Welcome to the Dallas Paleo Website
The Dallas Paleontological Society was founded in 1984 for the purpose of promoting interest in and knowledge of the science of paleontology. It was intended by the founding members that the Society would be a network for the exchange of data between professionals and serious amateurs in this field.
New Meeting Place for August 9th Meeting - SMU Fondren Lecture Hall2nd Change of Venue - Please notice new place to meet. Special Meeting at SMU! The DPS will meet next at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, August 9th at Southern Methodist University! Our normal meeting place at Brookhaven was booked, so Dr. Louis Jacobs, Dr. Bonnie Jacobs, and Diana Vineyard have arranged for us to meet at the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Room 153 of Heroy Hall at 3225 Daniel Avenue. See the map below, and there will be signs to guide you inside. We can park for free in the faculty lot just west of Heroy Hall, and classes are not yet in session, so parking and traffic challenges should be at a minimum. This will be an excellent chance to see SMU!
The program will be presented in McCord Auditorium, on the 3rd floor of Dallas Hall, immediately adjacent to Heroy Hall. It is a very short walk across the parking lot to this oldest and grandest SMU building. Our speaker will be Andrew Flynn, Ph.D. candidate at Baylor University and a recipient of a DPS scholarship. He will speak on "Diverse Early Paleocene Fossil Flora from the San Juan Basin, New Mexico". The San Juan Basin preserves Cretaceous through Paleocene strata that are rich in oil, gas, and coal, form spectacular scenery such as Mesa Verde National Park, and contain many fossils, including plants that show the recovery from the Cretaceous / Paleogene extinction.
We will return to Brookhaven next month, but remember to go to Room 153, Heroy Hall, on the campus of SMU. Put the address in your smartphone now, and leave a little bit earlier if you are not familiar with that part of town. Please bring desserts, side dishes, salads, chips, and the like to accompany a main dish and beverages that will be provided by the society. We hope to see you at this special evening at SMU! New Jacksboro Group being FormedSome of us have decided to initiate a group dedicated to learning more about the fossils from the Finis Shale member of the Graham Formation found at the Lost creek Dam site near Jacksboro Texas. We hope to meet at a place and time convenient to everyone. You can participate in person or online through the DPS website. Please send an email response to me at brwill@ntin.net to get your name added to the list if you want to join us. Please forward this to anyone you know who isn't a member and might be interested. We will begin making plans about when and where to meet with the list of names we have gathered as of August 16th and all decide together what our group will try to achieve when we have our first meeting. Bob Williams PIT Crew visits Billings ProductionsOn Saturday July 22, the PIT Crew took a tour of "The Dinosaur Company" by Billings Productions in Allen, TX. We had over 40 adults and kids show up for the event, which was put together by Joseph O'Neil, our PIT Crew director. Here are some of the photos from the trip: From the Perot - In the News
DPS Member Goodie Bags for Midlothian ChildrenDPS member, Gary Turner, has been creating bags of miscellaneous fossils and play sand that are used in several after-school and summer programs for underprivileged kids in Midlothian, TX. His brother, Milton Turner, is active in the Mission Midlothian ministry out of First Baptist Church in Midlothian where he lets the kids go "fossil hunting" using these bags of fossils. Milton also uses them in the Midlothian Summer Feeding Program - see below for two of the participants. He relates that the kids are crazy about the fossils, especially shark teeth, no matter how small they are. And, he teaches them a little Paleontology in the process.Who knows, one of them may one day be a DPS scholarship winner!
Questions For DPS?If You have any questions about the Dallas Paleo Society feel free to: Contact Us Hot Line 817-355-4693 | Oliver Creek Field Trip - August 19 (Rescheduled - Note new date)OLIVER CREEK FIELD TRIP Saturday, August 19, 8:30am A cool, clean, clear stream babbling over limestone and close to home, unheard of, right? Well, just a few dozen miles north of Fort Worth, a bit northwest of Justin is Oliver Creek. A while back we tracked a creek full of tumbled fossils upstream to their source and the gracious landowners have consented, once again, to let us tromp up and down their lovely creek. Not only is it a neat place for a pastoral outing and picnic, but the soft limestone yields ammonites like Oxytropidoceras and echinoids like Epiaster whitei and the rarer, regular Salenia mexicana and a few shark teeth. Seams of soft marl hold echinoids ideal for mining. It’s not so much, “Will I find anything?”, but “How much of this stuff do I want to collect and take home”. So, you WILL find ammonites and you WILL find echinoids as well as the rest of the typical marine fauna like crab parts, gastropods (snails) and pelecypods (bi-valves). We’ll be collecting on very private land in the Goodland Formation (Lower Cretaceous, middle Albian) just west of Drop, Texas (don’t look for skyscrapers here). This is a fairly large, open creek bed so many people can collect. Perfect for kids – they will find neat stuff - and pets. Just mind your invitees. We are out in nature, so expect the normal fare of bugs and other creepy crawlers. Hopefully we’ll have water in the creek this year so kids can splash or do tadpoles and crawdads. Meet us at 8:30 AM in Justin, Texas on Hwy. 156 where it shares the road with Hwy. 407 at the Justin Boot Outlet parking lot right. Or a simpler way to say it is to go to Justin and meet at the ‘horse’. This is all north and a bit west of the Texas Motor Speedway on I35W, north of Hwy.114. Bring your hard-rock tools (hammer, chisels), a bucket if you have one (plenty will be provided), wading shoes, little clothing, sun protection and plenty of liquids. Much of the creek is overhung by large trees, so shade is available although I am working on some way to rent it out – for the Society benefit, of course. We’ll lunch by the creek, so pack your brown bag. The Society will furnish some drinks and desert – by the way, how are your seed-spitting skills? As always, check the Paleo Hotline (817-355-4693 metro) for any last minute changes, but rain (hopefully) or shine, we will do this one. Contact me if you have specific questions: email – rffarish@verizon.net or phone - use 972-898-2700 if you get lost on that Saturday. Please don’t be late – IT’S SUMMER. A Baby Dinosaur found its Species
Cedar Hill Museum of History Plesiosaur exhibitThe Cedar Hill Museum of History will feature fossils on loan from Southern Methodist University and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science as part of a three-month exhibit. A reception will be held at 7pm Friday, June 30th at the museum. The Charles E. Finsley Memorial Fossil Exhibit, named in honor of the Dallas paleontologist who died in 2014, will include teeth and other items from a 60-foot-long plesiosaur that was unearthed near Penn Farm in 1933. Friday's reception also will feature appearances from exhibit curator Alan Peters and Finsley's widow, Rosa. The exhibit's normal hours will run from 11am to 3pm. Wednesday through Saturday at the museum, 607 Cedar St. For more information, click here Buy DPS Books OnlineYou can now buy books from the DPS online by clicking the "Store" button on the navigation bar at the top of this page. If you buy online, and we ship the books to your home, you will have a shipping charge and tax. If you buy the book at a meeting, you will not have to pay the shipping fee or tax. Check out this new service. The PIT Crew
For more information, Click the link here or click the link under the home page called "For Kids - The Pit Crew" , to see policies, upcoming events, announcements, and how to sign up to take advantage of this new program. About Us and Our Monthly MeetingsThe Dallas Paleontological Society normally meets the second Wednesday of every month at 7:30 PM at Brookhaven College, unless we have something special happening that month. Please check our Calendar for exact dates. Come meet with us, hear a speaker, learn about paleontology, and bring your unidentified fossils and unique finds to share with the group. You will be welcome, and we will enjoy meeting you. Beware of big words! For a map of our meeting location Click Here. Join us nowCome and join us for a great time at our next meeting, and click below to become a member. Individual and Family memberships are available, and kids can participate in the PIT Crew (Paleontogists In Training). |
over Baby Louie has found his species. Watch the video here:
The Paleontologists In Training is a program of the DPS that is open to kids from age 7 to 15. If you are interested in fossils, want to have fun on field trips, and like learning about our beautiful world, come join us at one of our meetings, or field trips. You will find it educational, and fun at the same time!Who we areThe DPS is a group of professional and amateur paleontologists that want to exchange information, interact, and continue their education in paleontology. We meet once a month on the second Wednesday evening of the month at Brookhaven College, Building H.
| What we do
Contact Us at 817-355-4693.
| Why join usWe have fun. We learn stuff. We go cool places. We find interesting things. We make new friends.
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If you have a question, if you have a fossil that you cannot identify, or need a site investigation, contact the Fossil Bureau of Investigation for help.