Fossil Butte National Monument

Fossil Butte National Monument

Infobox_protected_area | name = Fossil Butte National Monument
iucn_category = III



caption =
locator_x = 75
locator_y = 58
location = Lincoln County, Wyoming, USA
nearest_city = Kemmerer, WY
lat_degrees = 41
lat_minutes = 51
lat_seconds = 52
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 110
long_minutes = 46
long_seconds = 33
long_direction = W
area = 8,198 acres (33.17 km²)
established = October 23, 1972
visitation_num = 25,000
visitation_year = 2004
governing_body = National Park Service

Fossil Butte National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service located 15 miles west of Kemmerer, Wyoming; the national monument was established on October 23, 1972. The site preserves the best paleontological record of Tertiary aquatic communities in North America and possibly the world, within the 50-million-year-old Green River lake beds. Fossils preserved, including fish, alligators, bats, turtles, dog-sized horses, insects, and many other species of plants and animals suggest that the region was a low, subtropical, freshwater basin when the sediments accumulated, over about a 2 million-year period.

Coal mining for the railroad led to the settlement of the nearby town of Fossil, Wyoming, now a ghost town [cite web|url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wylincol/Fossil.htm|title=Fossil, Wyoming|publisher=rootsweb.ancestry.com|accessdate=2008-05-06] . When the fossils were discovered, miners dug them up to sell to collectors. In particular, Lee Craig sold fossils from 1897 to 1937. Commercial fossil collecting is not allowed within the National Monument, but numerous quarries on private land nearby continue to produce extraordinary fossil specimens, both for museums and for private collectors.

ee also

*Green River Formation

References

External links

* [http://www.nps.gov/fobu/index.htm National Park Service Official Site]
* [http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/2006/fossilbutte/html2/fossil06.htm Photo tour of FBNM] , from USGS
* [http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eoc/greenriver.html Paleontology of Green River fossils] , from University of California, Berkeley
* [http://www.geotimes.org/sept06/Travels0906.html Geologic travel guide] from American Geological Institute

Gallery



Fossil_Butte,_photo_courtesy_USGS

Fossil_palm_frond,_photo_courtesy_USGS

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