Corral Bluffs is the Center of the Paleontologic Universe*

In a single day, life at Corral Bluffs has changed! What took the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) three years to complete has whisked Corral Bluffs into worldwide fame in one minute. At noon on Thursday, October 24 a paper in Science Magazine by Dr. Tyler Lyson at DMNS and 15 other contributing authors revealed the secrets held in the rocks for 66 million years. The rocks we've walked past dozens of times actually held within them exquisite skulls of mammals that evolved in the first million years after the K-T extinction event. Now those with an imagination can look at Corral Bluffs and see it as it was, with flowing rivers, lush palm forests, odd-looking mammals roaming past lumbering turtles and swimming crocodiles.

* George Sparks, president DMNS

CGI rendering of ancient Loxolophus mammal taken from the PBS NOVA special, Rise of the Mammals. In this recreation, Loxolophus scavenges for food in the palm dominated forests found within the first 300,000 years after the dinosaur extinction. Tangled Bank Studios

CGI rendering of ancient Carsioptychus mammal taken from the PBS NOVA special, Rise of the Mammals. In this recreation, Carsioptychus coarctatus eats plants in a newly diversified forest, ~300,000 years after the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. HHMI Tangled Bank Studios