When Sponges Built Mountains

February 19^th (Wednesday), 12 p.m. / noon, JH Senior Center – Open to Public. Presentation: “When Sponges Built Mountains”, Presented by Kathleen Ritterbush, University of Utah

When Sponges Built Mountains           

Mountains of chert rock dot the American West, and have frustrated geologists for decades. Our new work explores the animals and ecosystems that laid down these chert rocks 260 million years ago, in shallow seas before the rise of dinosaurs. The rocks are made almost exclusively by sponges: disarticulated skeletal elements, whole bodies, and whole meadows and forests of sponges still perched in life position. Join us for a journey into the sticky, strange, sponge-dominated ecosystems of Utah’s Permian chert.

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