earth science

Stonerose Interpretive Center

Stonerose Interpretive Center is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stonerose Interpretive Center rather than just read about it. In short: The Stonerose Interpretive Center & Eocene Fossil Site is a 501c(3) non-profit public museum and fossil dig located in Republic, Washington. The center was established in 1989 and houses fossils that have been featured in National Geographic Magazine, Sunset magazine, and numerous scientific works.

Key takeaways

Stonerose Interpretive Center belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stonerose Interpretive Center to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stonerose Interpretive Center from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Stonerose Interpretive Center & Eocene Fossil Site is a 501c(3) non-profit public museum and fossil dig located in Republic, Washington. The center was established in 1989 and houses fossils that have been featured in National Geographic Magazine, Sunset magazine, and numerous scientific works.

History

The original fossil site, located along Highway 20 in Republic Ferry County, was first discovered in 1977 by artist Wesley "Wes" Wehr and paleontologist Kirk Johnson, then a high school student from Seattle. The idea for the Stonerose Interpretive Center was the result of conversations in the mid-1980's between Wes Wehr and then Republic City council member Bert Chadick, who had noticed Wehr collecting fossils near the city hall. They considered the possible economic impact of a public interpretive center and fossil dig, allowing people to explore a "world class" fossil site, interact with researchers studying the finds, and show that important science could happen anywhere. Based on the discussions, Chadick and Wehr guided the city of Republic in purchasing a house for the center, funding and Curator position, and obtaining funds from the local economic district TRICO to fund an assistant curator position. The position of curator was taken on in 1987 by Madilane Perry, an anthropology graduate who had also recently taken a course in museology. While Perry had initially cautioned that the project was possibly impossible due to resources, she had been given support and training in paleobotany by Wehr on a trip to the Burke Museum in Seattle. The turn of the century house needed some renovation and repair, plus the addition of glass cases to house the fossil collection during the 1987. The center officially opened in August of that year as a proposed addition to the city parks department, with the name "Stonerose" being chosen as a reference to the rose family fossils found in the stones. While excavating for fill rock at the north end of the city, a larger more accessible site was uncovered by city residents. The Washington State Department of Community Development gave a grant allowing for the formation of the non-profit organization Friends of Stonerose fossils as a support group for the center in 1989. Another DCG grant was given in 1991 which facilitated a university accredited seminar for teachers on the use of fossils in class room teaching. The center was later moved to a house across from the city park which was jointly purchased by the city and the Ferry County Historical Society. The house was later expanded in 1996 with funds from a Washington State Legislature grant totaling $50,000. Through fund raising efforts such as "bingo bashes" the Friends of Stonerose fossils purchased over 10 city blocks of land surrounding and including the "Boot Hill" site, which itself had around 100 ft (30 m) of exposed strata. During the 1995 digging season the center recorded more than 9,000 visitors, an amount greater than the population of Ferry County that year, and as of 2014 the center averaged about 6,000 visitors per year and a since its formation had seen over 120,000 visitors. In 2019 the center again prepared for the possibility of moving locations, with fundraising to purchase a 4,000 sq ft (370 m2) building on Clark Avenue, the city main street. The fundraising through early 2020 raised over $20,000 in capital and allowed for the building acquisition, along with resumption of socially distanced operations by mid-summer 2020. The fossil site is a short walk away from the interpretive center and public digging is permitted with a permit. Visitors may retain a limited number of fossil pieces per person per day, while significant finds are retained by the center. Retained fossils have are accessioned into a customized database, Stonerose strata, and the finders name and details are kept both digitally and as a hardcopy with the specimen in perpetuity. The center asks that fossil finders be recognized in research publications on the fossils, and several new taxa have been named for finders. The interpretive center and fossil site are still owned and operated by the Friends of Stonerose Fossils.

Geology The Stonerose fossil beds of Eocene Epoch age and part of the Eocene Okanagan Highlands, and preserve organisms that lived in the area circa 51 million years ago when the area that is now the city of Republic was part of an ancient lake. The lake bottom layers are composed of volcanic ash which hardened into sedimentary rock, becoming fine-grained tuffaceous shales of the Klondike Mountain Formation. The fossils include various extinct insects, fish, leaves and twigs, as well as bird feathers. The Republic upland lacustrine fossil beds are significant as they represent the earliest known records of the Rosaceae (rose family) and Aceraceae (maple family). Since the rediscovery of the Republic fossil beds, more than 200 species have been found in fossilized form.

Fossils The Eocene fossil sites in Republic whose fossils feature in the Stonerose Interpretive center, are part of a series of Eocene lake beds with abundant fossil plants, insects, fish and other ancient life that extends well north into British Columbia in Canada, including the Princeton Chert, McAbee Fossil Beds, and Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park. A fossil Florissantia quilchenensis, a flower from an extinct cocoa relative and a member of the family Malvaceae, is Stonerose's current logo. Found by Lisa Barksdale, former Stonerose curator, and Wehr, at the time a paleobotanist and Burke Museum curator, it was featured in the National Geographic Magazine, July 2002. The fossil collections at the interpretive center holds a number of published fossil specimens, such as several rare Dillhoffia cachensis fruits. The fossils and center have been included in Kirk Johnson and Ray Trolls travelling exhibit "Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline.", which highlights the fossil history of the west coast from Alaska and Washington.

References

Further reading Nisbet, Jack (August 2007). "The Future of Stone Rose". The North Columbian Monthly. Archived from the original on August 27, 2008. Retrieved June 29, 2008.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stonerose Interpretive Center

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stonerose Interpretive Center claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stonerose Interpretive Center before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stonerose Interpretive Center ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stonerose Interpretive Center

In research: Stonerose Interpretive Center appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stonerose Interpretive Center in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stonerose Interpretive Center is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1989 establishments in Washington (state), 1989 in paleontology, Cenozoic paleontological sites of North America, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stonerose Interpretive Center outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Stonerose Interpretive Center in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stonerose Interpretive Center means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Stonerose Interpretive Center out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stonerose Interpretive Center in simple terms?

Why does Stonerose Interpretive Center matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stonerose Interpretive Center?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stonerose Interpretive Center.