Inventory and Monitoring at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
Upland Vegetation and Soils monitoring at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, situated near rapidly growing Colorado Springs, Colorado, protects the setting for a remarkably diverse paleoecological community preserved in the paper shales of the Florissant Formation. The site, primarily populated with insect and plant fossils from the Eocene Epoch, 34 million years ago, is among the richest fossil beds in the world. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument provides a landscape context to the science of paleontology. Visitors can see fossil excavations by pioneers in the field, such as that of Samuel Scudder in 1877.
