Fossil Butte National Monument, WY

Fossil Butte National Monument, July 2022 Visitors to southwest Wyoming’s Fossil Butte National Monument, when they get out of their cars at the Visitor Center, are treated to a walk back in time: interpretive signs and markers along the deck and sidewalk point out different geological epochs and the creatures that inhabited the Earth at …

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Daemonelix Trail (Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, NE)

Daemonelix Trail, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, July 2022 Imagine a creature roughly approximating a beaver or large prairie dog but one that digs holes in a spiral nearly 10 feet deep, forming tunnels resembling a corkscrew or drill bit: this is the curious activity of the prehistoric paleocastor, which lived between 20-30 million years …

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Fossil Hills Trail (Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, NE)

Fossil Hills Trail, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, July 2022 Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in northwest Nebraska was established a mere quarter century ago—in June 1997—but its famed mammal fossils date to the early Paleocene Epoch, just after the mass extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Dozens of fossil skeletons were discovered in …

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