First Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip a Success

The First Annual Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip was a success! By just about any measure. There were lots of tornadoes and thunderstorms but they all missed us. The participants enjoyed it and learned a lot. And we saw some really interesting things that are unknown even to most educated people, including myself until just the last couple of years before leading this trip. The trip was based at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station. The University of Oklahoma Foundation handled the finances, but the trip paid for itself (just barely). The main sponsor was Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education. OAS sponsored in name only and so you all deserve to hear how it went.

A detailed account as well as several photos of the trip can be found in the June 6-10 entries on my evolution blog.

We found a lot of fossils from the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. Geologic forces in what is now the Arbuckle Mountains pushed up Paleozoic deposits, which then eroded, with the result that the oldest layers are at the top of the Arbuckles and younger ones on the slopes. We saw everything from Cambrian stromatolites to Ordovician crinoids. During the Pennsylvanian period, a big chunk of crust collapsed and was filled in with rubble, resulting in an abrupt change from Ordovician limestone to Pennsylvanian conglomerate. And then lots of Cretaceous marine sediments were laid down. The Kiamichi limestone, for example, had more fossils than matrix, and most of the fossils were just one species, a bivalve named Texigryphaea navia. In other Cretaceous limestones we saw sand dollars, ammonoids, etc. Oklahoma is renowned for creationism, yet the fossils that confirm evolution are literally washing out of the hills. We also visited Goddard Youth Camp, where the museum contains a cast of the most complete Acrocanthosaurus skeleton ever found (it was found in eastern Oklahoma).

Dr. Gordon Eggleton, retired physical sciences professor from Southeastern, led the geology part of the trip. I showed the participants different species of trees that had different life cycle adaptations. So between the two of us, Gordon and I covered both the living and the dead world.

We also drove down into Texas to see dinosaur footprints in the bed of the Paluxy River and visit a creationist museum that is infamous even among creationists.

Notice that, according to the creationist museum, the acrocanthosaur with razor sharp teeth (and which is attacking Mary Kay Johnston, a professor from Austin, TX) was herbivorous.

One could not hope for a better group of participants: high school teachers, both new and retired; college professors, both current and retired; and other interested people. There were ten participants and two instructors, a total of 12 crammed into what we were told was supposed to be a 15 person van.

You can bet that I will be trying to organize more such trips in the future.

I hope you all have as interesting a summer as I am having. And please do not hesitate to post things on this blog that you think we would be interested in hearing.

Stanley Rice
President-elect