Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Concho Resources sponsoring brown bag lunch series at Sibley
February 27, 2011

At noon, on the 4th Monday of every other month, the Sibley Nature Center will present a brown bag luncheon, sponsored by Concho Resources. The talks will begin at 12:10 p.m. and last for 30 minutes. The first presentation, on February 28th, will be "Dinosaurs of Texas" by Michael Nickell. Come to the Sibley Nature Center at1307 E. Wadley. If the weather is nice, come early and sit outside to eat, sitting on one of our benches along the Icons of the Llano Estacado colonnade, with its wonderful paintings of people and organisms that symbolize our home bioregion. Sibley will provide lemonade and cookies.

Mr. Nickell, who painted the Icons of the Llano Estacado, has been a professional practicing scientific illustrator and nature artist for over 30 years. His clientele has included National Geographic, Texas Parks and Wildlife, The Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock Lake Landmark, The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Oklahoma, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The Square House Museum, Encyclopedia Britannica, and others. His work is also in numerous private collections. He also is the illustrator for Texas Tech University's Dr. Sankar Chatterjee's books on dinosaurs and has participated in a number of fossil digs in West Texas.

The Sibley Nature Center has a number of Triassic and Cretaceous fossils found on or near the Llano Estacado on display, including the four foot long head of a phytosaur from Lake Mackenzie. Our teaching pavilion has a wall that is inset with the most common fossils found in West Texas, as well. Have you seen our Triassic coprolites? Take a look at Sharon Mitchell's incredible collection of Cretaceous fossils (mostly local), done as a high school student. We also have a Pleistocene fossil, a mammoth tooth, a somewhat common find on the Llano Estacado. Western Heritage Museum in Hobbs is presently working on a mammoth dig in Lea County, New Mexico.

Lea County is synonymous with some of the interests of Concho Resources. Its recent acquisition of Marbob holdings focused on the Bone Spring and Abo geologic formations. Some of the holdings are in a part of Lea County that is rough and remote country in between the Mescalero Escarpment (the western edge of the Llano Estacado) and the Pecos River. Scattered among the gravelly hills and sanddunes a number of archaeological sites have revealed pithouses, and what is considered the easternmost kiva.

Oilfields have become place names in regional cartography. Geologists, landmen, and roughnecks alike bounce down rough roads, seeing flora and fauna, finding arrowheads and fossils. Mr. Nickell's talk will be of interest to all of those whose job takes them to the field. Instead of seeing creosote bush and tarbrush, I sometimes imagine the landscapes present when the fossils were living animals and plants. In remote landscapes that never seem to really change, a person can emotionally connect with the vast periods of time geology and paleontology represent.

We would love to have retired oil field personnel attend the talk. If you get a chance to stay after the talk, I would like to hear some folks talk about fossils you have found when in the field. We would like to know where some of the best fossil finding places are located! What are some of your favorite fossils found in the region? Which ones do you think symbolize our home bioregion?

The Sibley Nature Center will present six brown bag lunches in 2011, on the 4th Monday of every other month. We are deeply grateful to Concho Resources funding our marketing of the talks.

On April 25th the speaker will be Richard Galle, who will speak about "extreme adventure." Have you ever rappelled? Have you ever explored a cave? Have you ever rafted whitewater rapids? Have you ever mountain climbed? Mr. Galle has been leading extreme adventure groups for almost 40 years. His climbing class at Midland College for 17 years inspired many West Texans, including some that went on to become world class climbers that have conquered some of the toughest mountains in the world. Come to the April 25th presentation and be inspired to go on an adventure of a lifetime this summer! Be sure to ask Mr. Galle about his attempt to climb "The Eiger!" He was one of the first people to go down the lower canyons of the Rio Grande downstream from Big Bend National Park, and the only person to climb the needle at the Boy Scout Ranch in the Davis Mountains!