University of Colorado at Boulder doctoral candidate Mary Ellen Benson’s research is in the news at Boulder’s Nanomaterials Characterization Facility.

Diatoms may someday play a role in microelectronics and other nanotechnological devices by growing nano-scale structures. The trick is getting the diatoms, a type of microscopic algae, to build the right structures.

Read more about Benson’s research on the fossil diatoms of Florissant and how researchers may use diatoms for nanotechnological applications in Dan Ray’s article, Nanotechnology in Nature: Ancient Algae Hints at Earth’s Past, Nanotechnology’s Future.

More on Mary Ellen Benson’s research…

• Exceptional diversity of fossil algae at Florissant

-Melissa Barton

Photo: Modern marine diatoms (Photo Credit: Prof. Gordon T. Taylor, Stony Brook University, USA)

Artist’s reconstruction of the ancient Florissant forest by Rob Wood. NPS.

The July August issue of The Interpreter, a magazine for professional and volunteer interpretive educators, features as its cover story an article by Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument Volunteer Interpretive Specialist Heidi Bailey called “Are Your Stories Lost in Space? Interpret the Geography of a Place.”

In the article, Bailey uses Florissant as a vivid example of how telling the geographic as well as historical story of a place can enrich interpretation and engage visitors.

Bailey writes

Geography is about visualizing large spaces, getting acquainted with special places, and connecting to the Earth as a whole. The places and spaces around us are integral to our lives and should play a significant role in the stories we tell.

Bailey provides concrete activities that interpreters can use in their work. She can be contacted at hbailey@fossilbeds.org.

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is beginning a long term oral history project. The project will use nearly $800.00 of professional audio recording equipment purchased by the Friends of the Florissant Fossils Beds.

The goal of this project is to record the stories related to the different aspects of the Monument’s history, which may include Native American history, settlers and the Hornbek Homestead, the commercial fossil and tourist operations, farming and ranching, the founding of the Monument, and the first few decades of the Monument’s history.

The new equipment allows the Monument to record conversations in person or over the phone so people who live far from the Monument may be interviewed. The stories will be recorded, transcribed, and stored. They will be available to researchers and portions of them may be used on the Monument’s website or in exhibits. The Monument staff would like to thank the Friends for their support in helping us preserve the stories and history of this amazing national park area.

Jack Williams, the second superintendent of the Monument, will be the first person to be interviewed. The Monument is compiling a list of additional people involved in the park’s history to interview. If you are one of these people or know someone who should be interviewed, please contact Jeff Wolin or Shawn Frizzell at the Monument at 719-748-3253 or flfo_information@nps.gov.

-Jeff Wolin, Lead Interpretive Ranger
Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Photo Credit: Melissa Barton

Dr. Rodeck’s donation and the matching federal funds amount to $75,000 for designing and installing wayside panels along the Petrified Forest Loop (which includes the Big Stump and the Scudder Pit Interpretive Site), one of the park’s most popular trails. Jean Rodeck and Lead Interpretive Ranger Jeff Wolin will both be involved in designing the exhibits, which the park hopes will be installed by summer of 2009.

-Melissa Barton

Photo Credit: Melissa Barton

This month you can read all about how Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument’s new exhibits were designed and produced in the free Harper’s Ferry Center (HFC) newsletter, HFC on Media. HFC provides exhibit design services and other interpretive support to units throughout the National Park Service. They are currently involved in design for a new park brochure and wayside exhibits for the Fossil Beds.

The new exhibits would not be up without the huge amount of work put in by Jeff Wolin, as well as the invaluable assistance of park volunteers in fabrication and installation. Many different talents went into making these exhibits a reality.

Download the September 2007 issue of HFC on Media (PDF).

Photo: Melissa Barton

• Friends 20th Anniversary Celebration
• Fagopsis longifolia, a fossil of an extinct beech relative
• Paleontology news from the park
• An interview with Dr. Richard Beidleman, Professor Emeritus at Colorado College, on T.D.A. Cockerell
• Memories of Crystal Peak from a former intern
• An article by Arthur Lakes from 1895 about the Florissant petrified forest
• More Friends history questions (and answers to last issue’s questions)
• And more news and articles

The Friends Newsletter has changed a lot since the first issue of Volume 1 in 1990: from a bimonthly 1-2 page schedule of park events with one feature article, the newsletter has grown to a substantial quarterly publication (the last issue weighed in at 15 pages; this one at 18) full of news about the park and illustrated feature articles on history and science. Anyone can contribute photographs or articles–you can use your talents to help make future newsletters informative and exciting (guidelines).

-Melissa Barton

One important point not covered in the article is that a new Visitor Center with a larger collections area will also give the park’s paleontology division room for expanding the collections and research program. This will benefit the public by providing new specimens to be displayed. New research will also support education programs and exhibits.

Note: The Cenozoic Era does span 65 million years ago to the present, so the buildings and fossils are both Cenozoic.

-Melissa Barton

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In honor of National Park Week (April 22-29) and the first National Junior Ranger Day (April 27), Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument announced that its Junior Ranger Program will now be free. This decision has been made possible with assistance from the Friends and the Rocky Mountain Nature Association.

The park’s Junior Ranger Program consists of a book of activities to complete, after which the participant can choose either a Junior Ranger badge or a patch showing a paper wasp, possibly the park’s most iconic fossil.

Since the park is installing new exhibits, the Junior Ranger booklet will need to be updated. Last summer’s Teacher-Ranger-Teacher, Greg Spalding, has been hired to revise and coordinate the Junior Ranger Program this summer.

A park ranger of tomorrow

While many young visitors to parks participate in Junior Ranger Programs, few are as enthusiastic as Chandler Johnson of Rome, Georgia. After participating in her first Junior Ranger program at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, she has gone on to complete over 100 Junior Ranger Programs.

Johnson wears a vest covered with Junior Ranger badges and patches when she visits national parks. She hopes one day to complete every offered Junior Ranger Program. Johnson enjoys hiking and viewing wayside exhibits, and believes it is important to respect our national parks.

“I believe the country should know that national parks, historic sites, and recreational areas are all very cool places that our nation has made for us,” she says. “Go visit some of the national parks and learn something new!”

-Melissa Barton

“A park ranger of tomorrow” is based on an article by Norton Canfield, Park Guide at Harry S. Truman National Historic Site.
Photo Credit: Larry Villalva, Superintendent at Harry S. Truman National Historic Site.

The Museum is one of few worldwide to have sizeable and historically important fossil terrestrial arthropod collections, including a large collection (approximately 4800 specimens) of historically and scientifically important fossils of plants, insects, and other invertebrates from the Florissant Formation. The majority of these specimens were collected in 1906-1908 by T.D.A. Cockerell and others during their summer expeditions to Florissant.

The database will be updated in the future, and the Museum hopes to eventually add photographs of the specimens. Congratulations to the Museum for getting this excellent resource up and running!

-Melissa Barton