Fall 2015

On a thin and rocky stretch of beach beneath a towering expanse of the Calvert Cliffs in southern Maryland, Aaron Alford pauses to pick up what looks like a black rock but is actually a piece of shark poop, 12 to 15 million years old. He smiles as if he'd just uncovered a gemstone. Most humans would have walked over the nondescript fossilized excrement, but the 40-year-old Alford, SPH '08 (PhD), has a preternatural eye when it comes to the remains—and fossilized feces—of long-dead fauna. Alford is not a paleontologist, at least not the academically certified version—exploring cliffs, shorelines, and blackwater rivers up and down the East Coast in search of fossils is Alford's hobby. He's lost count of how many bones he's uncovered, although he guesses more than 100,000, including some from rare marine and animal life. / Johns Hopkins Magazine