Press Release
4th Saturday Summer Speaker Series continues at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument this Saturday, August 24th at 1pm. Join us for a presentation on "Ecometrics: Using Traits Within Fossil Communities to Infer Paleoenvironment".
Charles Bruce will discuss his research methods for using the relationship between community functional traits and environmental conditions to understand paleoenvironment, which is called ecometrics. He’ll explain how ecometrics work and how these methods could be applied to Agate fossils to inform our understanding of the environment at Agate.
Charles Bruce is a PhD student at South Dakota State University studying mammal eco morphology and paleoecology, and is particularly interested in studying carnivorans, such as badgers, weasels, and wolverines. He is from Texas, where he went to Texas A&M for his B.A. in geology and then attended East Tennessee State University for his M.S. in geosciences, with a paleontology concentration. Now, he is based out of Rapid City in the Black Hills, where he has previously worked as a paleontology intern at the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs and Badlands National Park during a gap year.
This is the fourth of four paleontology presentations at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument this summer. No registration is needed.
For more information on this presentation, please contact the park at (308) 665-4113 or [email protected].
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is located 34 miles north of Mitchell, NE or 22 miles south of Harrison, NE on Highway 29 and 3 miles east on River Rd. The Visitor Center summer hours are 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and the trails are open from dawn until dusk. Visit us at www.nps.gov/agfo and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.