Agate Fossil Beds

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In the grassy high plains of northwest Nebraska, the landscape is punctuated by flat-topped buttes and a few isolated landforms reminiscent of the Badlands. A layer of sandstone builds the foundation of the area, sitting over a remarkable bone bed. The grasslands provided good grazing, and James Cook acquired his ranch here, where the wetlands meet the prairie. Unbeknownst to him when he purchased the land, and his cattle grazed on the nodding heads of grain. Beneath their feet lay a remarkable history of animals that came before them the mammals of the Miocene epoch. Dinosaur fossils tickle everyone's imagination. But other more recent, albeit still ancient, paleontology discoveries give rise to a continuum of long-extinct animals indigenous to a region.

As much as we tend to think of museums as focusing on dinosaurs, with examples such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton named Sue, which is housed at the Field Museum of Chicago. Museums also have extensive displays on the history of the rise of mammals. Agate Fossil Beds tells the story of a treasure trove of mammal fossils in America's midwest. I'm Jason Epperson and this is the America's National Parks podcast.

In the mid-1800s, James Cook was riding across the cattle range of his future father-in-law's ranch and made a startling discovery. He and his sweetheart had dismounted from their horses to climb a hill nestled among the buttes. The face of the hill was scattered with bone fragments. James assumed that he had found the scattered skeleton of perhaps a Native American, but not all the bones looked human. He believed that it was customary amongst certain tribes to kill several ponies near the body, Thus he deduced the rest of the bones belonged to the sacrificial ponies.

But something was not quite right with this picture. One of the bones glimmered in an unusual way. And as he studied it, he found that the marrow cavity was now filled with small, gleaming calcite crystals. For some time, James had been interested in paleontology, although he was not himself a paleontologist, but cradling the calcite-filled bone. He knew that he had discovered a fossil, an ancient relic. However, convincing the experts that he'd found something important and worthy of their time was quite another matter.

A comedy of errors ensued. It took ten years for the first investigation of the find. Dr. E..H. Barber, a paleontologist from the University of Nebraska, sent one of his student assistants to take a look.

But the student didn't understand the findings and left without determining that any of value had been discovered. Another ten years passed before James, incidentally, met with two paleontologists, one from Princeton University and the other from Carnegie Museum. O..A. Peterson, from the Carnegie Museum, visited the site. Later that year. He discovered the site was richly filled with mammal fossils and that some represented species that had never been discovered before.

An enormous bone bed, far more extensive than previously believed, was buried under the overburden of rock. The science of paleontology was still very much in its infancy at this time. A find such as the Agate fossil beds not only provided insights into the life of the miocene grasslands, but also provided a laboratory of sorts. To continue to develop the scientific methods that advanced the field of study for the next twenty years, the site was excavated with excruciating care, unfurling discovery after discovery.

Agate fossil beds was a depository of extinct mammals from the Miocene era, approximately twenty million years ago. The Miocene marked the first appearance of grasslands, which developed when the continental exteriors dried as a result of a period of changing global temperatures. Volcanic ash strewn far and wide by the winds across the plains created a fertile soil known as ash-mantled plains that supported the growing of grasses, bushes and small trees. The Miocene era brought a vast increase in the number of mammal species, grass and leaf feeders who could graze at will on the newly established grasslands.

So what? Animals were discovered? a menagerie of mammals, mostly extinct, given an alphabet soup of names Monoceros, deinohyus, Maropus, Stenomelus, paleocaster, beardog. Imagine herds of pony-sized rhinoceros where two horns sat side by side at the end of its nose. Giant scavenger pigs, a cross between a modern horse and a rhinoceros with claw-like hooves and hind legs shorter than its front legs. Tiny gazelles, a prehistoric beaver, all grazing these plains, along with the occasional carnivore. But it's more than just finding and cataloging the specimens. The fossils were not the only artifacts per se, and the other findings provided clues to the animal behavior on the prairie.

In addition to the fossilized bones, remnants of ancient grasses and impressions from animal hoof prints are preserved at Agate fossil beds. Leading to insights about what the animals ate, which animals interacted with each other, and under what circumstances. Unlike the many skeletons discovered nearly intact the bones of the monoceros, the pony-sized rhinoceros were torn apart and scattered. Why? Because the giant, pig-like deinocheus scavenged the bones of the monoceros. An underground burrow, not discovered until the 1980s, contained the fossilized remains of great bear dogs, representing the first known instance of denning behavior in carnivorous animals.

Paleocaster, the prehistoric beaver, left behind corkscrew-shaped spiral burrows, and amidst all these extinct prehistoric mammal fossils, an unusual set of fossilized skeletons was found. Parahippus, the ancestor of the modern horse horses, had become extinct in North America before they were reintroduced just hundreds of years ago by the Spanish explorers. But the extinction was millions of years after the die-off of the other animals found here.

So what led to such an enormous mammal graveyard, so many animals all in the same place, a mass burial site, of some extent, on a global scale? A significant era of extinction marked the end of the miocene due to a period of cooling that resulted in increased volumes of ice sheets globally. But this microcosm at the former site of the Agate Springs Ranch was more specific.

The site of the Agate fossil beds contained a watering hole that would have been a major source of drinking water for the animals in the area. The warming climate, paleontologists believe, may have brought about a drought, forcing large and numerous herds of mammals to gather near the shrinking water sources. As the water continued to diminish, the animals clustered closer into smaller and smaller swaths of land. And they would have died of dehydration in these new close quarters all around the same time. Due to the scarcity of water, the lack of water prevented the animals from traveling far enough to find fresh food once an area had been depleted. Hence, they remained at the dwindling water holes. Over time, their remains became ensconced in what would become a dense bone bed, all dying of thirst together in a warming world.

As time went by, silt, sand and volcanic ash buried the skeletons, and this became the bone bed. The drought left behind an enormous collection of fossils, all in one place here on the Buttes and surrounding Prairie. Aside from the curiosity of discovery, why should we care about the fossils, aside from the cool factor, of course, the study of fossils provides an understanding of evolution itself and how plants and animals adapted to their changing environments. We are still part of this evolution. The knowledge gained by the study of prior extinctions can help us, we hope, prevent future ones, and help us adapt to our ever-changing planet.

Fossils create a record of time and place, informing us about not just the species of fossils themselves, but the environment, the interrelation between species migration and adaptation. After all, species that can adapt in any variety of ways to their changing environment survive.

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Agate Fossil Beds National Monument consists of over 3,000 acres in northwest Nebraska, designed to preserve the vast collection of fossil deposits and surrounding geology, which provides context for the discoveries. The landscape contains a river segment surrounding wetlands and rocky buttes and gently sloping hills. The park is open year-round, but be prepared for the weather of the season you visit. Seasons can be extreme.

At Agate fossil beds. Summer can be very hot, with temperatures sometimes soaring above 100 degrees, accompanied by severe thunderstorms with large hail and even tornadoes. Winter temperatures can drop below minus 10. Blizzards are not uncommon and can strand visitors to the park, whether in their vehicles or on foot. The park can be enjoyed on many levels.

For those who love science, it's a hotbed of paleontology. for those who love being out in nature, it provides views of plants and wildlife. The visitor center has displays of reconstructed skeletons and a sample of the bone bed, as well as two rooms dedicated to Lakota Native American exhibits. From James Cook's relationship with Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux. The park has two hiking trails A fully paved trail about three miles long leads to the historic dig sites.

The other trail, about a mile, leads to fossils of the Paleocastor's corkscrew burrows. The buttes of the park provide eye-catching landmarks that create a chiseled landscape. Wildflowers abound, blooming from early spring through late fall, with whimsical names such as Prairie Snowball, Miner's Candle, Crescent, beardtongue, scorpionweed, Prairie spiderwort and Downy Paintbrush. Oh, and Missouri pincushion. Beyond the wildflowers, the ecosystem supports a variety of plant communities, which in turn, provide a ripe habitat for wildlife. Ranging from frogs and toads and salamanders to deer and pronghorn, antelope and rabbits, coyotes and foxes, bats, weasels, minks and badgers, and even the ever-elusive bobcats and mountain lions. Agate Fossil Beds is a bird-lover's paradise with over 70 bird species, including marsh wrens, killdeer, kingfishers, herons, swallows, sandhill cranes, pheasants, hawks, owls, eagles and falcons. But birds are not the only flying critters in the park, so be alert to biting insects, mosquitoes, deerflies, ticks and even the occasional black widow spider.

A trip to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument can be paired with Scott's Bluff National Monument and Fort Laramie National Historic Site. Or for more of a scavenger hunt experience, it can be part of a segmented trip over time to other National Park service units. That focus on fossils from the Cenozoic era, which stretches from 66 million years ago to the present. These fossil parks include Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado, Fossil Butte National Monument in Wyoming, Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument in Idaho and John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon. Additionally, Badlands National Park in South Dakota has a significant fossil history, and visitors continue finding fossils to this day as they explore.

This episode of America's National Parks was written by Lauren Eisenberg Davis. Peter Shen is the author of our theme music and our audio editor, and I'm your host, Jason Epperson. If you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a rating and a review. If you're new here, make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get new episodes delivered to your feed. If you're looking for photos and tips about visiting national parks, check out our America's National Parks Facebook Group. And if you're interested in RV travel, we hope you'll also check out our RV Miles podcast and YouTube channel.

Today's show was sponsored by L.

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