The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and various memorials, sculptures, and statues. It is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit of the National Park System. The park receives approximately 24 million visitors each year. Designed by Pierre L'Enfant, the "Grand Avenue" or Mall was to be a democratic and egalitarian space—the complete opposite of the gardens of Versailles where only royalty and nobility accessed similar spaces in size and scope.
John Campbell Merriam was an American paleontologist, educator, and conservationist. The first vertebrate paleontologist on the West Coast of the United States, he is best known for his taxonomy of vertebrate fossils at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, particularly with the genus Smilodon, more commonly known as the sabertooth cat. He is also known for his work to extend the reach of the National Park Service.
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is a U.S. national monument in Wheeler and Grant counties in east-central Oregon. Located within the John Day River basin and managed by the National Park Service, the park is known for its well-preserved layers of fossil plants and mammals that lived in the region between the late Eocene, about 45 million years ago, and the late Miocene, about 5 million years ago. The monument consists of three geographically separate units: Sheep Rock, Painted Hills, and Clarno.
The Geological Association of Canada (GAC) is a learned society that promotes and develops the geological sciences in Canada. The organization holds conferences, meetings and exhibitions for the discussion of geological problems and the exchange of views in matters related to geology. It publishes various journals and collections of learned papers dealing with geology.
The Museum of the Earth is a natural history museum located in Ithaca, New York. The museum was opened in 2003 as part of the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), an independent organization pursuing research and education in the history of the Earth and its life. Both PRI and the Museum of the Earth are formally affiliated with Cornell University. The Museum of the Earth is home to Earth science exhibits and science-related art displays with a focus on the concurrent evolution of the Earth and life.
The Paleontological Research Institution, or PRI, is a paleontological organization in Ithaca, New York, with a mission including both research and education. PRI is affiliated with Cornell University, houses one of the largest fossil collections in North America, and publishes, among other things, the oldest journal of paleontology in the western hemisphere, Bulletins of American Paleontology.
Fossil Cycad National Monument was a national monument in the U.S. state of South Dakota beginning in 1922. The site contained hundreds of fossils of the cycad-like bennettitalean plant Cycadeoidea, one of the world's greatest concentrations. Because vandals stole or destroyed all of the visible fossils, it was withdrawn as a national monument in 1957. It is located in northwestern Fall River County, on U.S. Route 18, northeast of the city of Edgemont.
Earth Sciences Week is a yearly event run by the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) to promote understanding of Earth science and stewardship of the planet. It is typically held in the second full week of October.
The International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO), one of the thirteen International Science Olympiads, is an annual competition for secondary school students that tests their abilities in disciplines such as geology, meteorology, environmental science, and terrestrial astronomy. Students who are winners of the respective national competitions are invited to participate in the IESO, and all interested countries are encouraged to contribute to the IESO. The IESO is one of the only three International Science Olympiads to include an International Team Competition.
A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the field and the laboratory. Geologists work in the energy and mining sectors to exploit natural resources. They monitor environmental hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and landslides. Geologists are also important contributors to climate change discussions.
The USA Science & Engineering Festival is a bi-annual science festival held in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2010 by Larry Bock, the festival is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in the United States. The inaugural event was held on October 10–24, 2010, the second festival was April 27–29, 2012, the third festival was April 24–27, 2014, the fourth festival was April 16–17, 2016, and the fifth festival was April 7–8, 2018.
The Waco Mammoth National Monument is a paleontological site and museum in Waco, Texas, United States where fossils of 24 Columbian mammoths and other mammals from the Pleistocene Epoch have been uncovered. The site is the largest known concentration of mammoths dying from a (possibly) reoccurring event, which is believed to have been a flash flood. The mammoths on site did not all die at the same time but rather during three separate events in the same area. A local partnership developed around the site after the initial bone was discovered. The Waco Mammoth Foundation worked in partnership with the city of Waco and Baylor University to develop the site. Baylor's involvement mainly included the research, preservation, and storage of materials from the site, while the city of Waco contributed to the protection of the land. In 2015, they successfully sought the National Monument designation to bring the expertise of the National Park Service into the partnership.
The Muav Limestone is a Cambrian geologic formation within the 5-member Tonto Group. It is a thin-bedded, gray, medium to fine-grained, mottled dolomite; coarse- to medium-grained, grayish-white, sandy dolomite and grayish-white, mottled, fine-grained limestone. It also contains beds of shale and intraformational conglomerate. The beds of the Muav Limestone are either structureless or exhibit horizontally laminations and cross-stratification. The Muav Limestone forms cliffs or small ledges that weather a dark gray or rusty-orange color. These cliffs or small ledges directly overlie the sloping surfaces of the Bright Angel Shale. The thickness of this formation decreases eastward from 76 m (249 ft) in the western Grand Canyon to 14 m (46 ft) in the eastern Grand Canyon. To the west in southern Nevada, its thickness increases to 250 m (820 ft) in the Frenchman Mountain region.
Paleontology in Arizona refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Arizona. The fossil record of Arizona dates to the Precambrian. During the Precambrian, Arizona was home to a shallow sea which was home to jellyfish and stromatolite-forming bacteria. This sea was still in place during the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era and was home to brachiopods and trilobites, but it withdrew during the Ordovician and Silurian. The sea returned during the Devonian and was home to brachiopods, corals, and fishes. Sea levels began to rise and fall during the Carboniferous, leaving most of the state a richly vegetated coastal plain during the low spells. During the Permian, Arizona was richly vegetated but was submerged by seawater late in the period.
The Brule Formation was deposited between 33 and 30 million years ago, roughly the Rupelian age (Oligocene). It occurs as a subunit of the White River Group in South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
White House Astronomy Night is an event first organized by the White House in conjunction with the Office of Science and Technology Policy to motivate interest in astronomy and science education. The original White House Astronomy Night was held in 2009 on the South Lawn. In 2010 the White House and the Office of Science and Technology Policy organized a similar event with help from Hofstra University, this time held on the National Mall. Between 2010 and 2014 annual events took place at the National Mall with coordination between Hofstra University and federal agencies including: the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, NASA, and the National Science Foundation. In 2015 an event took place in June at the National Mall, and then back at the White House again on October 19.
Bolortsetseg Minjin is a Mongolian paleontologist known for her work in fossil repatriation and dinosaur-themed science outreach. She is a recipient of the WINGS WorldQuest Women of Discovery Award for Earth, National Geographic Explorer, and TEDx speaker. She is the founder of the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs.
Lisa D. White is an American geologist and director of Education and Outreach at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. White is a former professor of geosciences and associate dean of the College of Science and Engineering at San Francisco State University. She was elected to the California Academy of Sciences in 2000 and as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2009. White was awarded her PhD in 1989 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2022 the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) presented White with the 2022 "Friend of Darwin" award.
ReBecca Hunt-Foster is an American paleontologist. She has worked with dinosaur remains from the Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous of the Colorado Plateau, Rocky Mountains, Southcentral, and the Southwestern United States of America. She described the dinosaur Arkansaurus fridayi and identified the first juvenile Torosaurus occurrences from Big Bend National Park in North America in 2008.
