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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    EPOD - a service of USRA   
      
   The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes   
   and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and   
   archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory   
   captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The   
   community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and   
   relevant links.   
      
      
    Fossil Lake’s Legacy at Wyoming’s Fossil Butte   
      
      September 28, 2022   
      
       RayB_fossilbutte329c_01aug22   
      
       RayB_fossilbutte328c_01aug22 (002)   
      
      Photographer:  Ray Boren   
      
      Summary Author:  Ray Boren   
      
      Over 50 million years ago — during the  Eocene Epoch, after the age   
      of dinosaurs and as a result of the rise of the Rocky Mountains — a   
      freshwater lake formed in western North America, covering an area that   
      today is partly in southwestern Wyoming, northern Utah and a bit of   
      Idaho. Geologists and paleontologists call the vanished body of water   
       Fossil Lake, because its sediments, rich in calcium carbonate,   
      excellently preserved the remains of prehistoric fish, birds, mammals,   
      reptiles, amphibians, insects and subtropical plants, such as ferns and   
      palm trees. The U.S. National Park Service’s  Fossil Butte National   
      Monument, west of Kemmerer, Wyoming, encompasses just a fraction of   
      Fossil Lake’s now-uplifted territory, and the displays in its visitor   
      center showcase the rediscovered diversity of life (top photo). Fossil   
      displays include lizards, snakes, small extinct mammals, a couple of   
      bats, a caiman, and at the bottom left, a typically small early horse   
      ( Protorohippus venticolum) of the Eocene — member of a taxonomic   
      family that subsequently disappeared from the continent upon which it   
      evolved.   
      
      In the 2nd photograph, my great-nephew, Hunter, is standing inside   
      Fossil Butte’s visitor center next to a much-fractured 13-foot-long (4   
      m) cast of a crocodilian fossil,  Borealosuchus wilsoni. A third   
      image (bottom), taken along the park’s scenic drive, presents the   
      eroded, and sometimes slumping, buttes and slopes of the  Green   
      River Formation, in which the fossils are quarried.   
      
      The Fossil Butte area also played a part in the fabled “ Bone Wars,”   
      or “Dinosaur Wars,” of the late 19th century. Naturalists and   
      scientists made note of early fossil finds during the era’s exploratory   
      mapping and  transcontinental railroad surveys. Rival   
      paleontologists  Othniel Charles Marsh and  Edward Drinker Cope   
      were famously among the scientists and professors who vied in   
      discovering and describing fossils. They and others often hired   
      individuals and teams to dig and gather fossils for them, which were   
      sent to universities, laboratories and museums. Fossil Lake specimens   
      made their way to scientists and collectors in the Eastern United   
      States and around the world, a process that continues today from   
      quarries on state and private land. Photos taken on August 1, 2022.   
      
       RayB_fossilbutte349c_01aug22   
      
      Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming Coordinates: 41.8563 -110.7625   
      
      
   Related EPODs   
      
       Fossil Lake’s Legacy at Wyoming’s Fossil Butte  Wagon Tracks   
      from the Old West?  First Light on the Circle Cliffs Anticline   
       Mudcracks: Now and Then  Mantling on Utah’s Hogback Ridge   
       Dendrite Inclusion in Opal   
       More...   
      
   Geology Links   
      
        *  Earthquakes   
        *  Geologic Time   
        *  Geomagnetism   
        *  General Dictionary of Geology   
        *  Mineral and Locality Database   
        *  Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness   
        *  This Dynamic Earth   
        *  USGS   
        *  MyShake - University of California, Berkeley   
        *  USGS Ask a Geologist   
        *  USGS/NPS Geologic Glossary   
        *  USGS Volcano Hazards Program   
      
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      Space Research Association.   
      
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