ENP 32.3 Big Bend: Travel Through Geological Time

For the third in our Big Bend National Park series, Bryan takes an epic trip through eons with Dr. Thomas Shiller, assistant professor of geology at Texas' Sul Ross University. From uplift to erosion, inland seas to volcanic action, the pair discuss this desert park's changing topography and its once-thriving dinosaur population. The hardest hitting questions, however, came from Everybody’s National Parks’ junior geologists, making this episode a real family affair.

Discussion includes the following:

[00:02] Introduction: ENP Big Bend National Park Series, Dr. Thomas Shiller

[01:13] Geological timeline of Big Bend, Chisos Mountains, Santa Elena Canyon

[12:03] Night Skies program

[12:30] Big Bend: The once-great western interior seaway

[13:15] Big Bend’s rich deposit of fossils

[17:17] Digging deeper into the park’s Cretaceous Period

[17:40] Big Bend’s unique flora and fauna fossils

[19:50] Old school tricks of the geologist trade

[20:26] Big Bend fossil stewardship

[24:21] ENP Grand Canyon geology episode

[25:20] More Big Bend fossil stewardship: Paleo Lab at UT Austin

[26:33] Big Bend Fossil Discovery Exhibit

[30:30] Big Bend ranger programs

[30:53] Science Knights in the Morning: YouTube, Facebook, KVLF

[32:47] Missing time: Big Bend’s black conical hills and the great extinction event

[35:40] ENP’s junior correspondents take the mic (Part I): Western interior seaway facts

[35:46] ENP’s junior correspondents take the mic (Part II): A dinosaur census

For complete show notes and archive, visit everybodysnationalparks.com.

DUE TO COVID-19 PRECAUTIONS, BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK WAS IN PHASED REOPENING AT TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS EPISODE. PLEASE CHECK NPS WEBSITE FOR ACCESS UPDATES.

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