Welcome to the Twin Cities
The Host Committee of the 84th Annual Meeting is excited to welcome all participants to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s 2024 meeting in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 lakes, though it actually has more than 23,000 lakes. You may also know Minnesota as the “State of Hockey” and as the home of a major music scene, whether your taste is Bob Dylan, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, or Prince, the artist who inspired this year’s meeting logo.
The meeting will take place in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, located in city center Minneapolis, and the Welcome Reception will take place in the Science Museum of Minnesota on the left bank of the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul. The name Minneapolis is derived from the Dakota and Greek words for water and city, respectively; the original name of St. Paul is Pig’s Eye, the nickname of a one-eyed tavern owner, Pierre Parrant, who is considered the founder of what became the city of St. Paul.
This will be the second annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Twin Cities, and we look forward to having you here, whether as a return visitor or for the first time. This year’s meeting is co-hosted by faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and Macalester College in St. Paul. The Twin Cities has a community of paleontologists working on a range of taxa, from dinoflagellates to dinosaurs at sites across the globe.
Chartered in 1851, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is a public research university and the flagship of the five-institution University of Minnesota system with campuses in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. With enrollment of about 55,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, it is the largest university in Minnesota and one of the top 10 largest universities in the USA. Both the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences and the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior are highly ranked in the US with long historical connections to vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology and Quaternary paleoecology. Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a highly ranked liberal arts college with an enrollment of about 2,000 undergraduate students from every state and more than 100 countries around the world. Macalester’s mission centers on multiculturalism, internationalism, and service to society. Since the 1960s, paleontology has been a central component of the geology curriculum, and in recent decades, many Macalester students have been inspired to pursue careers in paleontology.
For more than 100 years, the Science Museum of Minnesota has been a feature destination and place of scientific learning. It moved into its current location in the heart of Saint Paul in late 1999 and serves as the largest fossil repository in the state, with hundreds of thousands of specimens. The paleontology collection spans roughly two billion years of history here in Minnesota as well as the world beyond. One major highlight is the ecosystem-level preservation of the Paleocene Wannagan Creek fauna from North Dakota, with its incredibly high abundance of crocodyliforms, as well as fish, amphibians, turtles, squamates, birds, mammals, and very well-preserved champsosaurs, also an inspiration for this year’s meeting logo. The museum’s paleontology exhibits feature original skeletons collected by teams directed by former paleontology curator Bruce Erickson over his many decades of work in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota.
The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm, MN, is a nonprofit institution and the state’s largest museum complex outside of the Twin Cities metro area. Comprised of a Museum, Research Center, and park – encompassing 660 acres, Minnesota Discovery Center tells the story of the Iron Range – “The Land, The Mines, The People and The Work” – through exhibits, interpretation, programming and research materials. Often referred to as the “Museum of the Iron Range,” the center explores the region’s unique history and tells the stories of the immigrant communities, mining industry, and cultural evolution that shaped the Iron Range, making it a vital resource for understanding this significant part of Minnesota’s history. Beyond its focus on the mining industry and immigrant communities, the center also highlights the paleontological and archaeological significance of the region, particularly through its connection to the Hill Annex Mine and as host to the Hill Annex Paleontology Project. This historic mine is not only a landmark of the Iron Range’s industrial past but also a treasure trove of fossil discoveries, offering insights into the area’s prehistoric life. The Minnesota Discovery Center plays a crucial role in interpreting these findings, showcasing fossils, and providing context for the ancient environments that existed long before the Iron Range became known for its iron ore. The Minnesota Discovery Center tells the full story of the region’s natural and cultural evolution.
The geological and paleontological records in Minnesota stretch from the Archean Eon to the Holocene Epoch, albeit with very uneven representation of the timescale. The Proterozoic banded iron formations in northern Minnesota have been economically important to the state and the country for more than 100 years, and some units host microbial fossils that, when first discovered in the Gunflint Chert, were the oldest direct fossil evidence of life on Earth. The lower Paleozoic rocks in southeastern Minnesota, and in particular the trilobite faunas, were critical to early concepts of the Cambrian and Ordovician stratigraphy and biostratigraphy of North America. Thin, fossiliferous Cretaceous deposits occur in several parts of Minnesota, including the Cenomanian Coleraine Formation, comprising coastal deposits of the interior seaway that sit on top of Proterozoic iron formations in northern Minnesota and produce marine vertebrates and invertebrates and occasional terrestrial vertebrates. The landscapes of much of Minnesota are the result of late Pleistocene glacial processes, and the resulting sediments continue to produce scattered fossils of late Pleistocene megafauna and Holocene bison. The pollen records in the sediments of many lakes have been used to produce high-resolution records of environmental changes across the state following the end of the last glacial period.
The Twin Cities Metro is a vibrant region with diversity that defies stereotype. Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the institutions hosting the annual meeting, are located on the land of the Dakota people, who were dispossessed of their land in Minnesota by the governments of the state of Minnesota and the United States. Many Dakota people still reside in Minnesota and elsewhere, and some may be participating in the annual meeting. Today, Minnesota has 11 Federally recognized Native American tribes, and the Twin Cities has one of the largest urban populations of Native Americans of any US city. Minneapolis is also home to the largest Somali community in North America and possibly anywhere outside of eastern Africa, and St. Paul has the largest population of Karen peoples outside of southeast Asia and a large Hmong community as well.
Needless to say, the murder of George Floyd is still a painful and challenging moment in the recent history of Minneapolis. The corner of 38th Street South and Chicago Avenue South remains a memorial to George Floyd that is a space for reflection on social issues in Minneapolis and beyond and a focal point of community organizing in South Minneapolis.
While we recognize that the annual meeting is a busy time, we hope that you will be able to enjoy some of what the Twin Cities has to offer outside the conference hotel. The blocks of Nicollet Avenue to the south of the Hyatt Regency are called Eat Street because of the range of global cuisines available at the large number of restaurants, including excellent options for Mexican, Vietnamese, Jamaican, German, Malaysian, and Japanese food, as well as gourmet doughnuts. The Twin Cities are also home to numerous award-winning restaurants as well as many breweries and cafes, catering to any and all tastes. Minneapolis is ranked as the best large city for biking in the US, and so long as we don’t get a repeat of the Halloween Blizzard of ’91 during the annual meeting you can rent a bike and ride around the Chain of Lakes or along the Mississippi River or elsewhere on the miles of trails and dedicated bike lanes. You can also try your hand at curling at the Saint Paul Curling Club! The Twin Cities has a thriving arts scene, with theaters that range from fringe to Broadway, including the Guthrie Theater, with three separate stages, and Penumbra Theater, Minnesota’s only Black professional theater, in Minneapolis and the Ordway in St. Paul. The Minneapolis Institute of Art is one of the largest art museums in the US with collections that cover most of art history, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is a multidisciplinary contemporary art museum with a sculpture garden that includes the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry. Maybe you’ll even have time to take in a show at First Ave, the nightclub featured in the film Purple Rain that was owned by Prince, and you can tour Prince’s home and studio at Paisley Park in the nearby suburb of Chanhassen. The Twin Cities are also home to major sports teams including the Vikings (NFL), Twins (MBL), Timberwolves (NBA), Wild (NHL), Loons (MLS), Lynx (WNBA), and Minnesota PWHL, the reigning champions of the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
Whatever you choose to do, we hope you enjoy your time in the Twin Cities and have an excellent meeting!
David Fox, SVP 84th Annual Meeting Host Committee Co-chair
Pete Makovicky, SVP 84th Annual Meeting Host Committee Co-chair