Sternberg scientists hit the airwaves!

SciFri

Though it may not be news to paleontologists and visitors to the Sternberg Museum, not everyone in the country knows that Kansas was covered by an ocean 85 million years. To address this, Sternberg paleontologists had the opportunity to take to a national stage and talk about the ocean that covered Kansas in the Cretaceous. On Friday September 15th, Chief Curator/Curator of Paleontology Dr. Laura Wilson and Adjunct Curator of Paleontology Mike Everhart appeared on public radio’s Science Friday. The Saturday before, they recorded their segment at Wichita’s Orpheum Theater in front of a sold-out studio audience. Fielding question from host Ira Flatow and the audience, Laura and Mike discussed the paleontological history of Kansas, the Western Interior Seaway that covered Kansas, and the extinct animals that filled the sea. They also got to touch on subjects close to their research. Mike has studied many of the vertebrate groups that lived in this Cretaceous Seaway and is known as a mosasaur expert. Laura studies the seabirds that lived in the Seaway and works on putting together the ancient ecosystem structure. If you missed it, the segment is available online.

 

Graduation News!

Elizabeth, holding one of her thesis specimens
(M. columbi) in the Vertebrate Paleontology
collections at the Sternberg Museum.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Deering – Fort Hays State University’s most recent graduate from the paleontology program in the Department of Geosciences.  Elizabeth recently defended her Master’s thesis entitled “Identification and Paleoecology of Mammoth Teeth from the Vertebrate Paleontology Collection at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Hays, Kansas”

Elizabeth spent her two year here at FHSU as the graduate curatorial assistant in the vertebrate paleontology collections. She now pursuing jobs in the natural history museum field and research opportunities.  Good luck, Elizabeth!!