The Bighorn Basin Dinosaur Project (BBDP) is a paleontological research and education group focusing on the Mesozoic ecosystems of the

Bighorn Basin The Bighorn Basin is a plateau region and intermontane basin, approximately 100 miles (160 km) wide, in north-central Wyoming in the United States. It is bounded by the Absaroka Range on the west, the Pryor Mountains on the north, the Bighor ...

in northern Wyoming and southern Montana, U.S.A. BBDP is headquartered in the Bureau of Natural History at the

New Jersey State Museum The New Jersey State Museum is located at 195-205 West State Street in Trenton, New Jersey. It serves a broad region between New York City and Philadelphia. The museum's collections include natural history specimens, archaeological and ethnograph ...

(NJSM) in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading natura ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, the

Wyoming Dinosaur Center The Wyoming Dinosaur Center is located in Thermopolis, Wyoming and is one of the few dinosaur museums in the world to have excavation sites within driving distance. The museum displays the Thermopolis Specimen of ''Archaeopteryx'', which is the onl ...

Thermopolis, Wyoming Thermopolis is the county seat and largest town in Hot Springs County, Wyoming, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town population was 2,725. Thermopolis is Greek for "hot city." It is home to numerous natural hot springs, in which m ...

, and The Woods Project of

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

History

The New Jersey State Museum’s activities in the Bighorn Basin of northern Wyoming and southern Montana continues a long tradition of paleontological research in the region by some of the science's founding fathers in North America, including many with ties to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

William Berryman Scott William Berryman Scott (February 12, 1858 – March 29, 1947) was an American vertebrate paleontologist, authority on mammals, and principal author of the White River Oligocene monographs. He was a professor of geology and paleontology at P ...

, Francis Spier, and Henry Fairfield Osborne all visited the region in the 1880s, though these expeditions were largely unsuccessful. W. B. Scott's student and successor, William J. Sinclair, first teamed with

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

paleontologist

Walter W. Granger Walter Willis Granger (November 7, 1872 – September 6, 1941) was an American vertebrate paleontologist who participated in important fossil explorations in the United States, Egypt, China and Mongolia. Early life and career Born in Midd ...

in 1910 which resulted in numerous, far more successful expeditions to the region. Together, Sinclair and Granger established the Bighorn Basin as a significant region for

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

fossils. Sinclair continued his expeditions into the region through the 1920s with additional Princeton students, including Glenn Jepsen, who dedicated the remainder of his professional career to the study of

Paleocene The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), E ...

mammals of the Bighorn Basin. Jepsen, in turn, introduced many more Princeton paleontology students to the region, including present-day paleontologists

Philip D. Gingerich Philip Dean Gingerich (born March 23, 1946) is a paleontologist and educator. He is Professor Emeritus of Geology, Biology, and Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He directed the Museums at the University of Michigan#Museum ...

, Barbara Grandstaff, and David Parris. David Parris has continued the tradition, spending much of his nearly 50-year career studying the fossil ecosystems of the northern Bighorn Basin, almost entirely as a paleontologist in the Bureau of Natural History at the New Jersey State Museum. As the Curator of Natural History at the NJSM, David Parris began leading students, colleagues, and volunteers to the region on paleontological expeditions to the Bighorn Basin annually from 2001 through 2010. Jason Schein, Assistant Curator of Natural History at the New Jersey State Museum, has continued the efforts, leading the annual expeditions since 2011, with Parris taking more of an advisory role in the expeditions and research projects. In 2015, the NJSM’s research efforts in the Bighorn Basin were formalized under the name "Bighorn Basin Dinosaur Project." The field headquarters for the BBDP are located at the Yellowstone-Bighorn Research Association in

Red Lodge, Montana Red Lodge is a city and county seat of Carbon County, Montana, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,257. History On September 17, 1851, the United States government signed a treaty with the Crow Nation, cedin ...

. The stated research goals of the BBDP are to study and understand, to the greatest extent possible, the ecosystems that existed throughout that region during the Mesozoic and the early Cenozoic eras.

References

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External links

Home page

Experiment.com

Yellowstone-Bighorn Research Association

Geekadelphia Article
Paleontological institutions and organizations