Fossil Boot Camp 2016

Fremont Stones ‘n Bones presented Fossil Boot Camp to seniors at the mini-college at the Pueblo Community College – Fremont Campus (PCC) on March 22, 2016.  Some students already had a knowledge of fossils while others had never held one before.  Students had many fossil specimens they could scrutinize with their loupes to learn the basics of fossils dating from 450 to 65 million years ago.

The favorite is usually the trilobite or the ammonite, and many learned of fossils they never had heard of before – crinoids, brachiopods, rugose corals.  Bryozoans are always fascinating, with their miniscule 1/50 of an inch holes in the skeleton, as is the beauty of many gastropod shells seen under magnification.

Determining if a specimen is dinosaur bone or petrified wood can be challenging.  Differentiating between a piece of baculite and a piece of belemnite (both Late Cretaceous Period Cephalopod fossils formed over 65 million years ago) takes time to master.

Members Mary Chamberlain, Harold Taylor, Loretta Bailey, Christina Taylor, Cindy and Barry Smith described the anatomy, lifestyle, location, and many other details of various common fossils.  If you are interested in taking a Fossil Boot Camp class, please contact Cindy Smith at [email protected] .

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