Earth Experience - Middle Tennessee Museum of Natural History

09/26/2026

We are at Adventure Science Center Fossil Quest today. We are doing fossil ID and promoting Earth Experience. When you have a Trex on your truck you get the good parking spot.

09/11/2026

We’ve added some incredible new items to our Modern Animals exhibit! Say hello to our complete Gila Monster Skeleton and our incredible partially fossilized Walrus skull fragment

07/12/2026

Even the ants are fossil collecting! I set a small fossil down so I could get out a bag and this ant grabbed it. I decided he needed it more than me.

07/11/2026

It's been another busy week digging with crew number 2. They are headed out today. That's a good thing since temps are going to be extremely high this weekend. Ty will post more dino bone pictures once he finds air conditioning.

07/05/2026

Happy 250th Independence Day! Ty was so busy yesterday he didn't have time to post. We went over to Medora, ND for the grand opening of the Theodore Roosevelt presidential library. Ty learned all about our 26th president and how he loved the badlands too. We also toured Theodore Roosevelt national park and saw bison and wild horses and ended the day with a drone show and fireworks. Ty is happy he has a day off today.

07/04/2026

Days 3 through 5 were a bit hot but we got some good digging done. The pictures are from a site we are working for the ranch. Some good small finds for us including a thescelosaurus vertebrae that volunteer Steve found.

07/02/2026

Congratulations to Kade and Ryan! They are former museum volunteers who met at the museum!

51.98 million years in the making. 🪨💍
Today, on the ancient lakebed of Fossil Lake, two geologists proved that some things really do stand the test of deep time. Kade & Ryan said "I do" overlooking the Fossil Butte Member — the same fine-grained limestone that's preserved perfect fish, palms, and bats since the Eocene.
They traveled all the way from Tennessee to tie the knot atop a formation laid down layer by layer, year by year, in the still waters of an ancient subtropical lake. Fitting, right? Because just like the sediment that became stone, their love just got lithified.
No fossil in this formation will ever be as rare as what these two have — but their wedding day is officially part of the stratigraphic record now, immortalized in the same calcium carbonate that's been quietly keeping secrets for 51.98 million years.
Here's to a love that's rock solid. 🥂
Congratulations, Kade and Ryan!

07/02/2026

Didn't find anything on the first day of digging. That night it rained so it was too wet to go on the ranch the second day. Instead we went about an hour away to a site to hunt for ammonites. To find them you break up large rocks with a hammer. Ty says its very therapeutic.

07/01/2026

Ty is back in Montana for this summer's dinosaur dig. Hopefully he will remember to take more pictures. (He is easily distracted by fossils)

06/30/2026

The museum will be closed this Saturday for the 4th of July. Happy 250th!