Fossils

Barbara and Chuck on PBS/NOVA

PBS presented the three-part NOVA series Making North America (off-site link) in 2015. Part 2 explains the Western Interior Seaway. Chuck Bonner and Barbara Shelton, along with Kirk Johnson, Smithsonian museum director and narrator of the series, went on a field expedition into the chalk beds of western Kansas. All of us had a great time filming this part of the episode even if the temperature was 100 degrees in August of 2014! You can click on any photograph to see a larger version.

The excavation site of the Xiphactinus audax fossil fish featured in the film. Chuck is shoveling out the quarry site. To the right side of Chuck, this photograph shows 5 feet of pick marks to where the specimen was located.

Barbara cleaning up the quarry site and taking out scattered elements before the NOVA filming. We wanted a dramatic picture of the jaw “in situ” and also enlarged the area for “the talent” to sit.

Chuck and Barbara “outstanding in the fossil fields,” showing off a Platecarpus Mosasaur lower jaw. Photograph Courtesy Kirk Johnson.

Goofing around with a mosasaur jaw we took to the film locality. Chuck Bonner, Kirk Johnson and Barbara Shelton with part of the film crew in the background.

NOVA film crew with Kirk checking out his recently discovered fossil vertebrae.