Around Kansas - Fick Fossil Museum in Oakley - June 8, 2016
(Frank) Yes. I think we’re coming back. They let us come back. (Deb) They keep asking for it. I don’t know. [laughs]. (Frank) This is Around Kansas by the way in case you’ve just tuned in so I’m Frank, that’s Deb and so here we are. (Deb) So (Frank) I’m the old fossil. Speaking of-- (Deb) [laughs] It’s like we were sitting around at a conference a couple of weeks ago with some old friends and one of my friends said something about giving away how old he was by music and different things that you’re interested in. I said, No, it was the carbon dating that gave away how old you were. So yes, I’m pretty merciless. But speaking of fossils, great said by Frank. That was awesome. We’ve got, in Kansas we are so fortunate to have so many museums with really, really cool fossil exhibits and in my new hometown of Oakley there’s one of the best, the Fick Fossil Museum. Have you ever stopped there? (Frank) No. (Deb) Well, you and Michael are going to have to just get on the road one day and just take a trip and hit all the places that we’ve shared on here. But it’s wonderful. It’s adjacent to the library in downtown Oakley. So the library is one wing and then the Fick Fossil Museum’s on the other. And so the museum, and we’ll talk about it in the segment, has fossils. But they’ve also got a lot of other really cool things and traveling exhibits. And Jodie, who runs the museum, is just amazing. She does a wonderful job, and she’ll make you feel so welcome and if she doesn’t know the answers, well, she’s got the library right across her hall, and she would go over there and find out for you. So it’s just a great place and great folks and the kids love it. Love it, love it, love it. (Frank) And Oakley is where its way out there. (Deb) Four hours from Topeka. It is I think at mile marker 76 on I70. But if you get out there, if you’re from this part of the state or another part of the state, spend the night. Take some time. It’s right there on the Western Vistas Historic Byway. And there’s a lot to see and do on that byway. So take advantage. You know, the new byway program that the state’s doing, that’s pretty cool, and they were so designated because they’ve got some cool stuff along the way. (Frank) Let’s go visit some of my ancestors. [laughter] (Karla) People don’t generally associate Kansas with the ocean, but Kansas was a very different place 80 million years ago when an inland sea stretched from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and Kansas was under water. By 1964, this vast ocean was long gone, of course. It was then that Oakley-area residents, Ernest and Vi Fick, started to seriously collect the fossils left by the ancient creatures that inhabited this prehistoric sea. By 1971, they had collected thousands of shark teeth and complete fossils. Soon, their collection had outgrown their home. The Fick Fossil and History Museum was established to showcase the Fick family’s findings and artwork. It allows you to walk through the history of Logan County from the Prehistoric era, amid sharks teeth and fossils, to the replicas of Oakley's board sidewalks during the Dust storms of the 1930’s. Most of the fossils in the museum were found within the vicinity of the Fick’s homestead near Oakley. Vi combined fossils and shells with oil painting to create one-of-a-kind artwork. These folk-art paintings are prominently featured in the museum. The museum houses replicas of Oakley’s first Depot, a sod house, Prather’s Creamery, and Oakley’s General Store. The museum also houses a large, impressive collection of rocks and minerals from the area as well as around the world, including the remains of ancient tombs! Among its more than 11,000 sharks teeth and many fossils there is the world’s oldest known mosasaur fossil, prepared by well-known fossil-hunter George Sternberg. Displays by local artists and collectors are on exhibit monthly, and traveling exhibits often visit the museum. The Fick Fossil Museum is adjacent to the Oakley Public Library.
Around Kansas - Fossils of Kansas - February 3, 2016
(Frank) And we're back. (Deb) So, I was in Philadelphia as you know over New Year's. And while I was there I went to the Academy of Natural Sciences on Logan Circle. And this is their little brochure, so you gotta go if you're ever in Philadelphia. I went to see the fossilized remains of an elasmosaurus that was actually dug up out near Fort Wallace in the 1860s, right in the middle of the Indian Wars. And we're going to do some more stories on that because it's a phenomenal, just a phenomenal story. But while the personnel there at the museum were showing me through their collections, they're looking for all the stuff from Kansas. So, you've got these fossilized remains of these mostly sea beasts, from when we were an Inland Sea. (Frank) Oh yea, we were the Great Inland Sea. (Deb) We were. It's amazing. (Frank) And you know, they do study that in school now, cause I know one of my granddaughters said, Grandpa, do you know about the Great Inland Sea? And I said, Hey it's a fun thing, and we looked it up and all of that. (Deb) It's really an amazing story. So, as they're pulling out these drawers in this incredible facility in Philadelphia, they're all these little fossilized vertebrae, there's just all kinds of things. And there are names. Theophilus Turner is the man who found the one out near Fort Wallace. But you've got Sternberg, you know a name that everybody in Kansas and anybody in anthropology knows from the Sternberg Museum, of course. But
you've got Sternberg's name and on these things. So, I got to thinking about all the places around Kansas that have boasted fossils, and we've got some incredible locations here in Kansas that you can go visit and some tremendous stories of people that found things and how they found them. And so, there's just stories all over the place. (Frank) Yea, yea. And the thing is especially with a lot of sandstone and all of that, cause I know I've got a pond in my garden and all that and as I was collecting rocks, I'd come upon a rock and there would be like a seashell in it. And it's like, huh that's cool. So, this has been around for some time. (Deb) Exactly. It's just an amazing part of our history and geography and it's so accessible. Like I said there's just locations all over the state that you can go and learn more and some of these you may be familiar with and some you may not be that familiar with. So, we want to share some of those with you today. According to the Kansas Geological Survey, Kansas rocks are full of fossils. Fossils are the signs of ancient plants and animals. They come in many forms, from bones and shells to carbon traces, tracks, and burrows. For fossilization to occur, an organism must be buried fairly quickly to protect it from being eaten by scavengers, attacked by bacteria, or worn away by wind or wave action. Occasionally, mudslides and volcanic eruptions quickly bury organisms on land, but rapid burial is more likely to occur in water. Based on marine fossils contained in many of the rocks that crop out at the surface in Kansas, scientists know that shallow seas covered the area for long intervals throughout the past. These seas were ideal for rapid burial. Rivers, lakes, ponds and streams also made good burial sites. Many significant fossils have been discovered in Kansas and many sites throughout the state have them on display. One of the most significant was near Sheridan, Kansas, when the post surgeon from Fort Wallace, Theophilus Turner, uncovered a plesiosaur nearly 42 feet long. A replica of the fossil is now displayed in the Fort Wallace Museum. Another interesting exhibit is in Minneapolis at the Ottawa County Museum. The Silvisaurus condrayi was found by rancher Warren Condray in the 1950s. Senator Frank Carlson connected Condray with folks at KU and the beast he discovered was named for him and is the only one of its type discovered to this point. The museum displays many rocks and fossils other than Silvisaurus, including a dinosaur egg from China. The Fick Fossil and History Museum in Oakley began with the collections of Ernest and Vi Fick. When the thousands of shark's teeth and other finds outgrew their home, the museum was established to share these artifacts with the public. Of course the Sternberg Museum in Hays, Kansas, is famous for his fish-within-a-fish fossil discovered by George Sternberg. Other fossils include huge marine reptiles, toothed birds, giant clams, flying reptiles, sharks, and bizarre fishes.
Utahceratops: I Know Dino Podcast Episode 65
Utahceratops: I Know Dino Podcast Episode 65
I Know Dino: The big dinosaur podcast. News, interviews, and discussions about dinosaurs. Are you a dinosaur enthusiast? Learn more at
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This episode was originally published on February 26, 2016.
Episode 65 is all about Utahceratops, a three-horned ceratopsian with a large head.
In this episode, we discuss:
The dinosaur of the day: Utahceratops
Name means Utah horn face
Species: Utahceratops gettyi
Species name is after Mike Getty, who found the holotype and helped recover fossils in the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument
Named in 2010 by Scott Sampson, Mark Loewen, Andrew Farke, Eric Roberts, Catherine Forster, Joshua Smith, and Alan Titus
Lived in the late Cretaceous in what is now Utah
Found in the Kaiparowits Formation (in Grand Staircase) in Utah
Holotype consists of a partial skull
Six specimens found, including two partial skulls
quadrupedal
Large, about 23 ft (7 m) long
About 6 ft (2 m) tall
Averaged 3-4 metric tons
Skull was about 7 ft (2.3 m) long
Had hundreds of teeth in a dental battery, used to chomp down on plants
Large frill and three horns, but the horns over eyes were not as large as the horns over a Triceratops eyes (short, stubby, and pointed to the side)
Also had two holes in its frill, to help reduce the weight of its skull
Nose horn stuck straight up
Horns were probably to attract mates or scare off rivals, not really used as defense
Been likened as a “giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head” by co-author Mark Loewen
Named at the same time as Kosmoceratops (same paper in PLOS One, called “New Horned Dinosaurs from Utah Provide Evidence for Intracontinental Dinosaur Endemism”)
Kosmoceratops had more ornate horns/frills
Utahceratops was larger than Kosmoceratops
Because Utahceratops lived in the same time and place as Kosmoceratops, and these two ceratopsians lived at the same time as other ceratopsids in Montana and Alberta, Canada, scientists think there was some barrier in northern Utah to keep them from mingling. But it’s unclear what that barrier could have been
In the Cretaceous, western and eastern North America was separated by a flooding of water
Paleontologist Thomas Holtz said to National Geographic News, “If you were a time traveler and you went back to the late Cretaceous, you could take a boat from the Gulf of Mexico and sail all the way up to the Arctic Ocean and you wouldn’t see land.”
Utahceratops lived on a floodplain with lots of swamps, ponds, and lakes, in a wet, humid climate
Other dinosaurs in the area included tyrannosaurid Tertophoneus, hadrosaurs Parasaurolophus and Gryposaurus, ceratopsians Nasutoceratops and Kosmoceratops
Can see Utahceratops at the Natural History Museum of Utah
Ceratopsians were ornithiscians
Lived in North America and Asia
They had beaks and cheek teeth to eat fiberous vegetation
Also had a frill (used for defense, regulating body temperature, attracting mates, or signaling danger)
Probably traveled in herds and could then stampede if threatened
Chasmosaurinae is a subfamily of ceratopsid
Chasmosaurinae had large brow horns and long frills (compared to centrosaurines, another subfamily of ceratopsid, which had short brow horns and shorter frills with long spines coming out of the frills)
Chasmosaurine fossils have been found in western Canada, the western United States, and northern Mexico.
Fun Fact: Aside from several hadrosaurs (Brachylophosaurus, Gilmoreosaurus, Bactrosaurus and Edmontosaurus) and the recent discovery in a titanosaur, tumors have been found on other fossils. According to Discovery News: “The oldest known case of osteoma dates to the early Carboniferous (a period spanning 359.2 million to 299 million years ago) in the North American fish Phanerosteon mirabile. The mosasaur Platecarpus, a marine reptile, also had an osteoma, as did a crocodile, Leidyosuchus formidabilis.“
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