Dr. James Kirkland will be our special guest speaker for September. Dr. Kirkland is the state paleontologist of Utah and has been responsible for naming several new genera of fossil mollusks, fish, and dinosaurs. One of Dr. Kirkland’s most important contributions to paleontology is his current research in the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation. These rocks have several successive dinosaur faunas consisting of long-necked sauropods, armored ankylosaurs, bipedal, thumb-spike iquanodonts, and a variety of small and large meat-eating dinosaurs of which Utahraptor is the most famous.

Dr. Bob will be presenting on Arizona trace fossils.

The guest speaker for the SPS meeting for June is Ben Goode who will be discussing ongoing research on the chondrichthyan fossils present in the Cliff House Sandstone located in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico. The activity for the June meeting will be helping extract shark, bony fish, and marine reptile fossils from talus boulders collected from the Cliff House Sandstone.