Fossil Discovery Exhibit Groundbreaking

Date: September 3, 2015
Contact: Courtney Lyons-Garcia, 512-529-1149

Big Bend Conservancy and Big Bend National Park announce the groundbreaking for the Fossil Discovery Exhibit.The groundbreaking will be at the Fossil Discovery Exhibit site on September 26, 2015 at 10AM and is open to the public.The groundbreaking ceremony location is eight miles north of Panther Junction on the road to Persimmon Gap.

Big Bend Conservancy has raised over $1.2 million for this exhibit renovation to date, including $300,000 from the National Park Service Centennial Cost Share Challenge.

Big Bend National Park has over 70 Cretaceous era fossils, the most of any national park in the country.However, the complete story is not being told to visitors who come to the park today.This exhibit will interpret the park's rich paleontologic and geologic history in engaging and immersive ways.The exhibit site will be at the current Fossil Bone Exhibit site along the main highway into the park.

Superintendent Cindy Ott-Jones said, "Big Bend National Park is known for our world class fossil record, which we have long sought the means to properly showcase.I am truly excited the park has a support group who could meet the fundraising challenge of providing the National Park Service with a 2016 Centennial year project that will showcase sustainability and accessibility examples for National Park Service-wide projects in the future."

Major donors to the Fossil Discovery Exhibit include the M.S. Doss Foundation, the Rhodes Charitable Fund, the National Park Foundation, The Brown Foundation Inc., the Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation, the Amon Carter Foundation, and the holders of the Big Bend license plate.

Big Bend Conservancy is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support, promote, and raise funds for Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, in partnership with the National Park Service and other supporters who value the unique qualities of this national resource along the Rio Grande.

For more details about the activities of Big Bend Conservancy, log onto www.bigbendconservancy.org or visit us on Facebook.