Saved in Time: The Fight to Establish Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado

by Estella B. Leopold, Herbert W. Meyer

Overview

In the summer of 1969, a federal district court in Denver, Colorado, heard arguments in one of the nation's first explicitly environmental cases, in which the Defenders of Florissant, Inc. opposed real estate interests intent on developing lands containing an extraordinary set of ancient fossils. This book, the first account of the fight to preserve the Florissant fossil beds, tells a story of environmental activism that remains little known more than forty years after the coalition's victory. The principal author, Estella Leopold, was a major participant in the process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826352361
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	10/15/2012
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	971,334
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Paleobotanist Estella B. Leopold is professor emerita of biology at the University of Washington.

National Park Service paleontologist Herbert W. Meyer is the author of Fossils of Florissant.

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xix

Chapter 1 Unearthing Wonders Herbert W. Meyer 1

Chapter 2 Geologic Book Burning or Preservation? Estella B. Leopold 17

Chapter 3 The Developers Want Florissant Estella B. Leopold 38

Chapter 4 Fossils Go to Court Estella B. Leopold 55

Chapter 5 Victory-in Court and in Congress Estella B. Leopold 65

Chapter 6 The National Park Service Steps In Herbert W. Meyer 79

Chapter 7 Beyond Florissant Estella B. Leopold John Stansfield 55

Appendix: An Epoch Sealed in Stone: A Guide to Florissant's Ancient Life and Fossils Herbert W. Meyer 105

Notes 116

Suggested Reading 127

Dramatis Personae 130

Index 135

Editorial Reviews

"A welcome account of an example of how the environmental movement gained legs and used the courts to convert abstract ethics into physical places for us to study and preserve this unique page of earth history."
—Annals of Wyoming

From the Publisher