Sept. 2026 – Gale Bishop, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology | Two Thousand Sunrises; Ten Thousand Surprises! North Dakota’s Newest Sea Turtle Conservation Program?
Dr. Gale A. Bishop, Emeritus Professor of Geology at Georgia Southern University (retired 1999; 2006; & 2017) is a geologist, paleontologist, economic mineralogist, sea turtle conservationist, and a science teacher. His main interests are geology of the Western Interior Seaway (South and North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Georgia, Mexico) and Croatia, modern and fossil decapod crustaceans, modern and fossil sea turtles and modern and ancient sea turtle nests, heavy mineral black sand deposits of the Western Interior Seaway, and giant, swimming, Cretaceous Sea Reptiles.
He has studied modern and fossilized sea turtle nests –– from Cretaceous sea turtle nests in the Western Interior of the USA and the Proto-Adriatic Tethys of Croatia to loggerhead nests on St. Catherine’s Island today.
Program Abstract
Dr. Gale A. Bishop, perhaps better known for his research of Cretaceous fossilized Decapod Crustacea, turned his attention to Heavy Mineral Sand distribution on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, in1989-90, as he studied the distribution of burrowing Ghost Shrimp on the coast of Georgia. This led him to study fossilized Ghost Shrimp burrows (Ophiomorpha), which in turn led to a call to assist E. I. DuPont in evaluating a Heavy Mineral Sand deposit near Limon, on the western shoreline of the Western Interior Seaway in the Fox Hills Sandstone in 1997-98. In this consult, Bishop immediately recognized the World’s first known fossilized sea turtle nest. This enigmatic structure was intensively studied and Bishop’s knowledge of Heavy Mineral Placers on barrier islands, his knowledge of modern Ghost Shrimp burrows on the lower beach was instrumental in recognizing radioactive shoe-string sands in the modern environment as analogs to the Limon Heavy Mineral Deposit. The prospect fell short of quantity and tenor of mining for Titanium, and leases were abandoned. The deposits were then assessed by Radar Minerals as a mouth-mine prospect, and found to be subeconomic.
Study of the sea turtle nesting structures tested against the Nesting Ethogram of Loggerhead Sea Turtles being conserved on St. Catherines Island. The fit was remarkable, suggesting the Loggerhead Nesting Ethogram was an appropriate analog to ancient sea turtle nests. This was tested twice more in the Western Interior Seaway in Wyoming. In 2016, Bishop left the St. Catherines Island Sea Turtle Program and entered a collaboration with Berislav Kržič of Zagreb, Croatia in studying trace fossils of the Pula, Croatia Adriatic Sea coastline, where dinosaur bioturbations and sea turtle impressions and nesting structure were found to coexist. This ongoing collaboration has resulted in 15 descriptive papers and the description of the World’s first described Sea Turtle Rookery in the 105 Ma old rocks of the Croatian Coast. These nesting structures again were found to be close analogs of the Loggerhead nests described on St. Catherines Island. One of the Pula nests was found to be that of a giant sea turtle, Protostega sp., that had been depredated, after deposition, perhaps by dinosaurs!