Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Agate Fossil Beds

 The next stop on the way home was Agate Fossil Beds, which dates to about twenty million years old. This means that there were rhinos, chalicotheres, entelodonts, and bear dogs, among other animals. This was the Miocene, much like Ashfall, but a little earlier.

Unlike Ashfall, however, this wasn't a catastrophic event even though there is some ash mixed into the soil. The animals lived in an area much like the African serengeti during a drought; the bones are scattered, scavenged, and trampled. Likely the animals gathered around water when there was little else around and ate the food in the surrounding area, having to walk progressively further to get food but always returning to the watering hole for water. This happens in Africa to this day.

Higher up the sequence is something else, though not bones like the rest of the fossil bed. Just at the edge of the park is a layer loaded down with a set of fossils called Daemonelix, which are a spiral trace fossil. They were discovered here, and the name means "devil's corkscrews," which were originally thought to be the remains of some sort of root. Trace fossils use different names than the animals that made them, often because they can't be traced back to the maker. However, someone had the thought to excavate one of the spirals, and they found a little beaver called a Palaeocastor that dug burrows instead of damming rivers. Between that and Nebraska looking like Africa, things sure have changed.







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My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.