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Monthly Archives: June 2012
The Black Hills, Part 3
As we saw in the last post, the Black Hills are surrounded by a ring of Mesozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that get progressively older toward the interior of the Black Hills. However, after just a few kilometers we’ve passed … Continue reading
The Black Hills, Part 2
In Part 1, we saw that the Black Hills are surrounded by the Red Valley, which gains its color from the Triassic Spearfish Formation. The outer wall of the Red Valley is made of Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments. But what … Continue reading
The Black Hills, Part 1
After leaving the Badlands, Brett, Tim and I headed west toward the Black Hills. As the Google Earth image above shows, the Black Hills are an isolated mountain range, roughly elliptical in shape with the long axis running northwest-southeast. The … Continue reading
Badlands National Park, Part 5: upper Brule fossils
We’ve looked at the Cretaceous and Eocene fossils from the Badlands, as well as Oligocene fossils from the lower part of the Brule Formation, the Scenic Member, and seen that there are faunal differences between each unit. This continues as … Continue reading
Badlands National Park, Part 4: lower Brule fossils
As we continue our overview of Badlands fossils, the next unit above the Chadron Formation is the Scenic Member of the Brule Formation, which is Oligocene in age. If you just tabulate what fossils are present, the Scenic looks a … Continue reading
Badlands National Park, Part 3: Chadron fossils
As was clear from the abundance for paleosols, the Badlands beds overlying the Cretaceous are all terrestrial deposits. But there is a pretty substantial slice of time represented from the Chadron to the Brule, and we’ve also seen from the … Continue reading
In memoriam: Richard Hoffman
I was saddened to learn this morning that Dr. Richard Hoffman, Curator Emeritus of Recent Invertebrates at VMNH, passed away last night at the age of 84.
Posted in Uncategorized
3 Comments
Badlands National Park, Part 2-Cretaceous fossils
In the last post we looked at the sediments, paleosols, and some of the structures in the Badlands. But while the park is famous for its scenery, it is also one of the world’s great vertebrate fossil localities. While we … Continue reading
Posted in General Geology, Museums
1 Comment
Badlands National Park, Part 1
Badlands National Park in South Dakota is one of the world’s classic geological and paleontological localities. Brett, Tim, and I spent a couple of days in the park to collect material for Brett’s virtual field trip project. The Badlands Loop … Continue reading
Pipestone National Monument
The National Park Service has a Passport Program. In any park service gift shop you can buy a passport book, and at the visitor centers there are cancellation stations where you can stamp your book for each park visited. We’ve … Continue reading
Posted in General Geology
3 Comments
Updates from the Paleontology Lab 