The Brigham Young University Department of Geological Sciences will host Kirk Johnson, chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, for its Annual Quey Hebrew Memorial Lecture Tuesday, March 27, at 7 p.m. in 3108 Jesse Knight Building.
His lecture is titled “Digging Snowmastodon: Discovering an Ice Age World in the Colorado Rockies” and is a glimpse into his book by the same title that will be available for purchase that evening. Admission is free, and the public is welcome to attend.
The book was written after a mammoth tusk was discovered at a Colorado ski resort. More than 5,000 bones of 41 species of Ice Age animals — including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, camels, deer, horses and giant bison — were ultimately recovered. The site preserves a series of Ice Age fossil ecosystems rich in plants and is one of the most significant fossil discoveries ever made in Colorado.
Johnson is also the vice president for research and collections at the Denver Museum. He earned a doctorate in geology and paleobotany at Yale University. His research focuses on fossil plants, the extinction of the dinosaurs and methods for dating rocks and fossils. Johnson is the leader of the Snowmastodon Project.
For more information, contact Kathryn Tucker at (801) 422-3918.
Writer: Charles Krebs
