FOSSIL TREASURES OF THE ANZA-BORREGO DESERT: A PROJECT IN SCIENCE EDUCATION AND PUBLISHING IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

This project was conceived by California State Park staff and volunteers in the Colorado Desert District as an educational and interpretive component of its paleontology program and features twenty-three leading earth scientists and specialists on the region. A similar number of editorial and artistic contributors plus endorsements from leading paleontologists throughout the country produced the resulting 416-page full color book of which the San Diego Union noted, “they have not only done a superb job in gathering together a world-class, state-of-the-art collection of essays, but they have done so in a manner that combines scientific accuracy with readability.”

Good science, not communicated to the general public, fails in its mission to guide sound decision-making. Public policy, uninformed by its underlying science, ranges from being wasteful of resources to being dangerous to communal health and welfare. The following educational themes and public policy implications emerged during the course of project.

THEME #1. The 1500-square-mile Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and adjacent BLM wilderness areas occupy a unique and complex geologic setting on the western edge of the Salton Trough rift valley. IMPLICATION: Establishment and protection of large natural preserves in their undisturbed state is essential to scientific research as well as other values of the wilderness experience.

THEME #2. Paleontology opens figurative “windows into the past,” enabling reconstruction of past climates and environments. Patterns and agents of change can be teased from the fossil record. Anza-Borrego records several distinct environments of the past few million years including marine, major river delta, savanna, riparian woodland, and desert. IMPLICATION: Analysis of the prehistoric record may have explanatory and predictive value as a baseline for present and future conditions (e.g., human factors driving climate change).

THEME #3. The “Fossil Treasures” project is intended to be a bridge between earth science research in the Anza-Borrego region and the public via educational and interpretive tools using a variety of media and experiential methods. “How do we know what we know?” IMPLICATION: Good science must inform and guide good policy via an informed and enthusiastic citizenry, both youth and adults.