EXPLORERS HALL MUSEUM OPENS WINDOW TO PREHISTORIC PAST

WASHINGTON—What was life on Earth like after the dinosaurs disappeared? What animals and plants existed in the roughly 60 million years between dinosaurs dying out and humans appearing on the planet?

Find the answers to these questions at the new interactive exhibit, “When the Dinosaurs Were Gone,” at the National Geographic Society’s museum, Explorers Hall, from May 24 through Aug. 6, 2001.

The exhibit is based on the discovery of the 60-million-year-old Wannagan Creek Quarry in North Dakota. Species found there, combined with those found at other quarries around the world, tell an exciting story of the world that existed after dinosaurs became extinct.

The first part of the exhibit, which features life-size dioramas of life from 60 million years ago, lets visitors wander among prehistoric plants and animals in a re-created “tropical” North Dakota during the Paleocene era, a time when the Upper Midwest was a lush, warm, subtropical swampland. Animals on display include turtles, crocodiles and champsosaurs—prehistoric animals that looked like alligators, with nostrils on the tips of their snouts to allow them to live underwater.

Through interactive displays, visitors can use a periscope to check out the bottom of the swampy lake to see prehistoric critters; find out how much bite power a crocodile generates by testing a model crocodile jaw on various “chompable” objects; follow the progress of 40 baby crocs from the time they hatch until adulthood; use ultraviolet light to see plants the way insects see them; and use a “smell box” to experience the smells plants use to attract butterflies, moths, even meat-eating flies.

The second part of the exhibit invites guests to explore how geologists and paleontologists figure out what the world was like millions of years ago. A high-tech video theater presentation zips viewers through that mysterious span of years from the disappearance of dinosaurs to now. Exhibits show how geologists date rocks and fossils, give satellite views of the Rocky Mountains forming and glaciers creeping over the continent, and show how North America’s climate has changed. A hands-on exhibit allows visitors to match animals to their appropriate environments.

The third section of the exhibit is a re-creation of a field camp at the paleontological dig at Wannagan Creek. Visitors can plan their own dig using a computer to select the tools they’d need; they can build a fossil skeleton with casts of a real skeleton found on the Wannagan Creek dig site, and they can peer at tiny microfossils through magnifying lenses.

Explorers Hall is on the first floor of the National Geographic Society’s headquarters at 17th and M Streets, N.W. It is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed Dec. 25.

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May 2001