How a Supervolcano Made the Cenozoic’s Coolest Fossils

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to http://to.pbs.org/DonateEons ↓ More info below ↓ One of the most dynamic, transformative, and potentially dangerous features in North America is also responsible for some of the continent’s most amazing fossil deposits. It’s a supervolcano we now call Yellowstone. Thanks to Rick Otto and the Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park for their help with this episode! Produced for PBS Digital Studios. Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Katie Fichtner, Aldo Espinosa Zúñiga, Kelby Reid, Steph Summerfield, Todd Dittman, Betsy Radley, Svetlana Pylaeva, Colin Sylvester, Philip Slingerland, John Vanek, Jose Garcia, Noah offitzer, Eric Vonk, Tony Wamsley, Henrik Peteri, Jonathan Wright, Wilco Verweij, Jon Monteiro, James Bording, Brad Nicholls, Miles Chaston, Michael McClellan, Elysha Nygård, Jeff Graham, Maria Humphrey, Nathan Paskett, Connor Jensen, Ehit Dinesh Agarwal, Sapjes, Daisuke Goto, Zachary Winkler, Hubert Rady, Yuntao Zhou, Gregory Kintz, Tyson Cleary, Chandler Bass, Maly Lor, Joao Ascensao, Tsee Lee, Sarah Fritts, Ruben Winter, Ron Harvey Jr, Joshua Mitchell, Johnny Li, Jacob Gerke, Katie M Vasilescu, Brandon Burke, Alex Yan If you d like to support the channel, head over to http://patreon.com/eons and pledge for some cool rewards! Want to follow Eons elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/eonsshow Twitter - https://twitter.com/eonsshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/eonsshow/ References: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300919200_The_geology_and_paleontology_of_Ashfall_Fossil_Beds_a_late_Miocene_Clarendonian_mass-death_assemblage_Antelope_County_and_adjacent_Knox_County_Nebraska_USA https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/587650 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14711425 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013JB010483 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1684053 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/92GL00703 https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/yellowstone_sub_page_54.html https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/files/1013/9447/0047/bulletin-Mihlbachlerlowres.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/4880/ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0044205 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secrets-of-supervolca-2006-06/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00445-007-0140-7 https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70117448 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/120148 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280296629_An_introduction_to_the_stratigraphy_structural_geology_and_hydrogeology_of_the_Columbia_River_Flood-Basalt_Province_A_primer_for_the_GSA_Columbia_River_Basalt_Group_field_trips http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/columbia-river-flood-basalts https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298429576_Volcanic_Ash_Layers_in_the_Miocene_Lake_Clarkia_Beds_Geochemistry_Regional_Correlation_and_Age_of_the_Clarkia_Flora https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article/62/8/907/4450/mold-of-a-rhinoceros-in-basalt-lower-grand-coulee Mustoe, George. “Washington’s Fossil Forests.” 2001 http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_washington_geology_1988_v16_no4.pdf