Meeting/Event Information

Join the AIPG Colorado Section for a fun evening!

This year, our Annual Dinner includes a special (and FREE) mentoring and networking session geared toward our Student and Early Career Professional Members!  Enjoy happy hour snacks and a cash bar while meeting representatives from various grad school programs and professionals from multiple geoscience disciplines. All AIPG members and guests are welcome to register for and attend the mentoring/networking session

Event Schedule:

5:30 pm - 6:30 pm: Mentoring/Networking Session

6:30 pm - 9:00 pm: Dinner and Guest Speaker

We are delighted to be joined by AIPG CPG Member Steven Jorgensen as our guest speaker for the Annual Dinner with his talk titled: WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD MENUITES Evidence of Predation On Menuites oralensis:

The State of Colorado is fortunate to have an extremely large, diverse, fossil biota.  Virtually every portion of the State has produced fossils that include vertebrates, invertebrates, and botanical specimens.
One particularly well-known collecting locality is Baculites Mesa (BM), located northeast of Pueblo, CO.  This is private property, and the field trip coordinator for the Western Interior Paleontological Society (WIPS), Malcolm Bedell, has arranged for members of WIPS to collect at this locality continuously for the past 32 years!
Baculite Mesa is famous for the specimens of Ammonites, and a host of other marine creatures, that have been collected from the Upper Cretaceous Pierre Shale, which has been radiometrically dated at approximately 75.5 million years.
One highly-prized ammonite species that is still found at BM is Menuites oralensis.  This fascinating species is typified by extreme Dimorphism, where the Macroconch (female) can be nearly 0.5 meters in diameter, whereas the Microconch (male) typically is less than 12 cm across!
As with many ammonite species, there is overwhelming evidence of predation on both living and deceased individuals.  Predators most likely included fish, mosasaurs, other ammonites, limpets, crabs, and many other hunger critters.  A case for apparent cannibalism will also be presented. 

**You do not need to be an AIPG member to attend this event; all friends and family are welcome!**

Registration closes at midnight (mountain time) on April 4, 2024