Paleontologist Mike Everhart will present “When the Amber Waves Were Blue,” on Thursday, April 19, at 7 p.m., in Mossman Hall room 101.  The presentation is hosted by the Delta Chapter of Beta Beta Beta, the National Biology Honor Society, at Southwestern College.  There is no admission charge to attend and the public is welcome to attend. 

Everhart will be bringing fossil specimens to share and discuss.

“Mike Everhart came and gave a fantastic presentation back in 2006,” says Rick Cowlishaw, professor of biology at Southwestern College.  “It is great to have him back to present the deep geological history of Kansas and transport us once again to a time when the Great Plains were covered by great inland seaway and giant sea reptiles terrorized the waters.”

Everhart is an expert on late cretaceous marine fossils of central and western Kansas, and on the history of paleontology in Kansas. Since 1998 he has served as adjunct curator of paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University. He was one of the senior science advisers on the 2007 National Geographic IMAX film “Sea Monsters.” His discoveries have been featured in five made-for-television documentaries on the History and Discovery channels. 

Everhart is the creator of the award-winning Oceans of Kansas paleontology website: www.oceansofkansas.com. He is the author of “Oceans of Kansas – A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea” and “Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep.” In addition, he has written more than 50 papers describing the fossils of the Smoky Hill Chalk, including the naming of a new species of an extinct marine reptile (mosasaur) from Kansas, the Tylosaurus kansasensis. Everhart was president of the Kansas Academy of Science in 2005 and 2015. He served as a co-editor of “Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science” from 2006 to 2011, and currently shares the managing editor position for the same journal with his wife, Pamela.