Featured in this year s Nebraska Passport program, Ashfall Fossil Beds in northeast Nebraska tells the state s history from 12 million years ago. It s a rare find that draws many fossil
Featured in this year s Nebraska Passport program, Ashfall Fossil Beds in northeast Nebraska tells the state s history from 12 million years ago. It s a rare find that draws many fossil
Featured in this year s Nebraska Passport program, Ashfall Fossil Beds in northeast Nebraska tells the state s history from 12 million years ago. It s a rare find that draws many fossil
May 13, 2021 at 6:30 am
In north-central Nebraska lies a small park with a big name: Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park and National Natural Landmark. Hidden in the rolling hills, hours from the nearest big city, Ashfall is one of the world’s premier paleontology sites. Park superintendent Rick Otto heads down a gently sloping path past two bronze sculptures. One shows two squatty rhinos locked in combat. A startled tortoise looks on from the other.
Signs mark geologic time as the path descends through layers of rock and into the ancient past. Otto pauses at one spot where the soil has been cleared out. It’s now a flat, gray area crisscrossed with shallow trenches. “When I first worked here, this was just a narrow gully,” he recalls. “A few days later is when the bulldozer was brought in for the first time.”