PIT provides opportunities for individuals and families to work with professional archeologists and historians on historic preservation projects. Archeological excavation, historic structure restoration and oral history are just some of the projects. This is the first PIT project dedicated to the study of paleontology. For more information see Passport in Time. PIT volunteers at the University of Wyoming Museum of Geology in Laramie, WY participated with fossils collected from the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeastern Wyoming.
Volunteers pose at cast of skull of the Tyrannosaurus rex.
The laboratory examination was hosted in collaboration with Brent Breithaupt, Curator, and staff of the Museum of Geology. Loose rock samples containing microfossils were collected from the late Cretaceous Lance Formation by South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Museum staff from two sites on the Thunder Basin National Grassland. Here, a volunteer is washing and screening out the samples at the University of Wyoming's wet screening indoor facility. Microfossils such as bones and teeth are collected for later laboratory examination. These facilities allow samples to be collected in the summer and processed later in the winter.