Join us for our 53rd Annual Open House event, which will be held virtually this year on Saturday, January 30, 2021!
No need to venture out into the cold - just join us from the comforts of your home! We will be hosting a series of guest lectures, children’s activities, and a fossil & mineral auction. Let’s travel to prehistoric times and enjoy a fun-filled day of paleontology-themed activities!
Our first guest speaker will be Dr. Sarah Sheffield, Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida, who will discuss the evolutionary relationships of early echinoderms. If you ever wondered about the ancestors of starfish and sea urchins, this is your chance to learn!
The next presentation will be given by Carl Mehling, a senior Museum Specialist at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. He will talk about the rediscovery of small 
fossil footprints from a group of tetrapods, relatives of amphibians and reptiles. These footprints were stored untouched in a crate at the Museum for 87 years before being rediscovered and studied!
Last but not least, Dr. Joshua Samuels, Curator at the Gray Fossil Site in Tennessee, will speak about the unique prehistoric life found at the Gray Fossil Site. This site preserved a variety of fossils from the Pliocene Epoch, approximately 5 million years ago. Some notable finds include tapirs, saber tooth cats, ground sloths and even alligators!
These lectures will be hosted on WebEx and live-streamed to Facebook. For the event link and additional information, please see the main Open House webpage.
In addition to our three virtual lectures, we will also be hosting a series of dinosaur-themed children’s activities on Zoom. In the first activity, participants will learn about meteor impacts and impact craters, such as the famous one that helped to cause the dinosaurs’ extinction! In the second activity, participants will test their dinosaur-knowledge in a trivia game. In the last activity, participants will learn how to make dinosaur origami! These events are open to all but registration is required. Please see our main Open House Page for the registration link as well as the materials you will need to participate in these activities.
Last but not least, we will be holding a Virtual Fossil & Mineral Auction on our Facebook page. Images of the items for sale will be uploaded to Facebook where they can be bid on. Bidding will run
from 9AM to 8PM EST on Saturday, January 30th. The winning bidder will be notified on Facebook and items must be picked up during designated time slots the week of February 1st. Please see the main Open House webpage for more details about the auction.
