EAST LANSING, Mich. - National Fossil Day is a nationwide celebration organized through a partnership between the National Park Service and more than 130 museums and universities, federal and state agencies, professional organizations and other groups.
At Michigan State University, the MSU Museum will present a special program, Hall of Evolution tour, 1:30 p.m. Oct. 9. Following will be a lecture at 2 p.m. in the Museum Auditorium, "Dinosaur CSI: Who or What Murdered the Dinosaurs?" by Ralph Taggart, professor in the departments of geological sciences and plant biology at MSU.
Taggart's passion is the reconstruction of ancient environments, weaving fossil studies into realistic snapshots of ancient worlds and the plants and animals that lived in them. One of his favorite case studies involves dinosaurs. Taggart will take visitors through a network of clues that reveal some totally unexpected "partners in crime."
The Hall of Evolution exhibit at the MSU Museum is constructed as a time line, with exhibits of fossils arranged in chronological order from the Cambrian Period (about 500 million years ago) to the Pleistocene Epoch or "Ice Age" that ended about 10,000 years ago. The fossils are accompanied by diorama paintings showing the animals as they appeared in life. Meanwhile, Habitat Hall features mounted skeleton casts of the great Jurassic dinosaurs, Allosaurus and Stegosaurus, as well as a T-Rex skull.
National Fossil Day at the MSU Museum is sponsored, in part, by the MSU Federal Credit Union.
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