Today: a few photos of neat stuff from the Sternberg Museum of Hays, Kansas. These are from my first time through Hays this summer, in June. It's worth a stop. Some of these are from their permanant collection, and some from a travelling exhibit of fossil reconstructions called "T. Rexcetera."

Archelon, mega turtle of the Western Interior Seaway


Pterosaur -- the flying Chihuahua of its day


Plesiosaur (I like how fierce this one looks, and the contrast in colors between its teeth and its bones -- reminds me of the Joker in the Batman movies...)


Big honkin' mosasaur skull (Tylosaurus? I should have taken better notes...)


Yipes! Under the Sternberg's dome, there are reconstructed beasties...


Beautiful slab of Uintacrinus, a stalkless crinoid (more here)


I think this last one is so beautiful that I just switched my desktop background image to it (from the previous image, a geologic map of the Moon).

Labels: chalk, cretaceous, fossils, kansas

Here's a quick recap of my cross-country journey, for those who are interested in such things.

I left Bozeman on Saturday morning, July 26, and drove east on the Interstate to Billings, then diverged southeast towards Little Bighorn. There, I verified a comment from a Lakota friend at MSU that with my new bushy mustache (see change in icon above), I look a wee big like George Armstrong Custer (Custer & his men were killed by Lakota and/or Cheyenne warriors). After a short picnic there, I kept driving across southeast Montana, and into northeast Wyoming. My goal for the night was Devils Tower, where I have positive memories from my "North by Northwesty" roadtrip two years ago. I got to Devils Tower in mid-afternoon, just in time for a wicked-looking thunderstorm to roll in. Pendulous looking mammatus clouds were hanging down, and the skies turned a darker grey than Lola. Rain and wind came through, and a big dead branch from one of the cottonwoods in the campground came crashing down, but not on anyone's car or tent. When the skies cleared up, I drove up to the visitor's center and took a walk around the tower. It's awesome: massive columns, some of them twenty feet across. The rock is a porphyritic phonolite, and it's quite pretty to look at: big feldspars (5mm) set in a fine-grained grey matrix. Lovely.

The next morning (Sunday), I headed for Red Bird, Wyoming (along Wyoming's eastern border), where Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway suggested there would be oodles of ammonites in concretions in the Pierre Shale, some a foot across. When I visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science earlier this summer, Kirk Johnson reiterated to me that Red Bird was the place to go for ammonites. But once I got to where Red Bird should be (according to my road atlas), there were no highway signs indicating that the town existed. Worse, there were no outcrops, and no sign of public land. (And one thing that an amateur fossil collector does not want to do in Wyoming is trespass on a rancher's land.) So, no Red Bird ammonites for me. Oh well, no worries: I had collected ammonites from a tongue of the Pierre Shale (the Bearpaw Shale) earlier in the summer on BLM land near Glendive, Montana, and scored some good specimens there. I cruised south, stopping at the Sierra Trading Post outlet in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and dropping some cash on some new duds (STP is mainly a catalog business, famous ten years ago for their amazing deals, but the company seems to be shifting to more mainstream business nowadays, including multiple brick-and-mortar locations). Then another hour on the road brought me to Fort Collins, to the house of Larry Wiseman, where I stayed earlier in my trip. He and I got some pizza and 90-Shilling Ale (Odell's) and traded tales about our summers.


The next morning, we had coffee on Larry's front porch and watch the sun rise. I packed up and hit the road, heading for Kansas. In my rear-view mirror, the Rockies shrank and vanished from sight, a melancholy fade. Out into the plains... In mid-afternoon, I rolled into Oakley, Kansas, where I headed for the Fick Museum. The Fick Museum is interesting on multiple levels: it's got some stellar fossils from Kansas's Smoky Hill Chalk (member of the Niobrara Formation), like a Xiphactinus (massive fish) and a Tylosaurus skull (even more massive mosasaur). But it's also got some whacked-out art: the founder, Vi Fick, was into making art with local "art supplies," and so the walls show his portraits of eagles rendered entirely in rattlesnake tails (see image at right, from this online gallery), or his geometric arrangements of thousands of fossil shark teeth. There's even an oil painting Fick did of "God making the Cretaceous seas," which shows a bearded diety surrounded by flames (it kind of reminded me of Hindu art) making pleisiosaurs and pterosaurs. Not the usual way you see fossils displayed, or paleontology depicted!

At the Fick Museum, I met up with Ron Schott, doyen of the geoblogosphere, who graciously agreed to show me some cool Kansas geology. Ron and I headed south from Oakley towards Monument Rocks, an outcrop of the Smoky Hill Chalk. Ron was eager to gigapan the outcrop, and he set up the little device: essentially a robot that directs his camera to take high-resolution photos in a systematic grid. Pretty cool, really -- I guess I hadn't realized what a Gigapan really was before seeing it in action. I got to meet Ron's two little plastic elves that he uses for scale, and personally placed them on a ledge of chalk for the photograph. The grid of pictures eventually gets digitally stitched together by software, and available for sharing online.

From there, Ron and I headed back up to Oakley, stopping en route so I could collect a couple samples of the aquiferiferous Ogallala Formation, and then headed east, then south again, towards Castle Rock, another chalk outcrop. Here, we tested out my Prius' shocks on the dirt tracks, and checked out the largest cliff in Kansas (nearly getting blown off it by the intense wind), and then prospected for fossils below. I found some fish scales, and a shark tooth! Also inoceramid clam fragments, encrusted with oysters (apparently a common feature of the bottom of the Western Interior Seaway). No mosasaurs, though... Back to the road, and into Hays, Kansas, where Ron put me up in his guest room. We had dinner and a few beers at the Lb. Brewing Company, and thought about recording a PodClast, but then it slipped our minds. We discussed field trips, tenure, publications, and related topics. A good time! Thanks again to Ron for being such an excellent host.

The next two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) were essentially just driving. On Tuesday, I made it to Indianapolis, Indiana, and spent the night in a hotel there. On Wednesday, I turned north, and drove up into Michigan, and crossed into Ontario at Port Huron / Sarnia. Why go to Canada on my way from Montana to DC? Well, I'm teaching my Snowball Earth class this week at NOVA, and some of the rock samples I needed were stuck at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario. Usually they get shipped to educators who want to use them, but because of alleged border complications, I had to go get them myself; a five hundred mile detour! Fortunately, I have good friends who leave in Waterloo, Ontario, so I went and stayed with them. Mike and Natalie Leuty have been friends since 1996, and we had a good evening catching up. They have a sweet house in a suburb full of professorial types who teach at one of the several universities in town.

On Thursday morning, Mike and I had coffee on his front porch while his kids played in the yard, and then I packed up my kit and got rolling. I made it to Brock by 11am, and got the Snowball Suite. Because it's in a giant black case that looks suspiciously like a rifle case, I packed it under a pile of other gear in my car. At any rate, I crossed back into the United States without any static from customs officials, and rolled through Buffalo, New York (twice in one year!) I made my destination for the night Ithaca, New York, where I have a friend who's going to grad school at Cornell. I've never been to Ithaca, but I hear that it's "gorges" from many people. So I called my friend, Kathryn Werntz, and she was indeed around and accepting visitors, so I drove through the finger lakes region (five subparallel glacial troughs now filled with water), and found my way to her bungalow. Kathryn and I took a walk through Cornell's campus (two amazing gorges cutting through it), had some Indian food, and went to get dessert at Purity Ice Cream.

In the morning (Friday), I got up and we went to Gimme! Coffee for some caffeine. Thus fortified, I hit the road for my final day of driving. East to I-81, then south through Pennsylvania. At Harrisburg, I turned onto I-83, which took me to Baltimore, and from there it was a familiar zoom down the B-W Parkway into northeast DC. The dome of the Captiol was visible to my left, and then the comfortable sights of Florida Avenue and U Street. Up the hill, and a left on Harvard Street, and I was back in Adams-Morgan. Home! Finally!

Labels: appalachians, canada, chalk, colorado, field trips, glacial landforms, kansas, montana, national parks, new york, snowball earth, structure, travel, wyoming

Roadtrip update:

Yesterday was a good one. I started off the day at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas. I was the first one in the door, and had the place essentially to myself. Massive mosasaur skeletons, supercool Uintacrinus slabs, plesiosaurs, and all kinds of other neat stuff. They had some less spectacular mineral displays, but the locally-derived fossils were world class. I was very impressed.

Then, driving. I made good time when the wind wasn't trying to stop me, and listening to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything on my iPod, I crossed into Colorado. Eastern Colorado looks a lot like Kansas, of course, but before too long had passed, I got my first view of the Rockies in the distance, "rising from the plains." I got to the Denver area around 2pm, which meant I had plenty of time before the 7pm "Geography Goes Digital" event at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS). So I headed southwest, towards Morrison, Colorado, and "Dinosaur Ridge." Dinosaur Ridge is a hairpin driving loop on/over the Dakota Hogback, showing Mesozoic sedimentary rocks shed off the Laramide Orogeny and into the Western Interior Seaway. There's an excellent display of dinosaur tracks, and lots of cool ripple marks, trace fossils, concretions, and stratigraphy. Looking out over the crisp dry air of the Denver Basin, I really felt like "Aha! I'm finally in the West!" It was a good feeling. After hiking and exploring there, I toodled into Morrison, Colorado, and went the Morrison Museum of Natural History. There, I had the terrific good luck to run into Matt Mossbrucker, who I mentioned reading about in Smithsonian magazine back in April. The museum's volunteers were on vacation, so I had the good fortune to have a personal tour from the director! Matt showed me a wealth of incredible fossils, including the type specimen of Stegosaurus, and footprints of baby Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus -- the latter tracks were the subject of the Smithsonian article. In case you (still) haven't read the article, it looks like these baby sauropods were capable of running on their hind legs like a basilisk lizard. Matt walked me through the logic, pointing at specific pieces of evidence on the massive slab of rock. Then we were out of time, because I had to get over to the DMNS for the "Geography Goes Digital" event.

At the DMNS, I was met by Kirk Johnson, the author of a book I mentioned here a month or so ago: Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. My friend Michelle knows Kirk, and put us in touch. (Thanks, Michelle!) Kirk has been at the DMNS for more that fifteen years, starting as a curator of paleontology, and now as a vice-president. It was very cool of him to make time to see me. Immediately, Kirk introduced me to Bob Raynolds, the speaker for the "Geography Goes Digital" event. Bob and I talked a bit about geology and teaching, and then we scooted over to the Planetarium for the main event. I took a seat, leaned back and was amazed. It was like Google Earth on steroids; a feeling like looking down from the space station on Earth. Bob led us on an exploration of areas of the world that are showing the strain of coping with climate change. He has an astonishing amount of geographical knowledge (apparently, he has traveled to more than 50 countries to do geology) and it was a real treat to tour the planet with him and 150 of the DMNS's closest friends. Afterwards, Kirk took me and another friend-of-a-friend visitor on a tour of the museum. I saw the world's second-largest gold nugget, a massive crystal of rhodochrosite, and the incredible tour through time exhibit that Kirk put together when he first got to the museum. Starting with the Ediacaran, the exhibit went through time in a series of sub-exhibits. Each started with a diorama, and then showed the fossils that the diorama was based on. There were some INCREDIBLE fossils there -- absolute stunners. Kirk confided that's just how he wanted it -- not a thousand small fossils, but a few massive ones that just knock your socks off. It was very impressive. Around 10pm, I bade Kirk farewell, and left the museum. I drove up to Boulder, Colorado, and holed up in a hotel for the night.

I feel really lucky to have visited three amazing paleontological museums in one day, and to have had personal tours from the elite of Denver paleontology. Many thanks to Matt and Kirk for making time to show me around!

Now I'm off to check out Boulder, and maybe hike in the Flatirons above town. More later.

Labels: colorado, dinosaurs, fossils, kansas, minerals, travel

Howdy folks,

I've been on the road for several days now, and thought it would be time for an update. On my first day, I got up at the crack of dawn and drove from DC out to Winchester, Virginia, where my brother lives, and had breakfast with him and his family. After saying goodbye to my passel of nieces, nephews, and the dogs Cubby and Slick, I hit the road proper. Down the Shenandoah Valley on I-81, then west on I-64 across the wide part of West Virginia. This was the Valley and Ridge province, and it's hell on the gas mileage. I dropped from 54 mpg to 53.5 by the time I got out the Allegheny Plateaus. I also saw the most expensive gas I've seen so far: $4.75 a gallon for regular unleaded. (The lowest I've seen is $3.78.)

After crossing the border into Kentucky, I deviated to the south, and around 8pm EST (7pm CST), I pulled into Mammoth Cave National Park. I got a campsite, set up the tent, and popped a bottle of homebrew. (I brought my last six bottles of Whatchagot Ale with me.) There was a racket coming from the trees: a 17-year cicada emergence was in progress, and the seething insects pulsated as they coordinated their shrill call: positively primordial. For my evening's entertainment, I attended the Park Service's "campfire" program. (Today, "campfire" means "PowerPoint slideshow," which has its advantages and its disadvantages.) It was a hot and humid night's sleep.

The next morning, I got up and made some coffee. After breaking camp, I took a hike down to the "River Styx," an emergent spring where a stream of water flows out of Mammoth Cave and into the Green River (the same Green River, by the way, of John Prine fame). I also passed one of the many entrances to the Mammoth Cave system, and felt an amazing cool breeze oozing out of the hole and flowing down a classic solution valley towards the Green River. At 10am, my tour of the cave began. Mammoth offers multiple tours of different parts of the cave at different activity levels. I signed up for the gnarliest one on offer: the so-called "Wild Cave" tour. (Tuff Cookie presciently recommended this to me, though I had in fact reserved it a couple of weeks ago.) The Wild Cave tour is different from most Mammoth tours because it's real caving, with crawling and mud and tight squeezes, and climbing skills. You've got to be reasonably fit and trim for the Wild Cave tour to work. Joining me where 11 other people with various backgrounds, including seven from the ESPN auto racing circuit. They had a fun, jocular attitude, with a lot of mutual joshing and teasing.

I was struck by a few things about Mammoth: (1) It's really big. But that's why we bother going there, and why it's a national park (it's the longest cave system in the world), so this is no big insight. (2) It's got a lot of gypsum in it. In many places, "flowers" of gypsum crystals sprout from the ceiling and walls. I asked, where's the sulfur coming from? The guides said there was a pyrite rich layer above, which was being leached by rainwater. (3) There's not a lot of stalactites in Mammoth. I've spent a lot of time in caves in West Virginia, and there are many places in them where it's nothing but stalactites. I'm not sure what's up with that, but it was noteworthy to me. (4) There are some HUGE rooms in Mammoth, with ceilings that are easily five or six stories tall. Very impressive; cathedral-like. (5) Mammoth Cave has been a tourist destination for a LONG time. People have been trekking to this destination long before there was a road network to bring them there. Back in the day (late 1700s and early 1800s), people arrived via the river rather than overland. Some of the cave was developed early on to support these visitors. Nowadays, the Park Service continues this tradition with paved walkways, lighting, and even a subterranean cafe in "sacrifice" areas of the cave. My tour passed in and out of these areas throughout our six-hour expedition.

After exiting the cool cave back into the Kentucky afternoon heat, I took a shower (the best $2 I've spent so far on the trip!) and popped into the Prius for some more driving. I headed north again, crossing briefly into Indiana, and then Illinois. I spent the night at a hotel near Mt. Vernon, Illinois. Yesterday morning, I got up and drove west all day, back on I-64 and then on I-70. I crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis, and then crossed Missouri. Into Kansas after that: it wasn't nearly as flat as I remembered it. Part of the insight into Kansas' topography was courtesy of the Prius, which showed me (via the mpg indicator) when I was going uphill and down. A strong headwind lowered my fuel efficiency significantly, dropping it down to 52.7 mpg by day's end. There's a lot of wind out here! I was also struck by the clouds: such crazy, distinctive forms. I can see how if you were growing up here, you could get into meteorology big time. I saw a massive storm system to my south, and the local NPR affiliate was broadcasting storm warnings and tornado watches all afternoon.

I decided to stop for the night in Hays, Kansas, home of fellow geoblogger Ron Schott. As it turns out, Ron is not actually in town this week, but I may be able to hook up with him for some Kansas chalk scouting on my way back east in late July. But there's a lot to do in Hays. For dinner, I went to the Lb. Brewing Company, a craft brewery and brewpub downtown. I got a sampler of eight (small glasses) of their various beers, and enjoyed them all. Most unusual was a lemon beer which tasted a lot like lemonade. After dinner (reading Oceans of Kansas with my turkey panini), I watched another massive storm system pass to the north, with towering gray clouds and sporadic pulses of lightning. Wow.

This morning, I'm off for a run (need to stretch those legs!) and then to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History here in Hays (an affiliate of Ron's university, Fort Hays State University). The Sternberg has a reputation as having awesome fossils from the area's sedimentary strata laid down in the Western Interior Seaway. Looking forward to it.

Next stop: Denver, hopefully by 7pm so I can attend the "Geography Goes Digital" event at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. More later...

Labels: caves, kansas, kentucky, prius, travel

In preparation for my time out west this summer, my friend Michelle loaned me her copy of Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, by Kirk Johnson and Ray Troll. It's a great read, and it's got me really psyched to start driving around the west, looking at geology. It also makes me wish for an informed local guide to clue me in to good outcrops.

I really liked this book. Johnson, a paleontologist with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, narrates a 5,000-mile roadtrip travelogue about zipping around the western U.S. in search of fossils. Joining Johnson is Troll, a celebrated artist who makes clever art in several media. The book is light-hearted, well-informed, funny, and relaxed. I really liked it, and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in natural history, fossils, roadtripping, or Ray Troll's art.

Coincidentally, Geotimes reviewed the book in their May issue.
...And NPR beat them to it last fall.

Labels: books, colorado, fossils, kansas, nebraska, wyoming