Time

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything… though not the length of the Paleozoic. Fear not, I’ve been busy writing away on a variety of projects. Including this:

Talking about ancient life and the Paleozoic Era (252 to 541 million years ago) in New Mexico elicits various unexpected responses. Oh, cool! The ancient Puebloans. Well, no. A little further back. Great! Dinosaurs. Charismatic megafauna get all the press, but no, earlier in geologic time. Occasionally, Oh. I tried that diet. No, again. Long before people living the Paleo diet, those who walked through White Sands at the end of the last ice age, and before New Mexico’s famous dinosaurs, the Bisti Beast and Coelophysis (74 and 208 million years ago, respectively), what we now call New Mexico was a dynamic landscape teeming with life.

This is the opening paragraph from a piece I wrote that was just published in El Palacio, in collaboration with the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Before the famous fossils: Ancient Life in the Paleozoic Era of New Mexico (click to read!) is a brief history of 250 million years, and an introduction to the new permanent Ancient Life exhibition that opened at the museum in February.

If you’re in Albuquerque anytime soon, I hope you’ll take it in. 

Some photos not published in the magazine follow.

Cockroaches still rule!