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OCEANS OF KANSAS PALEONTOLOGY Fossils from the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea The entire Oceans of Kansas web site is Copyright © 1996-2010 by Mike Everhart (mike at oceansofkansas.com) On the Web since December, 1996 Last updated 07/19/2010 OCEANS OF KANSAS: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea - THE BOOK (Published 2005)
LEFT: FHSM VP-13910, Selmasaurus johnsoni, Polycn and Everhart (2008), a new species of mosasaur from western Kansas |
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Welcome to the Oceans of
Kansas Paleontology web page. My name is Mike Everhart and I am your
host on a virtual journey more than 85 million years "back in time" to
observe some of the many strange and wonderful creatures that lived in the oceans of the
Earth during the final stages of the Age of Dinosaurs. I have collected
fossils from the Smoky Hill Chalk of western Kansas for the last thirty-plus years and
have been an Adjunct Curator of Paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas
since 1998. I was President (2005) of the Kansas
Academy of Science, and now am the co-editor of the Transactions of the
Kansas Academy of Science, one of the oldest science journals in the United States
(est. 1872). I have conducted a Paleontology Symposium at the past ten annual meetings of the Kansas Academy of Science (Abstracts of the 10th Paleo-symposium (2009) here), and the Second Mosasaur Meeting in May, 2007 (below). LEFT: Photo by Michelle Everhart RIGHT: Photo by Tom Caggiano |
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My interests are primarily in marine reptiles,
and especially mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. More recently, I have become interested in Kansas sharks from the Permian through the Late Cretaceous, and Pteranodons. In that regard, I created Oceans of
Kansas Paleontology in 1996 as an educational site to provide factual information about
the animals that lived in and over the ancient ocean that once covered Kansas and much of
the central portion of North America. It has been growing ever since....and has
resulted in the publication of dozens of scientific papers, two books and an opportunity
to work as a science advisor on the National Geographic IMAX film, Sea Monsters LEFT: Please consider joining the Marine Reptile Forum and get involved in the discussions! |
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The 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Save the Date! |
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The Science of SuperCroc (Sarchosuchus imperator) at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History - March 13 through August 5, 2010 |
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LEFT: Bonnerichthys gladius, a new genus of giant filter
feeding fish described from the Smoky Hill Chalk by Friedman, et al. 2010 in Science: Friedman, M., Shimada, K., Martin, L., Everhart, M.J., Liston, J., Maltese, A. and Triebold, M. 2010. 100-million-year dynasty of giant planktivorous bony fishes in the Mesozoic seas. Science 327:990-993. GO TO THE WEBPAGE (UPDATED 03/12/2010 HEAR INTERVIEW WITH MATT FRIEDMAN ON NPR Story on the discovery by the Bonner Family in the Wichita Eagle |
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Recently I had the opportunity to record a series of 13 short programs on the paleontology of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea, located right here in Midwestern North America, which will be aired weekly on High Plains Public Radio: The HPPR Ancient History web page is located HERE: You can link directly to Episode 1 (mp3) here; Episode 2 (mp3) |
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The Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting (2008) edited by Michael J. Everhart, Sternberg Museum of Natural History, have now been published. The contents of the volume, including the naming of two new species, are shown online here: The 172 page volume is available for purchase at the Sternberg Museum store for $19.95 plus tax. (Shipping per Priority Mail is $4.80) Credit card purchases can made through Brad Penka: Phone: 785-628-5569 or Email: Bpenka (at) fhsu.edu You can also write for more information to Brad Penka, Sternberg Museum of Natural History, 3000 Sternberg Drive, Hays, Kansas 67601-2006. ABSTRACT BOOKLET HERE (500 KB) - The First Mosasaur Meeting, Maastricht, The Netherlands, May, 2004 |
3rd Mosasaur Meeting
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Normally I don't advertise things like toys on Oceans of Kansas,
but in this case I was part of the design team that created this excellent model of a Late
Cretaceous mosasaur... Tylosaurus proriger - for the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History - Sculpted
by Forest Rogers. LEFT: The newly released Carnegie Collection Tylosaurus proriger by Safari LTD ©. The model (#421501) is 11.75 inches (30 cm) in length. It replaces a really bad model of Mosasaurus. (Ugh! No wonder mosasaurs weren't taken seriously!) |
RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
NEW
Everhart, M.J. and Maltese, A. 2010. First report of a heteromorph ammonite, cf. Glyptoxoceras, from the Smoky Hill Chalk
(Santonian) of western
NEW Everhart, M. J. 2010. Bonnerichthys gladius – The largest bony fish and first known planktivore from the Late Cretaceous. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 113(1-2):123-124 (abstract). NEW Friedman, M., Shimada, K., Martin, L., Everhart, M.J., Liston, J., Maltese, A. and Triebold, M. 2010. 100-million-year dynasty of giant planktivorous bony fishes in the Mesozoic seas. Science 327:990-993. NEW Shimada, K., Everhart, M.J., Decker, R. and Decker P.D. 2009. A
new skeletal remain of the durophagous shark, Ptychodus
mortoni, from the Upper Cretaceous of Everhart,
M.J. 2009. First occurrence of marine vertebrates in the Early Cretaceous of Everhart,
M.J. 2009. Probable plesiosaur remains from the Blue Hill Shale (Carlile Formation; Middle
Turonian) of north central Everhart, M.J. and Bell, A. 2009. A hesperornithiform limb bone from the basal Greenhorn Formation (Late Cretaceous; Middle Cenomanian) of north central Kansas. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(3):952-956. Bell, A. and Everhart, M.J. 2009. A new specimen of Parahesperornis (Aves: Hesperornithiformes) from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Early Campanian) of western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 112(1/2):7-14. Shimada, K. and Everhart, M.J. 2009. First record of Anomoeodus (Osteichthyes: Pycnodontiformes) from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk of western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 112(1/2):98-102. Everhart, M.J. 2008. A bitten skull of Tylosaurus kansasensis (Squamata: Mosasauridae) and a review of mosasaur-on-mosasaur pathology in the fossil record. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 111(3/4):251-262 Everhart, M.J. (ed.). 2008. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting. Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, 172 pp. Everhart, M.J. 2008. The mosasaurs of George F. Sternberg, paleontologist and fossil photographer. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, pp. 37-46. Polcyn, M.J. and Everhart, M.J. 2008. Description and phylogenetic analysis of a new species of Selmasaurus (Mosasauridae: Plioplatecarpinae) from the Niobrara Chalk of western Kansas. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, pp. 13-28. Polcyn, M.J., Bell, G.L., Jr., Shimada, K. and Everhart, M.J. 2008. The oldest North American mosasaurs (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of Kansas and Texas with comments on the radiation of major mosasaur clades. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, pp. 137-155. Everhart, M.J. 2008. Rare occurrence of a Globidens sp. (Reptilia; Mosasauridae) dentary in the Sharon Springs Member of the Pierre Shale (Middle Campanian) of Western Kansas. p. 23-29 in Farley G. H. and Choate, J.R. (eds.), Unlocking the Unknown; Papers Honoring Dr. Richard Zakrzewski, , Fort Hays Studies, Special Issue No. 2, 153 p., Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS.
Everhart, M. J. 2007. New stratigraphic records (Albian-Campanian) of the guitarfish, Rhinobatos sp. (Chondrichthyes; Rajiformes), from the Cretaceous of Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(3-4): 225-235.
Everhart, M. J. 2007. Historical note on the 1884 discovery of Brachauchenius lucasi (Plesiosauria; Pliosauridae) in Ottawa County, Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(3-4):255-258.
Everhart, M. J. 2007. Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep. National Geographic, 192 p. ISBN-13: 978-1426200854
Everhart, M. J. 2007. Remains of a pycnodont fish (Actinopterygii: Pycnodontiformes) in a coprolite; An upper record of Micropycnodon kansasensis in the Smoky Hill Chalk, western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(1/2): 35-43. Everhart, M. J. 2007. Use of archival photographs to rediscover the locality of the Holyrood elasmosaur (Ellsworth County, Kansas). Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(1/2): 135-143.AVAILABLE AS A FREE PDF: Everhart, M.J. 2005. Tylosaurus kansasensis, a new species of tylosaurine (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Niobrara Chalk of western Kansas, U.S.A. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences / Geologie en Mijnbouw, 84(3), p. 231-240. |
Oceans of Kansas is NOT about dinosaurs. Although the type specimen of Niobrarasaurus coleii was found in Kansas, this web site has very little information about dinosaurs. I do recommend some excellent dinosaur sites on the Oceans of Kansas Links page. For more information about the origin of mosasaur and plesiosaur names, go to Ben Creisler's Translation and Pronunciation Guide, a recent addition to the The Dinosauria On-Line Dinosaur Omnipedia. John Damuth's Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates (BFV) is HERE. Click here for the most current view on the relationships of American mosasaurs. Also go HERE for a more detailed cladogram on Mikko Haaramo's Phylogeny Archive webpage.
For a fictional story about the daily life of a mosasaur, CLICK HERE. If you are interested in fossil insects, visit Roy Beckemeyer's "Winds of Kansas" webpage.
.... and for a new paleontology blog by Greg Liggett, visit the BoneBlogger
| Table of Contents | Handy paleo-reference page | Search with Google |
| If you would like to learn more about paleontology in Kansas, you
might consider joining the
Kansas Academy of Science, It's inexpensive ($25 per year) and we have a variety
of paleontology papers in the process of being published. Click
here for an updated list of KAS publications on paleontology. Click here for a brief history of the Kansas Academy of Science |
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ELEVENTH ANNUAL PALEONTOLOGY SYMPOSIUM was held at the 142nd Annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science, April 9-10, 2010 Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas |
Systematics and morphology of American mosasaurs by Dale Russell "The best publication about mosasaurs" |
The Yale Peabody Museum Publications Office is pleased to announce
that the 1967 monograph, "Systematics and Morphology of American Mosasaurs"
by Dale Russell, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, Bulletin 23, is now
available as a facsimile reprint through the Yale Peabody Museum web site. The museum regularly receives requests for this title, which is the first of several of out-of-print publications that will be made available to the worldwide academic community through Yale's print-on-demand service. (Go to the Publications link at http://www.peabody.yale.edu). |
| QUICK SITE INDEX | Smoky Hill Chalk Field Guides: Invertebrates; Fish; Marine Reptiles; Pteranodons, Dinosaurs and Birds; Other |
| USE "PICO SEARCH" TO FIND ANY WORD OR PHRASE ON THE OCEANS OF KANSAS WEBSITE........ | ...OR USE THE GUIDE BELOW FOR SOME OF THE OCEANS OF KANSAS PALEONTOLOGY PAGES - JUST CLICK! |
| Would you like to hunt fossils in the Smoky Hill Chalk? |
| Contact the Keystone Gallery for more information! |
Oceans of Kansas
webpages (mostly about sharks) translated into French by Jean-Michel Benoit
| Be warned that Oceans of Kansas Paleontology is a very LARGE and constantly changing web site. It has more than two hundred and fifty sub-pages, with hundreds of pictures of fossils and paleo-life art, and lots of other interesting information that is found no where else on the Internet or even in reference books. From time to time as new material is added, it will be listed below: |
| TABLE OF CONTENTS | WHAT'S NEW AT OCEANS OF KANSAS? | OOK LINKS |
06/09.2010 Cretodus crassidens - Late Cretaceous Shark Collected from the Blue Hill Shale of Mitchell County, Kansas
04/19/2010 Kansas Ammonites.... - Something like a squid in a coiled shell
10/26/2008 Remains of young mosasaurs from the Smoky Hill Chalk - It was a dangerous place to be born....
09/13/2008 Digging up a large turtle in the Fairport Chalk - Probable first collection of the skull of Desmatochelys lowii from Kansas.
09/10/2008 The brain and back of the skull of mosasaurs - A primer on the complicated anatomy....
07/13/2008 First polycotylid plesiosaur from the Fort Hays Limestone - (Early Coniacian) - Jewell County, Kansas.
04/27/2008 Baptornis advenus Marsh 1877, a marine bird from the western Interior Sea. (Smaller, more primitive than Hesperornis.
04/18/2008 A complete mosasaur skeleton - Osseous and cartilaginous. Osborne, 1899 - Early photographs of Tylosaurus proriger
MORE OCEANS OF KANSAS LINKS HERE
LINKS TO OTHER PALEONTOLOGY SITES
| PalArch - Web-based scientific journal | The Paleontology Portal - Lots of fossil specimens | Greg Liggett's BoneBlogger |
Robert Randell's British Chalk Fossils |
Richard Forrest's Plesiosaur.com |
Adam Smith's The Plesiosaur Directory |
Roy Beckemeyer's Winds of Kansas - Fossil insects |
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Ammonites (in French) |
Rudists (Durania maxima) |
NEW More insects from the Eocene Green River Formation - NW Colorado |
Inoceramids |
Paleontology Museums |
| There are also many links to other excellent paleo web pages and museum sites around the world, so please plan on taking some time to see what is available. Also, don't forget to bookmark this page so that you can come back occasionally to see what has been added. The two best ways to 'surf' the Oceans of Kansas site are to use the Table of Contents pages, or the Links to this site and other paleontology web pages. There are also 'hyper-links' embedded in the text on most of the pages that will take you to other sub-pages for more information on that subject. These links are highlighted in a different color (light blue) and are 'click-able'. From the Links page, you can surf the net to sites all over the world, but please take a tour of Oceans of Kansas Paleontology first. To get things started, let's take a look at: |
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PALEO-LIFE ART BY DAN VARNER
"Mosasaurus on the prowl"
Copyright 2002 © Dan Varner; used with permission of Dan Varner |
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Click on the Pteranodon to take the unofficial Oceans of KansasA "virtual tour" of theSternberg Museum of Natural History |
Yes, Virginia, there were lots of sharks in Kansas |
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You can now download a FREE pdf copy of this early article on Kansas Sharks by Williston - Provided by the Kansas Geological Survey.
Williston, S. W. 1900. Cretaceous fishes: Selachians and Pycnodonts. University Geological Survey Kansas VI pp. 237-256, with pls.
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The Cretaceous Period lasted
from about 144 million years ago to 65 million years ago. In Kansas, it is
represented by marine and estuarine deposits from the Early Cretaceous (Albian)
Cheyenne Sandstone and Kiowa Shale that overlay the Wellington Formation (Permian)
or the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) at the base, to the Pierre Shale at the top. (See Kansas Geology Map and Time Scale).
A brief Cretaceous Time Scale is found here. The 1999 version
of the GSA (Geological Society of America)
geologic time scale is found HERE
as a printable .pdf file (233 kb). A major part of the upper portion (Late Cretaceous) of these deposits is referred to as the Niobrara Formation. It contains a rather unique member called the Smoky Hill Chalk, and provides the exposures for two Kansas landmarks: Castle Rock and Monument Rocks. The chalk found in Kansas was deposited between 87 and 82 million years ago during a period when a shallow inland sea (the Western Interior Sea) covered most of the Midwest from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle. The deposition of these chalky, marine sediments occurred during the last half of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 15-20 million years before the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. The Smoky Hill Chalk member is about 600 feet thick in Kansas, and lies conformably above the Fort Hays Limestone, and below the Pierre Shale. For the most part, the chalk is composed of the compacted shells (coccolithophores) and plates (coccoliths) of an abundant, microscopic, golden-brown algae (Chrysophyceae) that lived in the clear waters of a warm, shallow sea. A large percentage of the chalk is made up of coprolites containing coccoliths from the animals that fed on the algae. |
| A generalized map of the North American continent during late Cretaceous time. The Western Interior Sea covered most of the Midwest from the present Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. (Map modified from an exhibit at the University of Nebraska State Museum) |
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A map of Kansas showing the surface and sub-surface
distribution of the remaining Cretaceous rocks (adapted from the Kansas Geological Survey
Bulletin 162; 1963). Although Kansas was once nearly covered with Cretaceous marine
deposits, millions of years of erosion have removed a
large portion of them them from the surface, leaving many areas of chalk exposed along river valleys in the northwest portion of
the State. Go here for more information on Kansas Geology.
KANSAS FOSSILS - Kansas Geological Survey
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This shallow ocean was home to a variety of marine animals, almost all of which are now extinct. These included giant clams, rudists, crinoids, squid, ammonites, numerous sharks and bony fish, turtles, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs , Pteranodons and even several species of marine (toothed) birds. Although it seems unlikely that you would find dinosaur fossils in the middle of the Western Interior Sea, a number of them (a hadrosaur found by O. C. Marsh in 1871, and several nodosaurs, including the type specimen of Niobrarasaurus coleii) have been collected from the Smoky Hill Chalk, and their remains have been well documented. The bodies of these dinosaurs must have somehow floated hundreds of miles into the sea before sinking to the bottom or being torn apart by scavenging sharks. It is possible that they died during catastrophic flooding on the land masses to the east or west, and were carried out to sea on a large, tangled mat of trees and other vegetation (fossilized wood, including large logs, is also known from the chalk).
Over a period of about five million of years, the remains of many of these animals were preserved as fossils in the soft, chalky mud of the sea bottom. When this mud was compressed under thousands of feet overlying shale, it became a deposit of chalk that is more than 600 feet thick in Western Kansas. Most of the massive chalk formation that once covered Kansas, however, has been eroded away over the last 60 million years and is now exposed only in a relatively small area in the northwestern corner of the State. This part of Kansas is also known as the Smoky Hills.
Since 1868 and the discovery of Tylosaurus proriger, the Smoky Hill Chalk has been the source of thousands of fossil specimens, many of which are on exhibit today in museums around the world. The first significant collections of Kansas fossils were made by relatively unknown scientists like Professor Benjamin F. Mudge, Dr. George M. Sternberg, Dr. John Janeway, and Dr. Theophilus H. Turner. Many others were collected by and for such famous paleontologists as Edward Drinker Cope, O. C. Marsh, Samuel W. Williston, and Charles Sternberg, (for more information on the Sternberg family, click here), including a large portion of the Yale Peabody Museum collection that resulted from the Yale College Scientific Expeditions of the 1870s. For some 'old time' advice on collecting fossils, see an 1884 article by Charles H. Sternberg here. Much of the early work on mosasaurs in Kansas was published in The University Geological Survey of Kansas in the late 1890's. A large number have been found since then by amateur collectors and many of these have been significant additions to paleontology. The Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University, the Museum of Natural History at The University of Kansas, and the University of Nebraska State Museum have excellent collections of fossils from the Smoky Hill Chalk. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman, Oklahoma, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and the American Museum of Natural History also have many Kansas fossils. Click here for additional information about some early American paleontologists.
RECOMMENDED RECENT BOOKS ON PALEONTOLOGY
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Oceans of Kansas is now available as a book. OCEANS OF KANSAS - A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea. by Michael J. Everhart, published June, 2005 by the Indiana University Press ISBN: 0253345472 "A journey to a time when sea monsters roamed the middle of America" Oceans of Kansas was named the featured book from Kansas for the 2006 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. It was also a featured book of the Discovery Channel Book Club and is currently in its 3rd Printing by the Indiana University Press... over 6000 copies sold! RIGHT: Photo by Cheryl Unruh of Flyover People from a book-signing in June, 2007. Used with permission: |
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Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep By Mike Everhart Awarded 2008 by the American Library Association Awarded as a 2008 Kansas Notable Book |
Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting Edited by Michael J. Everhart Published by Fort Hays State University, 2008 172 pp. |
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King of the Crocodylians The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus David R. Schwimmer Published 2002 by the Indiana University Press, 220 pages |
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NEW!! A History of Paleontology Illustration Jane P. Davidson Published 2008 by the Indiana University Press, 217 pages |
Time Traveler In search of dinosaurs and ancient mammals from Montana to Mongolia by Michael Novacek Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2002 See my review in Palaeontologia Electronica (Vol. 5, Issue 1) |
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Sea Dragons predators of the prehistoric oceans by Richard Ellis Published 2003 by the Lawrence, KS |
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Mosasaurs: Last of the great marine reptiles (November 2000 - #44) Where the Elasmosaurs Roam..... (April 2002 - #53) |
Click here to go to the: Table of Contents
Click here to go to my: Paleontology Links
Click here for more information: About Mosasaurs
Click here for more information: About Oceans of Kansas Paleontology
In Memoriam: Dale Allan Pulliam, U.S.M.C.