) poking above the water. He’s here to sample the dead shells entombed below. For the past few years, Dietl has collaborated with Florida’s Department of Environmental…
