NBC's "Today Show" visited the Castle Rock Fossil Rainforest on Thursday, October 3, 2002. They are creating a special on the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's (DMNS) volunteers and its Paleontology Certification Program. They filmed our activities at the dig site and interviewed Kirk Johnson (DMNS curator of paleontology), Beth Ellis (DMNS Castle Rock project leader) and Steve Wagner (DMNS volunteer) on camera. It was somewhat chaotic at the site, as you can see in the pictures below, but it was fun and we're pleased to know that some of our fantastic fossils will be seen on national TV.The Today Show crew also filmed part of Kirk Johnson's "Paleontology of the Western Interior" class on Wednesday, October 2, 2002. This class is part of the Paleontology Certification Program. Graduates from the program provide the resource of volunteers for the paleontology projects being conducted by the DMNS. The filming crew also visited Bones Galore (another DMNS dig site in Weld County, Colorado) to film DMNS staff and volunteers recovering Oligocene mammal bones from approximately 35 million years ago.
The special is set to air on the NBC's Today Show sometime over the next two weeks (i.e. prior to 10/17/2002). They could not provide an exact date because of editing and programming issues, but hopefully we will know prior to its airing. If we find out the date for this show, it will be posted here. The Today Show does post a very brief outline of the daily schedule HERE.
NBC's Today
Show interviewing Beth Ellis
Steve Wallace
(CDOT paleontologist - at right)
DMNS project
team members Regan Dunn &
Michele
Reynolds stay clear of the filming chaos
Denver
Post writer J. Sebastian Sinisi (left) interviews
Kirk Johnson,
DMNS curator of paleontology (right)