Megan Riley

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my poster yesterday at #2024SVP!

Happy campers! 2024 #CretaceousBighornProject crew w/ Late Triassic Chugwater Fm in background. @UMichPaleo @MichiganEarth @uageosci @UFGeology @HZMFulghum @AnnaLWisniewski @isopaleolab

Cretaceous and Paleocene mammal adventures in the Bighorn Basin (mostly geology this trip). It’s the people that make it! @UMichPaleo @MichiganEarth + @uageosci + @UFGeology #CretaceousBighornProject

Wrapped up a super productive week in the Lance Formation with a collaborative group from @CAS_Loyola and @IMNH208 . Thanks to the whole team but a special thanks to our hosts @TomKaye_ and Carol Kaye.

For #FossilFriday, wrapped up collecting from a new microsite collection today in the Lance Formation. We also got to play with lasers under a blanket and dig up some larger bones too @CAS_Loyola @IMNH208

Back at an insanely productive Lance Creek micro vertebrate site today with the @CAS_Loyola and @IMNH208 crew.

@CAS_Loyola WY field season ‘24 off to a great start today! Prospecting the White River Formation and had fun with all the mammals!

Excited to share my beloved Poebs with everyone at #napc2024!

But ultimately none of this would be possible without the students (most of whom don’t have twitter) @abigail_waller3 @megoriley @karamiaehler, plus special guest appearance by @feldspathic to start the season… Maybe my favorite team of students ever 5/6

The 2023 #CretaceousBighornProject field season is officially in the books. What an amazing and productive summer with undergrads, grads, postdocs, and faculty from @UMichPaleo, @UMichEEB, @MichiganEarth, @uageosci, @LoyolaChicago, @IU_EAS, + more 🧵1/6

Happy #FossilFriday! Here's a great resource for Michigan Fossils -- michiganbasinfossils.org photo credit to @FPaleontology

Non-stop rain for our last day prevented a proper farewell to the badlands… But we finished screenwashing yesterday! >2 tons of sediment down to a few boxes of concentrate. Proud of the #CretaceousBighornProject team! @megoriley @abigail_waller3 @HZMFulghum

Penultimate day of collecting for the #CretaceousBighornProject crew and we spent it in the Paleocene (Ft. Union Fm; Tiffanian). Pictured here are a few of the #multituberculate blade-like premolars (p4) found today—the pinnacle of mammalian dental evolution!

Great day/evening visit from @ingthingg & @rocksnriffs to the #CretaceousBighornProject camp. They have now forsaken the Eocene and agree that Mesozoic mammals are way more interesting. 📸 Tom Churchill. @megoriley @abigail_waller3 @HZMFulghum

More bone emerging from our little dinosaur quarry in the Lance Formation. We’re speculating juvenile Triceratops scapula and humerus based on the size, but what do I know… I’m a mammal guy 🤷‍♂️ The students have named her “Helga” #CretaceousBighornProject

Found our first decent #dinosaur bone today in the latest Cretaceous Lance Fm (cranial bone?). Not nearly as exciting as a tiny mammal tooth, but fun to mix it up from the microsites. Found by @MichiganEarth undergrad Andrew Colon! #CretaceousBighornProject

Find Judithian mammals? ✅ Clarify local sed/strat? ✅ Find awesome fossils in situ, including theropods, so that Megan, Tara, Abby can take a sweet pic? ✅ Awesome day for our #CretaceousBighornProject camp @UMichPaleo @UMichEEB @MichiganEarth @feldspathic

Great Fourth of July celebration at the Churchill’s in Powell, WY last night. So fun to mix past and future generations of paleontologists together. And @UMichEEB undergrad Megan Riley spearheaded the pie contributions! #CretaceousBighornProject

Six weeks in the Bighorn Basin, WY searching for Cretaceous mammals (and studying their rocky crypts) about to begin! Ann Arbor crew did a detour to @BadlandsNPS to get hyped. Follow #CretaceousBighornProject for updates! @UMichPaleo @MichiganEarth @UMichEEB