Photos, mineral specimens and works of art featured at "Follow the Fossil Trail" auction Feb. 25

The Tate Geological Museum in Casper is now selling tickets to its biennial fund-raiser to be held on Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Casper Petroleum Club.

The special guest of honor will be Paul Hallock, former Casper College Foundation executive director who retired in June 2011.

“Follow the Fossil Trail” will feature a number of beautiful items for bid including mineral specimens, photography, and works of art, which were created specially for the fundraiser and then finished by local artists. In addition, raffle tickets are being sold for a Henry Rifle Lever Action .22.

From 6 to 8 p.m. wine and “elaborate” hors d’ oeuvres will be served and a cash bar will also be available. A live auction, featuring Dan Sullivan as auctioneer, will begin at 8:10 p.m. Dancing to live music by Rob Staffig will begin at 8:30.

Tickets are $50 for individuals, $90 for couples, and $400 for a table of six, which will include sponsor recognition and a mineral specimen.

To purchase tickets, or for more information, contact Deanna Schaff, director of museums at 268-2077 ordschaff@caspercollege.edu.

All proceeds of the event will go to the Tate Geological Museum.

BBHC Resident Fellowship Program explores photography and geology links in the West

With a multitude of data, the Hayden Survey introduced the world to Yellowstone National Park. The expedition’s remarkable photographs are part of an illustrated presentation by Dr. Andrew E. Hershberger of Bowling Green State University, Ohio, (BGSU) on Thursday, July 14, 2 p.m. at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s Coe Auditorium. The program focuses on the past and present relationships between photography and geology in the American West, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey or USGS-era immediately following the Civil War—including those famous Hayden surveys of Yellowstone.

The program begins at 2 p.m. and is free to the public. This presentation is part of an ongoing series sponsored by the Center’s Resident Fellowship Program.

“When studying the history of photography, the photographs created in the territories of the American West following the Civil War stand out as a group for their interdisciplinary complexity and sheer beauty,” Hershberger says. “The fact that these images were most frequently (but not always) created for the use of USGS geologists and scientists makes their aesthetic appeal all the more interesting to discuss.”

According to Hershberger, for well over a century since they were created, these images have been the subject of some debate. “Numerous art, photographic, and scientific historians have disagreed with each other about how best to characterize the landscape photographs created by USGS-era photographers such as William Henry Jackson, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, William H. Bell, and John K. Hillers, among others,” Hershberger adds.

As Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History and Chair of Art History at BGSU, Hershberger has published multiple peer-reviewed articles on a broad spectrum of topics related to the history of photography. Included in those works were stories on photographers as diverse as Felice Beato, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Jay Dusard, and Minor White, and on photographic theorists such as Rosalind Krauss and André Malraux.

Hershberger received his PhD from Princeton University in 2001, and he holds other degrees from Princeton, the University of Chicago, and the University of Arizona as well. He is nearing completion on a large anthology project entitled Photographic Theory, to be published in 2012. Hershberger’s lecture at the Historical Center is connected to his new anthology project, currently titled “Photography and Geology.”

For his fellowship, Hershberger has spent three weeks researching in the rich collections of the McCracken Research Library and the Whitney Gallery of Western Art at the Center. His goal has been to make comparisons between USGS-era texts with corresponding original photographs by the USGS-era photographers. Hershberger compares that material with newer published re-photographs and texts by contemporary photographers like Mark Klett, and alongside USGS-era paintings and prints by Thomas Moran who joined the Hayden survey of Yellowstone in 1871.

By selecting and juxtaposing numerous texts and images, Hershberger’s proposed anthology does two things. First, it highlights the changes in western landscapes and photographic interpretations of them since the 1870s. Secondly, it studies the variations in land use practices within “Old West” versus “New West” cultures.

As Hershberger put it, “Given the prominence of W.H. Jackson’s 1871 photographs of Yellowstone within the USGS-era, and given their famous impact on the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, the Center’s location in Cody, Wyoming, and its rich USGS-era holdings, makes the Historical Center the logical—even ideal—base of operations for this new anthology project.”

Attendees should alert the Center’s admissions staff that they’re on hand to attend the lecture. For more information, e-mail Linda Clark atlindac@bbhc.org or call 307.578.4043.

Committed to connecting people with the Spirit of the American West, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center weaves the varied threads of the western experience—history and myth, art and Native culture, firearms technology and the nature of Yellowstone—into the rich panorama that is the American West. The Center, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is now operating its summer schedule, open daily, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. For general information, visit www.bbhc.org, or call 307.587.4771.

Photo: Crater of Castle Geyser. Photo by William Henry Jackson, 1872. NPS photo. k#64,211

BBHC offers field trip for Fern-filled Fauna of the Bighorn Basin

Fossilized vegetation of the Bighorn Basin

From the Buffalo Bill Historical Center:

Dr. Scott Wing describes his job like this, “As a research scientist and curator at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History the three major parts of my job are research, collections, and outreach.”

All three come together on July 9, 2011, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. with a plant fossil field trip to the Big Cedar Ridge in the southeastern Bighorn Basin. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center co-sponsors the outing—dubbed Fern-filled Fauna of the Bighorn Basin—with the Wyoming Native Plant Society, Washakie Museum, and the University of Wyoming Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center. There is no charge for the trip; however, pre-registration is required by contacting Emily Buckles at emilyb@bbhc.org or 307.578.4110.

Poets meet paleontologists this weekend in Casper

Dee the Mammoth fossil

"Dee and the Mammoth" book

Paleontologists and geologists are in Casper through Sunday for the 17th Annual Tate Conference. It will feature topics ranging from “Asian Elephant Behavior” to “Ice Age Discovery in Snowmass Village.”


Friday presentations include discussions on “Climate Change at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary,” The Largest Mounted Mammoth in North America, Dee the Mammoth,” “Cats of the Camelot Local Fauna,” and others. Saturday presentations will include talks on ambush predators, the Dire wolf of Rancho La Brea, Pleistocene bear communities, the giant short-faced bear, and Porcupine Cave. The day will end with Keynote speaker Steven R. Holen, curator of archeology for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Holen will speak on the exciting discovery and current excavation project the museum is engaged in at Snowmass Village, Colo., “Ice Age Discovery in Snowmass Village: A Mid-to Early Wisconsin Fossil Locality High in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.” The excavation is the largest-ever excavation the museum has ever been involved in. As of May 24, 2011, museum crews had found more than 100 bones which included two mastodon skulls; two mastodon pelvises; three mammoth tusks; mastodon vertebrae, ribs, wrist and ankle bones, and large bones including the upper arm and forearm; a sloth forearm; bison wrist bone; and deer pelvis. Registration is $40 each for the first and third field trips June 2 and 5, and $150 for the Friday through Saturday portion of the conference, June 3 and 4. To register stop by the Tate Geological Museum on the Casper College campus, or call the museum at 268-2447, 800-442-2963, ext. 2447, email dschaff@caspercollege.edu, or visit www.caspercollege.edu/tate.

Meanwhile, poets and writers are gathering June 3-5 in Casper for sessions like these:

• "The Ghost That Got Into My House" (after the James Thurber story) by Lucia St. Clair Robson
• "Appropriate Appropriating" by poet Chris Fishbach
• Pete McCarthy's sessions on online marketing and social media
• The ever-popular open mic sessions on Friday and Saturday nights
• A closing talk by Tom Empey, actor, director and recently-retired chair of the Casper College theatre department

FMI: http://www.wyowriters.org/Resources/WWINC_ConferenceBrochure2011.pdf

If you are a writer and geologist, you would have a tough time choosing events.

The big question is: Is Casper big enough to accommodate both poets and paleontolgists this weekend?

Tune into this blog Monday to find out.

Ray Troll, friend of the Casper College Tate Museum, wins Guggenheim for science writing

Alaska artist and writer Ray Troll, author of Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for his science writing. Ray was one of the presenters at the 2010 Equality State Book Festival in Casper. He is an old friend of the Casper College Tate Geological Museum and was a co-presenter of two bookfest sessions at the Tate: a book illustrators' panel along with Casper's Zak Pullen, illustrator of the children's book about “Dee” the mammoth; and the Tate's Russell Hawley. Ray also joined Casper author Tom Rea, Ilja Nieuwland and the Tate staff in a session called “Dig-it: A Conversation About Dinosaurs and Fossils.”

Ray lives in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Here's some background info on the 2011 Guggenheim awards:

On April 7, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded 180 Fellowships to a diverse group of scholars, artists, and scientists in its eighty-seventh annual competition for the United States and Canada.  Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants.

Image: Ray Troll's illustration for "Crusin' the Fossil Highway."

Jodie Atherton's dinosaur mosaics on sale at Tate Geological Museum's open house

From a Casper College press release:

Laramie ceramic artist Jodie Atherton, will be displaying and selling
her unique dinosaur mosaics during the Tate Geological Museum*s Annual
Open House on Friday, Dec. 3.

"The mosaics are created on top of a plaster jacket that was used to
transport dinosaur bones and other fragile fossils home from a field
site to the Tate Geological Museum Prep Lab," said Atherton. "Most of my
dinosaur mosaics are created with mostly my own handmade pottery. I use
my broken pottery, prairie glass, and other cast-offs in the process,"
she said.

The resulting mosaics "are truly green creations as they are made
from totally recycled materials and keeps paleontology cast offs and
broken pottery out of the landfill. By bringing science cast offs and
broken pottery together into mosaics, the end product is my artwork, a piece of history, millions of years for the fossil to form and be found,
lots of hands to create and use old bottles, and then to discard them on
the prairie for me to find years later, and many broken pots and tiles
to create these mosaics," Atherton said.

Twenty percent of all sales Atherton makes during the Tate Open House
will go back to the Tate. Atherton, who received a bachelor*s degree in
fine arts with a minor in ceramics from the University of Wyoming, is
the owner of Whitewater Ceramics in Laramie, Wyo. In addition to the
dinosaur mosaics, Atherton also creates handcrafted tiles and figurative
sculptures.

The Tate Geological Museum Open House will be held from 10 a.m. to 4
p.m. and is free and open to all.

Tate Geological Museum hosts mammoth holiday celebration and "Dee and the Mammoth" book launch

Tate's Mammoth ready to party!

From a Casper College press release:

A festive time is in store for all who attend the Tate Geological Museum's Holiday Open House on Saturday, Dec. 4, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

According to Deanna Schaff, director of museums, the event will include the sale and signing of the new children's book Dee and the Mammoth by Gene Gagliano, author, and Zachary Pullen, illustrator. Both Gene and Zac will be on hand to autograph all copies sold during the open house, said Schaff.

"The book will include a documentary of the entire story of Dee the mammoth from discovery to display in DVD form, along with an audio version of the book, Schaff noted.

In addition to Gagliano and Pullen, Laramie ceramics artist Jodie Atherton will also be at the open house with a display of her unique dinosaur mosaics currently for sale. "These one-of-a-kind sculptures are about recycling, history, and the melding of art and science. I create these mosaics on plaster jackets that were used by the Tate to transport fossils safely from the field back to the prep lab," Atherton said. For every work sold, Atherton will donate 20 percent of the proceeds back to the Tate.

Perennial favorite Santasauraus will be on hand and those attending are encouraged to bring their camera for a photo opportunity with not only Santasauraus, but also the museum's newest member, Dee the mammoth.

The gift shop within the museum will feature 10 percent off purchases and free gift-wrapping.

The Tate Geological Museum Holiday Open House is free and open to the public.

FMI: Lisa S. Icenogle, Information Coordinator, Casper College, 307-268-2372

Mammoth good time had by all at book festival

Saturday began with Australian Aboriginal creation stories, and then moved to Hawaiian shark mythology. In the afternoon, Wyoming's 11,000-year-old mammoth was stomping through the Tate Geological Museum and prehistoric armored Hell Pigs were hot on my imaginary trail.

Wish all Saturdays could be as exciting.

But that was bookfest Saturday in Casper. The Casper College/ARTCORE Equality State Book Festival is an extravaganza of books and writers and myths and legends and poetry and fun.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I've been on the bookfest planning committee since its inception six years ago. This makes me slightly biased, yet still wildly enthusiastic.

More than 20 writers in two days. You can find a full list at the bookfest web site. You may recognize names of the Wyoming writers: Poet Laureate and musician David Romtvedt, writer and "grasshopper guy" Jeff Lockwood, Gene "The Teacher Who Dances on Desks" Gagliano, the didjeridoo-playing storyteller Paul Taylor, Nina Swamidoss "Cowboys and East Asians" McConigley, children's author and illustrator Zak Pullen, and Tom "Mr. Carnegie's Dinosaur" Rea.

Other presenters included authors, poets and book illustrators from Idaho, New York, Alaska, Belgium, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and other exotic places.

John Vernon is an historical novelist from New York who justy spent years exploring a topic that's maybe even more mythic than dinosaurs -- Billy the Kid. Vernon's latest is "Lucky Billy." He read some passages Friday evening and then talked about research on Saturday.

While he agrees with the old saw "write what you know," Vernon likes to add this: "know more." That's where research comes in. He usually starts each book with a trip to the setting. In "The Last Canyon," that was the Green River in Wyoming. For "Lucky Billy," he traveled to Lincoln, N.M., which hasn't changed much in the past 120 years. He then explores the "material culture" of the period. He had to learn volumes about firearms of the 1880s. He read a two-page section heavy with gun lore. He had to be careful not to be a "show off" with all this newfound knowledge.

"You should be subtle with your research," he said. "It should be delivered in passing."

Because his books are heavy on dialogue, Vernon researches slang of the era. Old newspapers, letters and diaries and books are great for this.

"You're building a scaffolding of facts," he said. "But in the end, nothing is possible in a novel without imagination."

And no book festival is possible without imagination. Scaffolding, too.

--Michael Shay

"Flakes, Jugs and Splitters" slide show and book signing June 2 at UW

From a UW press release:

"Flakes, Jugs & Splitters: The Geology of Rock Climbing," a free slide show and book signing by geologist, writer and climber Sarah Garlick, is scheduled Wednesday, June 2, at 7 p.m. in Room 133 of the University of Wyoming Classroom Building.

A UW alumna, Garlick brings the stories behind the boulders, cliffs and mountains of the world's top climbing destinations. She tells about granite, limestone and sandstone features gleaned from her adventures in Yosemite, Patagonia and Newfoundland.

"Offering an irresistible combination of plucky adventure stories and well-informed, clearly explained science, Sarah Garlick's presentation of the award winning ‘Flakes, Jugs and Splitter' was the surprise hit of the 2009 Banff Book Festival. Don't pass up an opportunity to hear Sarah speak," according to reviewer Freddie Wilkinson.

Cross Country Connection and the UW Outdoor Program sponsor the presentation. For more information visit: www.rockclimbinggeology.com or call (307) 721-2851.

Photo: Spectacular geology such as this is featured in Sarah Garlick's "Flakes, Jugs and Splitter." She will sign copies of the book and show slides Wednesday, June 2. (Jim Surette Photo)

Discover "East of Yellowstone" with geologist and author Bob Carson

Geologist and professor Robert J. Carson has just written a new guidebook for northwest Wyoming titled East of Yellowstone. Recently published, the book covers geology of the Clarks Fork Valley, the nearby Beartooth Mountains and Absaroka Mountains, and the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming and Montana-all areas outside the eastern border of Yellowstone National Park.

On May 26, 11 a.m., Carson shares his work in a slide show and talk at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center's Coe Auditorium. The presentation is free to the public, and afterward, Carson autographs copies of his book at the Center's Museum Store where his book is for sale.

Covering some 166 miles in the region, Carson's book has five separate road logs to guide area visitors through the Beartooth Mountains and along the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway and adjoining roads to vistas of rugged mountains and scenic valleys. Of particular interest are the enigmatic Heart Mountain detachment, the Absaroka volcanic activity, and area Pleistocene glaciation. The book has seven geologic maps and ten topographic maps with trails outlined as well as an extraordinary collection of photographs.

Carson is the Grace Farnsworth Phillips Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He earned a BA in geology from Cornell University at Ithaca, New York; an MS from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a doctorate from the University of Washington.

His interests lie in the earth and environmental sciences, and he teaches courses that deal with resources and pollution, human interaction with the biosphere, glaciers, volcanoes, water, landforms, and natural hazards. A whitewater guide and a member of the American Alpine Club, he has led field trips in Africa, Eurasia, South America, and throughout North America. His other books include Where the Great River Bends and Hiking Guide to Washington Geology.

The Historical Center's Draper Museum of Natural History Curator Dr. Charles R. Preston calls the Carson book, "A robust and highly engaging portrait of the geological history and features of one of the most fascinating natural theaters in the world. This book will absolutely enhance your understanding and appreciation of the Greater Yellowstone region."

For additional information, contact Jennifer McDonald at jenniferm@bbhc.org or 307-578-4121

For general information, visit http://www.bbhc.org/ or call 307-587-4771.