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