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November 2025 – Member Show ‘n Tell & Annual Business Meeting, Short talks about field trips & activities
November 3, 2025 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm MST
Free
Steve Miller -Two Decades with the Cretaceous Rocks and Fossils of the Comanche National Grassland
WIPS has been offering trips to the Comanche National Grassland for 20 years. This area of Colorado presents modern landforms of prairie and canyon overlying rocks formed on the floor of the Western Interior Seaway. Over the years, WIPS members collected dozens of marine specimens. Some vertebrate specimens have been donated to various museums.
This video was created for an audience with a fundamental understanding of the Western Interior Seaway. Hopefully, everyone will see how WIPS has contributed to supporting the science of paleontology through the kinds of information that were reported to the US Forest Service. WIPS members have collected some amazing fossils over the past twenty years.
Dennis Gertenbach – Douglas Pass Insects: What They Tell Us About Ancient Colorado
This presentation will show fossil insects I have found at Douglas Pass from the Eocene Green River Formation, dating to about 50 million years ago. Douglas Pass is well known for the large variety of fossil leaves found there. These leaf fossils, combined with studies of the Green River Formation geology, give a good picture of what the area looked like during the Eocene. However, the fossil insects also found at Douglas Pass bring the Eocene ecosystem to life. By comparing these insect fossils to modern insect relatives, a picture of life in ancient Colorado comes to life.