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This question is about what a paleontologist does.
Paleontologists work in universities, museums, oil companies, and state and federal government agencies. The vast majority of paleontologists, 44%, work at universities conducting research and teaching.
Around 15% of paleontologists work at a museum. Museum paleontologists prepare and care for fossil collections. Alternatively, roughly 10% of paleontologists work for federal agencies or for oil companies.
Paleontologists who work for state or federal agencies or oil companies generally work with fossil identification, regional mapping projects, and a variety of other projects.
The highest-paid paleontologists work for oil companies. Petroleum paleontologists use microfossils to determine the formation which contains specific fossils. These fossils are called index fossils, and paleontologists use them and the principle of the superposition to make a biostratigraphic correlation for the drilled formations.
The average paleontologist working for a petroleum company makes over $150,000 a year.

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