IN t named Mike Vooring around onsome grassy farmland in eastern Nebraska, not far from ttle toed a curious glint in to  ly preserved skull ofa young r by recent heavy rains.

    A fe turned out,  extraordinary fossil beds everdiscovered in Norter  ooturtles. All erious cataclysm just under time knoogeology as tood on a vast,  plain very like ti of Africa today. to tenfeet deep. t  t, and never had been, any volcanoes inNebraska.

    today, te of Voorate Park, and it ylisors’ center and museum, ful displays on tory of ter incorporates a lab ors can cologists cleaning bones. orking alone in t ary in wured.

    t get a ors to Asate Park—it’s sligo sook me to t atop a ty-foot ravine where he had made his find.

    “It o look for bones,”  I  looking for bones. Iern Nebraska at time, and really just kindof poking around. If I  gone up t just  skull,I’d ed a roofedenclosure nearby, e. Some ther in a jumble.

    I asked   o  for bones. “ell, if you’re looking forbones, you really need exposed rock. t’s ology is done in , dry places.

    It’s not t t’s just t you ting them.

    In a setting like ture across t and unvarying prairie—“you  kno stuff out tto so start looking.”

    At first t tated as mucional Geograpicle in 1981. “ticle called te a ‘Pompeii of preoricanimals,’ ” old me, “e because just after t died suddenly at all. tropeodystrop you  if you  of abrasive as  of it because tt and crumbled itinto my   sligty. “Nasty stuff to o breat on,“because i