Florissant Fossil Beds, Colorado

Today we went to see Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, only a dozen miles away from Mueller state park. Today Florissant is a beautiful area of meadows, forests and wildflowers. The town itself is tiny but was a thriving community back in the late 1800's. The fossils here were formed 35 million years ago. A lake stretched 12 miles through an ancient forested valley with towering redwood trees and a lush humid climate. A volcano created volcanic mudflows and buried part of the redwood trees. The volcano erupted frequently over time, each time showering the landscape with millions of tons of ash and pumice. Fossils of a diverse mix of more than 140 species of plants have been discovered at Florissant. The insect fossils are remarkable -- insects are rarely preserved as fossils because they are so fragile. The volcanic ash that washed into Lake Florissant was finer than talcum powder and ideal for this delicate preservation job. Over 1,400 species of insect fossils have been discovered here.


It was a struggle to preserve this special area from real estate development. For over 50 years scientists and concerned citizens campaigned to create a park to protect the fossil beds. Finally in 1969 the national monument was established.
Doug is standing near "Big Stump", the largest petrified redwood stump found in the monument. It measures 12 ft tall, 38 ft around and is all that remains of a tree that may have been over 230 ft tall and 750 years old when the mudflow buried its base.

At the visitor's center you can see some of the tiny insect and leaf fossils on display. The visitor's center also has a short movie that tells of the history - we watched that before heading out on one of the trails. There was a ranger-led hike that we joined for a short time but they were going so slow that we struck out on a self-guided hike. This was a very enjoyable day and the weather was mild and about 70 degrees.


Quote for the day: "You don't hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school." -- Stephen Ambrose