The Geology and Paleontology of North Dakota
This field trip has reached capacity.
Sunday, October 27, 2024 (8:00 am) – Tuesday, October 29, 2024 (5:00 pm)
Participants will be responsible for their own transportation to Bismarck, North Dakota. Participants will meet Sunday and Monday morning at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum at 8:00 am for the field trips. On Tuesday morning we will pick up participants from the hotel in Bismarck at 8:00 am for transportation to Minneapolis. Participants will be dropped off at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minnesota (SVP host hotel) by 5:00 pm on Tuesday, October 29.
The field trip will be a tour of important paleontological and geological sites from the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods within North Dakota. The field trips on Sunday and Monday will depart from Bismarck and include stops in the Hell Creek Formation to examine exposures of the marine Breien Member and the K/Pg boundary, a visit to a diverse Paleocene (Tiffanian) vertebrate fossil quarry outside of Medora, North Dakota, a well-exposed geological section that includes an extensive paleosol marking the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), and a collecting trip to exposures of the Oligocene White River Group in the Little Badlands area south of Dickinson, North Dakota where the recently named basal arctoid Eoarctos was discovered. All fossils collected on the trip will be reposited in the North Dakota State Fossil Collection. On Sunday evening there will be a social event at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck, North Dakota, the home of the North Dakota State Fossil Collection (managed by the North Dakota Geological Survey). That event will include tours of the paleontology lab and collections areas, including the in-progress work on the body block of Dakota the Dinomummy, a well-preserved specimen of the hadrosaurid dinosaur Edmontosaurus that includes fossilized dermal tissues.
Accessibility
The field trip will include visits to multiple localities where hiking over badlands terrain will be required to reach the destination, including up and down relatively steep slopes along game trails. Individuals with questions regarding the difficulty of required hikes should contact trip leader Clint Boyd for additional information before registering.
Items Provided
Boxed lunches, snacks, and drinks on Sunday and Monday. Excavation supplies as needed during visits to fossil sites.
Items Recommended
Warm clothes suitable to late Fall weather in North Dakota (recommended that participants dress in layers), camera, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, water bottles, comfortable backpack, closed toe shoes suitable to hike over uneven terrain to reach field sites.
Transportation
15 passenger vans (ND State Fleet) during the field trip and for return to Hyatt Regency (SVP host hotel) on Tuesday. Travel distance from Bismarck to Minneapolis is 426 miles, approximately 6 hours, 20 minutes travel time. Field Trips on Sunday and Monday will use the same vans and cover approximately 400 miles each day. Drivers provided by the North Dakota Geological Survey.
Trip Leaders: Dr. Clint A. Boyd – North Dakota Geological Survey; Jeff Person – North Dakota Geological Survey; Becky Barnes – North Dakota Geological Survey; Catherine Lash – North Dakota Geological Survey; Mindy Householder – State Historical Society of North Dakota; Dr. Stephanie Drumheller – University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Cost per person: $550
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