The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds

Posted By The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. on February 10, 2008

Last summer, teacher Greg Spalding led the effort to revise Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument‘s Junior Ranger Program. Spalding received a Junior Ranger Ambassador grant, and after a week of training in Washington, D.C., he worked with Lead Interpretive Ranger Jeff Wolin to redesign the park’s Junior Ranger activity book.

Spalding also organized the Monument’s first Junior Ranger Day on July 21, 2007. Young visitors learned about fire safety, fossils, and wildlife with activities such as making plaster casts of animal tracks and splitting shale to find fossils.

“The new Junior Ranger book has more activities and reaches a wider audience,” Wolin says. “The activities are engaging, educational, and fun.”

The Friends and the Junior Ranger Ambassador Grant paid for the printing of the new activity book, which was published in December. Kids and parents love the new program:

I wanted to send a thank you to all of the staff and the ranger who assisted our family on Saturday this past week. Traveling to NPS sites is a hobby and something we have done for some years now. You have an excellent site. But you have excellent people which just adds to the site.

My daughter loves the Junior Ranger Programs and as I shared that day, yours is the best I have seen out of the dozens we have done. The staff who assisted her just continue to build that passion for history and nature and I cannot thank you enough for this.

That was one of the best mornings we have spent and I thank you for the experience. I hope you will send this to your district supervisor because our next generations are being educated by some great people…you. As both a parent and a citizen, I can not stress enough how impressed I was with your work.

Greg Block

The Junior Ranger Program is always available during the park’s visitation hours. For more information, call 719-748-3253 or ask at the front desk in the Visitor Center when you visit. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is open 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., 7 days a week, except Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.

-Melissa Barton

Photo Credits: Friends Vice President and park volunteer Sally Maertens helps young visitors make casts of tracks (NPS Photo), Ranger Jeff Wolin and Junior Rangers take the Junior Ranger Pledge (NPS Photo)

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Posted By The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. on February 3, 2008

New Books at Monument Bookstore

The Rocky Mountain Nature Association (RMNA) is the concessionaire for the bookstore at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. People step in the front door of the visitor center many times just to buy books. The books and many other items are chosen carefully by Jo Beckwith, the manager for RMNA.

Jo wishes you to know about several new titles that have arrived recently. In addition to these new titles, many more are being ordered for the summer of 2008 (the bookstore also carries Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods if you need a copy).

Look for these new titles when you pay us a visit:

Birding Colorado: Over 180 Premier Birding Sites at 93 Locations, by Hugh Kingery, is a new field guide featuring over 90 prime birding locations with more than 179 sites in total. $19.95.

Colorado Journey Guide, by Jon Kramer and Julie Martinez, is a driving and hiking guide to fossils, formations, ruins and rock art throughout the state. The guide features Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument as the best paleontological site in Colorado. $16.95.

Tourist Guide to Colorado in 1879, by Frank Fossett, takes the reader on a historic trip through Colorado, including 1879 prices, travel, accommodations and other fun facts. $8.95.

Come visit the Monument, see the new exhibits, and browse in the bookstore. If you can’t make it to the park in person, you can order books and others items from RMNA at their website, www.rmna.org.

-Sally McCracken Maertens

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Posted By The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. on January 30, 2008

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument‘s scientific database is back
up at planning.nps.gov/flfo/. Web users can search for important Florissant specimens in museum collections around the world and view associated data and photographs.

The park has received a Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit (CESU) grant, in conjunction with the University of Colorado at Boulder, to update and expand the database project.

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Posted By The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. on November 25, 2007

At the 20th Anniversary Celebration in August, the Friends announced a new partnership with the Asociación de la Preservación y Defensa de los Restos Paleontológicos del Distrito de Sexi (Association for Preservation and Defense of the Paleontological Remains of the District of Sexi; SEXI). SEXI is a grassroots organization devoted to protecting and developing for tourism and research the petrified forest of Piedra Chamana, located near the village of Sexi, Peru.

Piedra Chamana preserves a diverse assemblage of 39-million-year-old woods and leaves from the middle Eocene, and has important implications for understanding the paleoclimate and history of low-latitude tropical forests. The fossil forest is also important as a scientific and educational resource for the people of the region.

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument paleontologist Dr. Herb Meyer and colleagues, including Dr. Deborah Woodcock of Clark University, have been providing assistance to the village of Sexi in setting up a program to monitor the fossil forest. Through a National Science Foundation grant, they were able to help arrange construction of a museum, and the National Park Service is currently assisting in exhibit design and brochure production.

The Friends hope to raise funds for SEXI that will be used for interpretive exhibits and posters, construction of a fence around the perimeter of Piedra Chamana to protect it from cattle and human impact, construction of a trail to the site. In addition, the Friends can offer information and guidance to SEXI on operating a park Friends group.

The Memorandum of Understanding will take effect upon the signature of the presidents of both organizations. It is currently being reviewed in Lima. The Friends hope this partnership will help enhance scientific knowledge, education, and conservation of this important fossil resource.

Friends President Steve Veatch presented further information about this partnership at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in October. To learn more about this partnership, you can contact him at sveatch@fossilbeds.org.

-Melissa Barton

Photo Credits: Dr. Herb Meyer

Learn more about Sexi and Piedra Chamana at Bienvenidos a Sexi (Spanish).

Category: Conservation, Culture, Paleontology, Partnerships, Resource Management | 2 Comments »
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Posted By The Friends of the Florissant Fossil Beds, Inc. on October 21, 2007

This year’s Geological Society of America Annual Meeting will be held in Denver October 28-31. This is one of the largest geoscience meetings and an important place to hear about new research and new trends in geoscience education, forensic science, and other related fields.

Park Paleontologist Dr. Herb Meyer will be presenting an hour-long talk about fossil leaves and paleoelevation at a special session sponsored by the Mineralogical Society of America and The Geochemical Society on Friday, October 26 (the session runs through October 27). An associated Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry volume will also be published. For more information, visit the MSA website.

There will also be three presentations during technical sessions that touch upon Florissant.

THE FRIENDS OF THE FLORISSANT FOSSIL BEDS: FACILITATING COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS IN INFORMAL GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION OUTREACH, by Steven Wade Veatch, Herbert W. Meyer, and Donald A.K. Miranda.

Friends president Steve Veatch will present about the geoscience education and outreach efforts of the Friends, including the summer seminar series; funding and research support for interns, students, and scientists; and our new partnership with a Peruvian fossil conservation organization similar to the Friends.

THE FATE OF AIRFALL VOLCANIC ASH IN LARGE AND SMALL LACUSTRINE SYSTEMS: ASH STRATINOMY OF THE EOCENE GREEN RIVER AND FLORISSANT FORMATIONS, by Charles Ver Straeten.

Dr. Charles Ver Straeten, who conducted preliminary fieldwork at the park this summer, will present an update on his work studying ash preservation in the Green River and Florissant Formations.

USING TRADITIONAL FIELD METHODS TO HELP STUDENTS IMPROVE OBSERVATIONAL SKILLS AND DEVELOP EVIDENCE-BASED INTERPRETATIONS, by James O. Puckett and Neil H. Suneson.

Other institutions, such as Oklahoma State University, also recognize the value of the Florissant area for geological education:

“The summer field camp experience provides many students with their best opportunity to observe geologic features whose spatial distribution, size, and shape will impact the students’ future careers as geoscientists. Oklahoma State University’s geology field camp near Canon City, Colorado focuses on time-tested traditional methods of geological mapping and field work. [...] The course includes field trips to the Cripple Creek and Leadville mining districts, Florissant/Guffey volcano area, Pikes Peak batholith, and Spanish Peaks radial dike swarm. The field trips emphasize aspects of geology that are not stressed in the field exercises.”

-Melissa Barton

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