The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds

The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. | August 22, 2007

The second day, we started by looking for a known Antero Formation locality near where we worked on day one, but the rock was very eroded and it was difficult to tell whether the rocks were fossil-bearing. We then returned to our first site and made a second pass. Because of the level of weathering and our limit to the road easement, we worked the site in pieces, primarily on the surface.

Category: Antero Formation, Notes from the Field, Paleontology, Research, Science | No Comments »
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The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. | August 21, 2007

Mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus) is a small genus of deciduous shrubs or small trees, currently placed in the rose family (not closely related to true mahoganies, in the Meliaceae family). In addition to growing throughout the Rocky Mountain region today, mountain mahogany is a relatively common Tertiary (65 to 1.8 million years ago, the time between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the first Ice Age) fossil found in the Florissant and Antero Formations, as well as at Creede, Webber Lake in the Sierra Nevada of California, the Desert Peak Formation of Nevada, Oligocene sediments in Mexico, and many other localities.

Category: Biology, Paleontology, Species Spotlight | No Comments »
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The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. | August 20, 2007

I’m Melissa Barton, and in addition to maintaining the Friends website, I am currently the Museum Technician at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. This fall I will begin graduate school in Museum & Field Studies at the University of Colorado. I’m currently getting a head start on my master’s thesis, which will focus on the plant paleoecology of the Antero Formation of South Park and its relationship to regional and global climate. I plan to post updates here about my research, primarily about the process of paleontology, from fieldwork to lab to (hopefully) publication.

Category: Antero Formation, Notes from the Field, Paleontology, Research, Science | 4 Comments »
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The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. | August 18, 2007

Today these centuries-old trees, known as culturally modified or peeled trees, mark the presence of Ute Indians who once lived in the Pikes Peak region.

Category: Culture, History | No Comments »
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The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. | August 16, 2007

Park staff, particularly Student Conservation Association interpretive intern Lindsey Stecker (Boston University) and Chief Ranger Rick Wilson, have been working hard to control the spread of sweetclover this summer.

Category: Conservation, Ecology, Park Changes, Resource Management, Species Spotlight | No Comments »
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