''Oceans of Kansas'' is a book by Michael J. Everhart, Adjunct Curator of Paleontology at the

Sternberg Museum of Natural History Fort Hays State University (FHSU) is a public university in Hays, Kansas. It is the fourth-largest of the six state universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents, with a total enrollment of approximately 15,100 students. History FHSU ...

and past President of the

Kansas Academy of Science The Kansas Academy of Science is a public organization for the promotion and promulgation of scientific research in the state of Kansas, United States.As its constitution put it: ''to increase and diffuse a knowledge of science, particularly in its ...

. It was published in 2005 by

Indiana University Press Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes 140 ...

. It has an award-winning, concomitant website entitled Oceans of Kansas Paleontology. A revised, updated, and expanded edition was published in 2017. It is part of the life of the past series.

Summary

In ''Oceans of Kansas'' Everhart discusses the state of the land during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

and earlier, when the area was covered with the marine waters of the

Western Interior Seaway The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, the North American Inland Sea, and the Western Interior Sea) was a large inland sea that split the continent of North America into two landmasses. The ancient sea, ...

, particularly focusing on the record of the Niobrara Cycle of the Seaway as exposed in central Northwestern Kansas (e.g., Trego and Gove Counties). The geologic record shows that ancient

lifeform Life form (also spelled life-form or lifeform) is an entity that is living, such as plants (flora) and animals (fauna). It is estimated that more than 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are ex ...

s such as marine

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

pteranodon ''Pteranodon'' (); from Ancient Greek (''pteron'', "wing") and (''anodon'', "toothless") is a genus of pterosaur that included some of the largest known flying reptiles, with ''P. longiceps'' having a wingspan of . They lived during the late Cr ...

s, and toothed

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

inhabited the general area both in and out of the water. Everhart also covers the discovery of the

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s and geographic records as well as the competition between

E. D. Cope Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy intereste ...

and

O. C. Marsh Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...

to collect them.

Reception

''Oceans of Kansas'' has received multiple critical reviews, with Jeffrey V. Yule stating that "''Oceans of Kansas'' offers a well researched and often engaging account of the paleobiology of the Western Interior Seaway...". Jonathan Hendricks noted that while the book's "intended audience is not entirely clear... as a needed summary of our knowledge about the fossils found in the Cretaceous rocks of western Kansas and elsewhere in the Great Plains, Everhart's book is a success."

Notes

External links

Oceans of Kansas Paleontology website
Paleontology books Biology textbooks 2005 non-fiction books 2005 in paleontology {{edu-book-stub