Geology in Pop Culture - Fossil Butte Street Plaques

A small town in Wyoming, Kemmerer, is touted as "An Aquarium set in stone" due to it's proximity not only to Fossil Butte National Monument but also to a bunch of other fossil hunting locals in the region. While we were staying there we wandered around in the center of town (home to the first J. C. Penney Store). 

Outside the store

Inside the store

However, I noticed that where all of the sidewalks dip down to the street around the park in the center of town (across the street from the J. C. Penney's) there were these fossil plaques commemorating the fossils found within the region. You can see the location of one of them in the J.C. Penney picture. It is located directly in front of the traffic light pole,embedded in the sidewalk. Here are those plaques. Some of them are a little on the worn side but others look brand new. This was all of them that I could find. Some have clearly been lost/stolen but there were still a good number of them. Very cool to see paleontology in the spotlight in some towns.

 Knightia eocaena

Undescribed palm. Palm trees... in Wyoming?

Hyracotherium sp. World's only complete early horse.

Trionyx sp. Worlds largest soft-shelled turtles.

Priscacara liops. Although spiny it was eaten by Phareodus.

Phareodus encaustus. A common predator in ancient Fossil Lake.

Undescribed bird. One of many undescribed birds.

Borealosuchus sp. See ya later alligator... in 50 million years.

Mioplosus labracoides with Knightia eocaena in mouth. Death by... starvation or suffocation?

Heliobatis radians. Freshwater stingrays live in South America today.

Icaronycteris index. World's oldest fossil bats.

 And one last picture of a mural located across the other street from the J.C. Penneys.