Oceans Of Kansas
Paleontology 

OCEANS OF KANSAS PALEONTOLOGY

Fossils from the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea

The entire Oceans of Kansas web site is Copyright © 1996-2017 by
​
Mike Everhart (mike at oceansofkansas.com)

TWENTY YEARS ON THE INTERNET! (On the Web since December, 1996)
 
 Last updated 01/17/2017
LEFT: FHSM VP-13910,  Selmasaurus johnsoni, Polcyn and Everhart (2008), a new species of mosasaur from the Smoky Hill Chalk of western Kansas​

Welcome to the  Oceans of Kansas Paleontology  web page.   My name is Mike Everhart and I am your host on a virtual journey more than 85 million years "back in time" to observe some of the many strange and wonderful creatures that lived in the oceans of the Earth during the final stages of the Age of Dinosaurs.  I have collected fossils from the Smoky Hill Chalk of western Kansas for the last thirty-plus years and have been an Adjunct Curator of Paleontology at the  Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas  since 1998. I was twice President (2005 and 2015) of the  Kansas Academy of Science , and served as a co-editor of the  Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science  from 2006 through the present (2016). Currently my wife and I are managing editors of the Transactions. The TKAS is one of the oldest science journals in the United States (est. 1872).

I have conducted a Paleontology Symposium at the past seventeen annual meetings (2000-2016) of the Kansas Academy of Science ( Abstracts of the 12th Paleo-symposium (2011) here ), and the  Second Mosasaur Meeting  in May, 2007  (below).

THE PALEO-LIFE ART 

OF

04/19/1949 - 01/01/2012
RIP

LEFT:  Tylosaurus was big enough to eat lots of other prey besides fish. One specimen in South Dakota preserves stomach contents that include the bones of another, smaller mosasaur, a marine bird (Hesperornis) and a fish.   Copyright © Dan Varner; used with permission of Dan Varner. 

Bonnerichthys gladius is a new genus of giant filter feeding fish described from the Smoky Hill Chalk by Friedman, et al. 2010 in Science (2010) and more recently in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology:

Friedman, M., Shimada, K., Martin, L., Everhart, M.J., Liston, J., Maltese, A. and Triebold, M. 2010. 100-million-year dynasty of giant planktivorous bony fishes in the Mesozoic seas. Science 327:990-993.
Story on the discovery by the Bonner Family in the Wichita Eagle

Chosen as one of the 100 top stories of 2010 by Discover Magazine

Friedman, M., Shimada, K., Everhart, M.J., Irwin, K.J., Grandstaff, B.S. and Stewart, J.D.  2013. Geographic and stratigraphic distribution of the Late Cretaceous suspension-feeding bony fish Bonnerichthys gladius (Teleostei, Pachycormiformes). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33:35-47.

“What Should Everyone Know About Paleontology?” - Guest commentary by Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.

DINOSAURS IN KANSAS?
​

Although, with one known exception, dinosaurs did not live in Kansas, some of them died and floated into the Western Interior Sea over Kansas. 

LEFT: An articulated series of nine caudal vertebrae (FHSM VP-15824) in left (upper) and right lateral view from a  shark scavenged hadrosaur  discovered in the Smoky Hill Chalk of western Kansas by Keith Ewell, June, 2005.

RIGHT: An isolated caudal vertebra from a large  Niobrarasaurus coleii  (FHSM VP-17229) collected by Laura Garrett in 2007 from southwestern Trego County, KS.
My interests are primarily in marine reptiles, and  especially mosasaurs  and  plesiosaurs . More recently, I have become interested in  Kansas sharks  from the Permian through the Late Cretaceous, and  Pteranodons . In that regard,  I created Oceans of Kansas Paleontology in 1996 as an educational site to provide factual information about the animals that lived in and over the ancient ocean that once covered Kansas and much of the central portion of North America.  It has been growing ever since....and has resulted in the publication of dozens of scientific papers, two books and an opportunity to work as a science adviser on the National Geographic IMAX film,  Sea Monsters 

LEFT: Please consider joining the Marine Reptile Forum and get involved in the discussions!  

2nd Mosasaur Meeting

3rd Mosasaur Meeting

The Second Mosasaur Meeting was held at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas, in May, 2007.

The Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting (2008)

edited by Michael J. Everhart, Sternberg Museum of Natural History, have now been published.

The contents of the volume, including the naming of two new species, are shown online here:

The 172 page volume is available for purchase at the Sternberg Museum store for $19.95 plus tax.  (Shipping per Priority Mail)

Credit card purchases can made through Brad Penka:  Phone: 785-628-5569  or   Email: Bpenka (at) fhsu.edu  

Write Brad Penka for more information,  Sternberg Museum of Natural History, 3000 Sternberg Drive, Hays, Kansas 67601-2006.

ABSTRACT BOOKLET HERE  (500 KB) -  The First Mosasaur Meeting, Maastricht, The Netherlands, May, 2004

RECENT PUBLICATIONS ( See complete list on Google Scholar ):

NEW Everhart, M.J. 2016. William E. Webb – Civil War correspondent, railroad land baron, town founder, Kansas legislator, adventurer, fossil collector, author. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 119(2):179-192.

NEW Everhart, M.J. 2016. Rare occurrence of a mosasaur (Squamata: Mosasauridae) remains in the Blue Hill Shale (Middle Turonian) of Mitchell County, Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 119(3-4):375-380.

NEW Everhart, M.J. 2015. Elias Putnam West (1820-1892) - Lawyer, Attorney General, militia commander, judge, postmaster, archaeologist, and paleontologist. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 118(3-4):285-294.

NEW Hoganson, J.W., Erickson, J.M. and Everhart, M.J. 2015. Ischyodus rayhaasi (Chimaeroidei; Callorhynchidae) from the Campanian-Maastrichtian Fox Hills of northeastern Colorado, U.S.A. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 118(1-2):27-40.

NEW Ikejiri, T. and Everhart, M.J. 2015. Notes on the authorship and the holotype of the Late Cretaceous durophagous shark Ptychodus mortoni (Chondrichthyes, Ptychodontidae). pp. 69-73 in  Sullivan, R.M. and Lucas, S.G.(eds.), Fossil Record 4. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 67.

NEW Everhart, M.J. and Pearson, G. 2014. An isolated squamate dorsal vertebra from the Late Cretaceous Greenhorn Formation of Mitchell County, Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 117(3-4):261-269. 

NEW O’Gorman, J.P., Olivero, E.B., Santillana, S. and Everhart, M.J. 2014. Gastroliths associated with an Aristonectes specimen (Plesiosauria, Elasmosauridae), López de Bertodano Formation (upper Maastrichtian) Seymour Island (Is. Marambio), Antarctic Peninsula. Cretaceous Research 50:228-237.
 
NEW Davidson, J.P and Everhart, M.J. 2014. Fictionalized facts; "The Young Fossil Hunters" by Charles H. Sternberg. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 117(1-2):41-54.
 
NEW Goldfuss, A. 2013. The skull structure of the Mosasaurus, explained by means of a description of a new species of this genus. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 116(1-2):27-46. (Everhart, M.J., Editor) 
 
NEW  Cook, T.D, Wilson, M.V.H., Murray, A.M., Plint, A.G., Newbrey, M.G. and Everhart, M.J. 2013. A high latitude euselachian assemblage from the early Turonian of Alberta, Canada. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 11(5):555-587.

NEW Everhart, M.J. 2013. A new specimen of the marine turtle, Protostega gigasCope (Cryptodira; Protostegidae), from the Late Cretaceous Smoky Hill Chalk of Western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 116(1-2):73.

NEW Sachs, S., Kear, B.P., and Everhart, M.J.  2013. Revised vertebral count in the “longest-necked vertebrate” Elasmosaurus platyurus Cope 1868, and clarification of the cervical-dorsal transition in Plesiosauria. PLoS ONE 8(8): 6 pp.   LINK
 
NEW Schumacher, B.A., Carpenter, K. and Everhart, M.J. 2013. A new Cretaceous Pliosaurid (Reptilia, Plesiosauria) from the Carlile Shale (middle Turonian) of Russell County, Kansas, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33(3):613-628

NEW Everhart, M.J. 2013. The Palate Bones of a Fish?” The First Specimen of Ptychodus mortoni (Chondrichthyes; Elasmobranchii) from Alabama. Bulletin of the Alabama Museum of Natural History 31(1):98-104.
 
NEW  Friedman, M., Shimada, K., Everhart, M.J., Irwin, K.J., Grandstaff, B.S. and Stewart, J.D.  2013. Geographic and stratigraphic distribution of the Late Cretaceous suspension-feeding bony fish Bonnerichthys gladius (Teleostei, Pachycormiformes). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33:35-47.
 
Schumacher, B.A., Carpenter, K., and Everhart, M.J. 2012. A new pliosaur (Plesiosauria, Pliosauridae) from the Carlile Shale (Cretaceous, Middle Turonian) of Russell County, Kansas. Supplement to the online Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology ISSN 1937-2809, pp. 168-169.  

Vullo, R., Buffetaut, E. and Everhart, M.J. 2012. Reappraisal of Gwawinapterus beardi from the Late Cretaceous of Canada: A saurodontid fish, not a pterosaur. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32(5):1198-1201.
Lindgren, J., Everhart, M.J. and Caldwell, M.W. 2011. Three-dimensionally preserved integument reveals hydrodynamic adaptations in the extinct marine lizard Ectenosaurus (Reptilia, Mosasauridae). PLoS One. 

Bell , A. and Everhart, M.J. 2011. Remains of small ornithurine birds from a Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) microsite in Russell County, north-central Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 114(1-2):115-123. 

Bourdon, J. and Everhart, M.J. 2011. Analysis of an associated Cretoxyrhina mantelli dentition from the Late Cretaceous (Smoky Hill Chalk, Late Coniacian) of western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 114(1-2):15-32.  

Everhart, M.J. 2011. Occurrence of the hybodont shark genus Meristodonoides (Chondrichthyes; Hybodontiformes) in the Cretaceous of Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 114(1-2):33-46.  

Everhart, M.J. 2011. Rediscovery of the Hesperornis regalis Marsh 1871 holotype locality indicates an earlier stratigraphic occurrence. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 114(1-2):59-68.  

Everhart, M.J., Hageman, S.A. and Hoffman, B.L. 2010. Another Sternberg “fish-within-a-fish” discovery: First report of Ichthyodectes ctenodon (Teleostei; Ichthyodectiformes) with stomach contents. Kansas Academyof Science, Transactions 113(3-4):197-2 05. 

Bourdon, J. and Everhart, M.J. 2010.  Occurrence of the extinct Carpet shark, Orectoloboides, in the Dakota Formation (Late Cretaceous; Middle Cenomanian) of Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 113(3-4):237-242.  

Everhart, M.J. and Maltese, A. 2010. First report of a heteromorph ammonite, cf. Glyptoxoceras, from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Santonian) of western Kansas, and a brief review of Niobrara cephalopods. Kansas Academyof Science, Transactions 113:(1-2):64-70.
 
Everhart, M. J. 2010. Bonnerichthys gladius – The largest bony fish and first known planktivore from the Late Cretaceous. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 113(1-2):123-124 (abstract).

Friedman, M., Shimada, K., Martin, L., Everhart, M.J., Liston, J., Maltese, A. and Triebold, M. 2010.  100-million-year dynasty of giant planktivorous bony fishes in the Mesozoic seas. Science 327:990-993.

Shimada, K., Everhart, M.J., Decker, R. and Decker, P.D. 2009. A new skeletal remain of the durophagous shark, Ptychodus mortoni, from the Upper Cretaceous of North America: an indication of gigantic body size. Cretaceous Research 31(2):249-254.

Everhart, M.J. 2009. First occurrence of marine vertebrates in the Early Cretaceous of Kansas: Champion Shell Bed, basal Kiowa Formation. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 112(3/4):201-210.

Everhart, M.J. 2009. Probable plesiosaur remains from the Blue Hill Shale (Carlile Formation; Middle Turonian) of north central Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 112(3/4):215-221.

Everhart, M.J. and Bell, A. 2009. A hesperornithiform limb bone from the basal Greenhorn Formation (Late Cretaceous; Middle Cenomanian) of north central Kansas. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(3):952-956.

Bell, A. and Everhart, M.J. 2009. A new specimen of Parahesperornis (Aves: Hesperornithiformes) from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Early Campanian) of western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 112(1/2):7-14.

Shimada, K. and Everhart, M.J. 2009. First record of Anomoeodus (Osteichthyes: Pycnodontiformes) from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk of  western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 112(1/2):98-102.

Everhart, M.J. 2008. A bitten skull of Tylosaurus kansasensis (Squamata: Mosasauridae) and a review of mosasaur-on-mosasaur pathology in the fossil record. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 111(3/4):251-262
Everhart, M.J. (ed.). 2008. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting. Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, 172 pp.

Everhart, M.J. 2008. The mosasaurs of George F. Sternberg, paleontologist and fossil photographer. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, pp. 37-46.

Polcyn, M.J. and Everhart, M.J. 2008. Description and phylogenetic analysis of a new species of Selmasaurus (Mosasauridae: Plioplatecarpinae) from the Niobrara Chalk of western Kansas. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, pp. 13-28.

Polcyn, M.J., Bell, G.L., Jr., Shimada, K. and Everhart, M.J. 2008. The oldest North American mosasaurs (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of Kansas and Texas with comments on the radiation of major mosasaur clades. Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Fort Hays Studies Special Issue 3, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, pp. 137-155.

Everhart, M.J. 2008. Rare occurrence of a Globidens sp. (Reptilia; Mosasauridae) dentary in the Sharon Springs Member of the Pierre Shale (Middle Campanian) of Western Kansas. p.  23-29 in Farley G. H. and Choate, J.R. (eds.), Unlocking the Unknown; Papers Honoring Dr. Richard Zakrzewski, , Fort Hays Studies, Special Issue No. 2, 153 p., Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS.

Cicimurri, D. J., D. C. Parris and M. J. Everhart. 2008. Partial dentition of a chimaeroid fish (Chondrichthyes, Holocephali) from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk of Kansas, USA. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(1):34-40.
 
Everhart, M. J. 2007.  New stratigraphic records (Albian-Campanian) of the guitarfish, Rhinobatos sp. (Chondrichthyes; Rajiformes), from the Cretaceous of Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(3-4): 225-235.
 
Everhart, M. J. 2007. Historical note on the 1884 discovery of Brachauchenius lucasi (Plesiosauria; Pliosauridae) in Ottawa County, Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(3-4):255-258.
 
Everhart, M. J. 2007. Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep. National Geographic, 192 p.   ISBN-13: 978-1426200854
 
Everhart, M. J. 2007. Remains of a pycnodont fish (Actinopterygii: Pycnodontiformes) in a coprolite; An upper record of Micropycnodon kansasensis in the Smoky Hill Chalk, western   Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 110(1/2): 35-43.

Everhart, M. J. 2007. Use of archival photographs to rediscover the locality of the Holyrood elasmosaur (Ellsworth County, Kansas).  Kansas   Academy of Science, Transactions 110(1/2): 135-143.

AVAILABLE  ON-LINE AS A FREE PDF:

Everhart, M.J. 2005. Tylosaurus kansasensis, a new species of tylosaurine (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Niobrara Chalk of western Kansas, U.S.A. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences / Geologie en Mijnbouw, 84(3), p. 231-240.​​​
Oceans of Kansas is NOT about dinosaurs. Although the type specimen of  Niobrarasaurus coleii  was found in Kansas, this web site has very little information about dinosaurs. I do recommend some excellent dinosaur sites on the Oceans of Kansas  Links page. For more  information about the origin of mosasaur and plesiosaur names, go to Ben Creisler's  Translation and Pronunciation Guide , a recent addition to the The Dinosauria On-Line Dinosaur Omnipedia.   John Damuth's Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates (BFV) is HERE .   Click here for the most current view on the  relationships of American mosasaurs. Also go  HERE for a more detailed cladogram  on  Mikko Haaramo's Phylogeny Archive  webpage. 

For a fictional story about the daily life of a mosasaur, CLICK HERE. If you are interested in fossil insects, visit Roy Beckemeyer's "Winds of Kansas" webpage.

.... and for a new paleontology blog by Greg Liggett, visit the  BoneBlogger

Handy paleo-reference page  

Table of Contents

Search with Google

Can you identify these tiny teeth?

Fusulinids in a chert arrowhead

Mystery skull - Can you identify it?

Flat-bed scanner to "photograph" small fossils

Invertebrate feeding traces on shark teeth?

Unidentified Pennsylvanian nautiloid

If you would like to learn more about paleontology in Kansas, you might consider  joining the Kansas Academy of Science,   It's inexpensive ($35 per year) and we have a variety of paleontology papers in the process of being published.  Click here for an updated  list of  KAS publications on paleontology

Follow the KAS on Facebook


The 16th Annual Paleontology Symposium
 

was held at the 147th Annual Meeting 
of the Kansas Academy of Science, 
Saturday, March 28, 2014 
Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas

See abstracts from the 2014 Paleo-symposium here
 
 Larry Dean Martin (1943-2013) - Renaissance Paleontologist (PDF - 1.8 MB) ​





LEFT:  Well known  paleontologists who have discovered fossils in Kansas  
The Yale Peabody Museum Publications Office is pleased to announce that the 1967 monograph, "Systematics and Morphology of American Mosasaurs" by Dale Russell, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, Bulletin 23, is now available as a facsimile reprint through the Yale Peabody Museum web site.

The museum regularly receives requests for this title, which is the first of several of out-of-print publications that will be made available to the worldwide academic community through Yale's print-on-demand service.  (Go to the Publications link at  http://www.peabody.yale.edu) .

Systematic and morphology of American mosasaurs

by Dale Russell

"The best publication about mosasaurs"

QUICK SITE INDEX

Smoky Hill Chalk Field Guides:  Invertebrates;     Fish;     Marine Reptiles;     Pteranodons, Dinosaurs and Birds;     Other

General

Mosasaurs 1

Mosasaur 2

Mosasaur 3

Plesiosaur1

Plesiosaur2

Plesiosaur3

Bony Fish

Sharks 1

Sharks 2

Other Fauna

Museums

Historical

Reference

ePapers

Artwork

Other

 Oceans of Kansas webpages (mostly about sharks) translated into French by Jean-Michel Benoit
TABLE OF CONTENTS​​
WHAT'S NEW AT OCEANS OF KANSAS? 
OOK LINKS​​
07/05/2012  Ben Creisler's Plesiosaur Pronunciation Guide - Moved to Oceans of Kansas

07/05/2012  Ben Creisler's Mosasaur Pronunciation Guide - Moved to Oceans of Kansas

01/02/2012  The Last Pliosaur - Megacephalosaurus eulerti discovered in the Blue Hill Shale

11/28/2011  Inoceramids - Giant Cretaceous clams from the Smoky Hill Chalk

11/16/2011  Ectenosaurus clidastoides mosasaur with preserved skin

10/24/2011  Protostega gigas  - A new discovery in the Smoky Hill Chalk of Gove County

08/15/2011  Kiowa Shale Field Trip:  Plesiosaurs

07/15/2011  Tusoteuthis longa  - The elusive Niobrara squid....

05/10/2011  Kansas Crocodiles - Life along the edge of the Western Interior Sea

10/27/2010  Ptychodus mortoni  - New shell crushing shark specimen from the Smoky Hill Chalk

06/09.2010   Cretodus crassidens  - Late Cretaceous Shark Collected from the Blue Hill Shale of Mitchell County, Kansas

04/19/2010   Kansas Ammonites.... - Something like a squid in a coiled shell

10/26/2008   Remains of young mosasaurs from the Smoky Hill Chalk -  It was a dangerous place to be born....

09/13/2008   Digging up a large turtle in the Fairport Chalk - Probable first collection of the skull of Desmatochelys lowii from Kansas.

09/10/2008   The brain and back of the skull of mosasaurs - A primer on the complicated anatomy....

07/13/2008    First polycotylid plesiosaur from the Fort Hays Limestone - (Early Coniacian) - Jewell County, Kansas.

04/27/2008    Baptornis advenus Marsh 1877, a marine bird from the western Interior Sea. (Smaller, more primitive than Hesperornis.
​
04/18/2008    A complete mosasaur skeleton - Osseous and cartilaginous. Osborne, 1899 - Early photographs of Tylosaurus proriger
MORE OCEANS OF KANSAS LINKS HERE

LINKS TO OTHER PALEONTOLOGY SITES

PalArch - Web-based scientific journal

The Paleontology Portal  - Lots of fossil specimens

Greg Liggett's   BoneBlogger

Robert Randell's  British Chalk Fossils

Richard Forrest's  Plesiosaur.com

Adam Smith's  The Plesiosaur Directory

Kansas fossils and geology

Nebraska Invertebrates

Roy Beckemeyer's  Winds of Kansas  - Fossil insects

Ammonites  (in French)

Rudists  (Durania maxima)

NEW More insects from the  Eocene
Green River Formation  - NW Colorado

Inoceramids

Paleontology Museums

There are also many  links to other excellent paleo web pages and museum sites around the world, so please plan on taking some time to see what is available. Also, don't forget to bookmark this page so that you can come back occasionally to see what has been added. The two best ways to 'surf' the Oceans of Kansas site are to use the  Table of Contents pages, or the  Links to this site and other paleontology web pages. There are also 'hyper-links' embedded in the text on most of the pages that will take you to other sub-pages for more information on that subject. These links are highlighted in a different color (light blue) and are 'click-able'.   From the Links page, you can surf the net to sites all over the world, but please take a tour of Oceans of Kansas Paleontology first. To get things started, let's take a look at:



Click  on the Pteranodon to take the unofficial Oceans of Kansas
 

A "virtual tour" of  the


 Sternberg Museum of Natural History  (Click for official web page)
 





Yes, Virginia, there were lots of sharks in Kansas

Click here to see more of Doug Henderson's Paleo-Life Art

 
MARINE LIFE IN LATE CRETACEOUS TIMES

You can now download a FREE  pdf copy of this early article on Kansas Sharks by Williston - Provided by the Kansas Geological Survey.
Williston, S. W. 1900.  Cretaceous fishes: Selachians and Pycnodonts. University Geological Survey Kansas VI pp. 237-256, with pls.
The  Cretaceous Period lasted from about 144 million years ago to 65 million years ago.   In Kansas, it is represented by marine and estuarine deposits from the Early Cretaceous  (Albian) Cheyenne Sandstone and Kiowa Shale that overlay the Wellington Formation  (Permian) or the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) at the base, to the Pierre Shale at the top. (See  Kansas Geology Map and  Time Scale).   A brief Cretaceous Time Scale is found here. The 1999 version of the GSA ( Geological Society of America) geologic time scale is found  HERE as a printable .pdf file (233 kb).

A major part of the upper portion (Late Cretaceous) of these deposits is referred to as the Niobrara Formation.  It contains a rather unique member called the Smoky Hill Chalk, and provides the exposures for two Kansas landmarks:  Castle Rock and  Monument Rocks. The chalk found in Kansas was deposited between 87 and 82 million years ago during a period when a shallow inland sea (the Western Interior Sea) covered most of the Midwest from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle.  The deposition of these chalky, marine sediments occurred during the last half of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 15-20 million years before the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.  

The Smoky Hill Chalk member is about 600 feet thick in Kansas, and lies conformably above the Fort Hays Limestone, and below the Pierre Shale. For the most part, the chalk is composed of the compacted shells (coccolithophores) and plates (coccoliths) of an abundant, microscopic, golden-brown algae (Chrysophyceae) that lived in the clear waters of a warm, shallow sea. A large percentage of the chalk is  made up of coprolites containing coccoliths from the animals that fed on the algae. 

More photos of the Smoky Hill Chalk HERE.

A generalized map of the North American continent during late Cretaceous time. The Western Interior Sea covered most of the Midwest from the present Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. (Map modified from an exhibit at the  University of Nebraska State Museum)
The Western Interior Sea,sometimes called the Inland Sea, was probably less than 600 feet deep in most areas, and had a relatively flat and soft, mud bottom. It is considered to be an 'epi-continental sea'; that is, one which lies on top of a continental landmass, and not between continents.   Near the middle of the sea where Kansas is now located, sediments were deposited at a rate which would ultimately produce about one inch of compacted chalk for every 700 years. The chalk also has more than a hundred thin layers of bentonite clay, most of which are rusty red in color, that are the result of the fall of ash from repeated eruptions of volcanoes to the west of Kansas in what is now Nevada and Utah. These ash deposits can be traced for miles across the chalk beds and have been used as marker units in describing the stratigraphy of the formation (See Hattin, 1982). In addition, several species of vertebrate and invertebrate marine life that lived and/or became extinct at certain times during the deposition of the chalk are useful in determining the age and biostratigraphy of widely separated exposures (See Stewart, 1990). Near the end of the Cretaceous, the Western Interior Sea began to close, becoming shallower and narrower as the Rocky Mountains were pushed up from the west, uplifting the sea bottom as they rose.  Eventually, the center of North America rose above sea level and the sediments (limestones, sandstones, shales and chalk) deposited on the basement rocks of Kansas for nearly half a billion years began to erode away.
A map of Kansas showing the surface and sub-surface distribution of the remaining Cretaceous rocks (adapted from the Kansas Geological Survey Bulletin 162; 1963).  Although Kansas was once nearly covered with Cretaceous marine deposits,  millions of  years of erosion have removed a large portion of them them from the surface, leaving many areas of  chalk exposed along river valleys in the northwest portion of the State. Go here for more information on  Kansas Geology.

​
 
KANSAS FOSSILS -  Kansas Geological Survey 

This shallow ocean was home to a variety of marine animals, almost all of which are now extinct. These included  giant clams, rudists, crinoids, squid, ammonites, numerous sharks and bony fish,turtles, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs , Pteranodons and even several species of marine (toothed) birds. Although it seems unlikely that you would find dinosaur fossils in the middle of the Western Interior Sea, a number of them (a  hadrosaur found by O. C. Marsh in 1871, and several nodosaurs, including the type specimen of Niobrarasaurus coleii) have been collected from the Smoky Hill Chalk, and their remains have been well documented. The bodies of these dinosaurs must have somehow floated hundreds of miles into the sea before sinking to the bottom or being torn apart by scavenging sharks. It is possible that they died during catastrophic flooding on the land masses to the east or west, and were carried out to sea on a large, tangled mat of trees and other vegetation (fossilized wood, including large logs, is also known from the chalk).

Over a period of about five million of years, the remains of many of these animals were preserved as fossils in the soft, chalky mud of the sea bottom. When this mud was compressed under thousands of feet overlying shale, it became a deposit of chalk that is more than 600 feet thick in Western Kansas. Most of the massive chalk formation that once covered Kansas, however, has been eroded away over the last 60 million years and is now exposed only in a relatively small area in the northwestern corner of the State. This part of Kansas is also known as the  Smoky Hills.

Since 1868 and the discovery of  Tylosaurus proriger , the Smoky Hill Chalk has been the source of thousands of fossil specimens, many of which are on exhibit today in museums around the world. The first significant collections of Kansas fossils were made by relatively unknown scientists like  Professor Benjamin F. Mudge,  Dr. George M. Sternberg,  Dr. John Janeway, and  Dr. Theophilus H. Turner.  Many others  were collected by and for such famous paleontologists as  Edward Drinker Cope,  O. C. Marsh,  Samuel W. Williston, and  Charles Sternberg, (for more information on the Sternberg family,  click here),  including a large portion of the Yale Peabody Museum collection that resulted from the  Yale College Scientific Expeditions of the 1870s. For some 'old time' advice on collecting fossils,  see an 1884 article by Charles H. Sternberg here. Much of the early work on mosasaurs in Kansas was published in  The University Geological Survey of Kansas in the late 1890's.  A large number have been found since then by amateur collectors and many of these have been significant additions to paleontology.   The Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University,  the  Museum of Natural History at The University of Kansas, and the  University of Nebraska State Museum have excellent collections of fossils from the Smoky Hill Chalk.  The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the  Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman, Oklahoma, the  Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the  Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and the  American Museum of Natural History also have many Kansas fossils.  Click here for  additional information about some early American paleontologists.  ​

RECOMMENDED RECENT BOOKS ON PALEONTOLOGY

Oceans of Kansas is now available as a book.

 
OCEANS OF KANSAS - A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea.  by Michael J. Everhart, published June, 2005 by the Indiana University Press   ISBN: 0253345472  "A journey to a time when sea monsters roamed the middle of America"

Oceans of Kansas was named the featured book from Kansas for the 2006 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. It was also a featured book of the Discovery Channel Book Club and is currently in its 3rd Printing by the Indiana University Press... over 6000 copies sold!


My Acknowledgments....


RIGHT: Photo by  Cheryl Unruh of Flyover People from a book-signing in June, 2007.  Used with permission
Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep

By Mike Everhart

Awarded 2008 by the American Library Association 

Awarded as a 2008 Kansas Notable Book

[ VIDEO]  Dr. Larry Martin

National Geographic Sea Monsters Page
Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting

Edited by Michael J. Everhart

Published by Fort Hays State University, 2008

172 pp.
NEW!!

A History of Paleontology Illustration

Jane P. Davidson

Published 2008 by the  Indiana University Press,

217 pages
King of the
 

Crocodylians

The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus

David R. Schwimmer

Published 2002 by the  Indiana University Press, 220 pages
In Memoriam: Dale Allan Pulliam, 1946-1967, U.S.M.C.