Our guest speaker for the month of June is our Mitchel Hope Scholarship Award Winner: Michael J. Ziegler. Michael Ziegler is one of Bruce McFadden’s Masters students working on the Montbrook fossil site in Florida. His thesis focuses on reconstructing the ancient environment of Montbrook, a late Miocene to early Pliocene (5.5 to 5.0 Million Years Ago) locality in Williston Florida that has produced a tremendous amount of fossil specimens, some of which were previously poorly studied due to lack of comparative material. Since its initial discovery in 2015, nothing has been published on the Montbrook’s geologic history. Michael also plans to produce a detailed site formation analysis of Montbrook to help better understand the paleo-environment, overall geologic context of this unique site, and answer why there is such a rich deposit of fossils here.
Read more at Michael Ziegler’s Fossil Blog hosted by the Florida Museum!
The Southwest Florida Fossil Society 