Oceans of Kansas: When the Amber Waves Were Blue with Mike Everhart

Join us for our monthly "Coffee With the Curator" event at the Museum of World Treasures!

Event Details:

• Date: February 15, 2024
• Time: 9:00 AM
• Location: Museum of World Treasures [get directions]

Cost:

• Museum Members: Free
• Non-Members: $4 per person plus tax

Attending Information:

• Open to all ages
• No need to register; simply walk in!
• Light refreshments and coffee provided.

talk summary

Oceans of Kansas: When the Amber Waves Were Blue

The talk is about the paleontology of Kansas during the Late Cretaceous (Age of Dinosaurs) when Kansas and the whole Midwest was covered by a vast ocean inhabited by many strange and extinct creatures.

About the Speaker - Mike Everhart

Visit Mike Everhart's Website oceansofkansas.com

Michael J. Everhart is a 1969 and 1973 graduate of Wichita State University, a U.S. Army veteran, and has served as an Adjunct Curator of Paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas since 1998.

Mike is an expert on Late Cretaceous marine fossils of central and western Kansas, and on the history of paleontology in Kansas. He was one of the senior science advisers on the 2007 National Geographic IMAX film, Sea Monsters. His discoveries have been featured in five made-for-television documentaries on the History and Discovery channels.

Mike is the author of “Oceans of Kansas – A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea” (Indiana University Press, 2005) and “Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep” (National Geographic, 2007). Both titles were honored as Kansas Notable books. The second edition of Oceans of Kansas was published in September 2017 (Indiana University Press). Most recently (2023) he co-authored Roadside Geology of Kansas with James and Susan Aber.

In addition, Mike has also authored more than 50 papers describing the fossils of the Smoky Hill Chalk, including the naming of a new species of an extinct marine reptile (mosasaur) from Kansas: Tylosaurus kansasensis. He is included as co-author in the description and naming of four other new species of Kansas fossils.

He is the creator and webmaster of the educational website Oceans of Kansas Paleontology, which has been on the Internet since December 1996.  Mike was President of the Kansas Academy of Science in 2005 and 2015. He served as a co-editor of the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science from 2006 to 2011, and shared the Managing Editor positions for the same journal with his wife, Pamela, until they retired in mid-2021.