SPEAKING TO THE EARTH: ENGAGING THE PUBLIC IN SEDIMENTOLOGY AND STRATIGRAPHY

Museum displays routinely emphasize fossils, rather than their geological context, because the public can readily relate to fossil specimens. However, the rocks themselves often preserve the more interesting aspects of Earth’s history. By using hands on discussions at outcrops, roadcuts, and ex-situ boulders allow visitors and museum volunteers to recognize and interpret geologic evidence themselves, ultimately enriching their experience and improving their understanding of the Earth.

At the Morrison Natural History Museum (MNHM), we incorporate and emphasize the local geology as part of our regular tours and outreach. Tours at the MNHM use ex-situ boulders of local quartz arenites to demonstrate how fluvial channels, and their adjacent overbank deposits, can be recognized in the rock record. These boulders are sourced from local historic fossil quarries and are undergoing fossil preparation. Visitors to the MNHM build an understanding that the rocks containing the fossils provide as much, if not more, evidence to the Earth’s past environments than the fossils themselves. Additionally, these visitors recognize these environmental shifts are evidence based interpretations rather than a scientist’s “just-so story”.

Volunteers at the MNHM are trained in sedimentology and stratigraphy, as well as paleontology and ecology. This training, while informal, shares aspects with traditional sedimentology and stratigraphy courses offered in an introductory sed/strat undergraduate course. Training also includes trips to local outcrops to discuss sedimentary structures and stratigraphic patterns. These trips also include teaching the volunteers how to field sketch, measure a stratigraphic section, and recording basic data such as recording the attitude of the beds.

The MNHM has also participated with a pilot program for science clubs at local middle schools. This program engaged these students in a simplified version of the MNHM volunteer training program, with an emphasis on providing the students with hands-on field experiences at local points of geological interest. By the end of the exercises, these students were independently able to interpret environments of deposition, tectonic events, and even recognized the presence of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains without prompting from the instructors.