Colorado Scientific Society February Meeting!
"How Fieldwork Rewrites 160 Years Of Research In The Niobrara Chalk" - aka Fossils!
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https://coloscisoc.org/ <-- shared Colorado Scientific Society meeting
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It was excellent to attend Anthony Maltese's talk last night at the @Colorado Scientific Society's meeting in Golden, CO
He was/is a very erudite & engaging speaker! (and lots of other smart people in the room asking questions)
Although I did paleontology in my MSc, what he described was 'next level' in the best of ways
I will be back to listen in on more meetings - and $25/yr dues (link above) is a bargain 🙃
"Intense exploration of the late Cretaceous (~85 Ma) Niobrara Chalk [in Kansas and beyond] began shortly after the Civil War, with Bone-War rivals Charles Marsh and Edward Cope describing dozens of species of fish, mosasaurs and pterosaurs before the turn of the last century. Work was so intense that by the early 20th century interest waned, with researchers believing that everything important had already been found.
Today, renewed intensive fieldwork with improved collection and preparation methods are revealing that even this famous and well-sampled formation has more secrets left to give up, from soft tissue and molecular info to many brand new species..."
My favourite phrase of the evening from the paleontologist: "bloat and float" (describing how dinosaur and the like remains got offshore to be fossilised in anaerobic seas especially...)
The setting at the Golden Calvary Church just added to it all IMHO...)
#geology #paleontology #fossils #talk #meeting #Colorado #Kansas #fieldwork #NiobraraChalk #scientificsociety #fish
@Colorado Scientific Society (aka geologic! 🙂 )
@Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Research Center