Two relics he'd like to bury

In the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument valley west of Woodland Park, more than 50,000 fossils have been pulled from the ground, relics of 34 million years ago.

The visitors center and storage building at the park don’t quite date back to the Cenozoic Era, but officials say they are fossils in their own way, outdated, crumbling and in dire need of replacement.

Officials want to build a $2.9 million visitors center and research facility, which they say would protect the 6,000 fossils stored there and give it a more modern, museumlike feel.

“It will just be a much more meaningful experience to connect people with what’s going on in the park, and there will be more fossils to see,” said park superintendent Keith Payne.

The current visitors center, in a cabin built in 1924, has the feel of a tourist trap along some interstate highway. There’s a bookshop, a small theater and a couple of cases of fossils.

But there are more problems the 60,000 annual visitors can’t see. According to the park’s proposal, it has a mouse problem, sinking foundation, flood-prone crawlspace, no fire suppression and inadequate space to display fossils.

The A-frame cabin, built in 1965, where fossils are stored isn’t much better. It also has mice and no fire suppression, as well as high radon levels and an inefficient climate-control system that exposes the fossils to decay, according to the proposal.

The park has been trying for decades to get a new visitors center and storage facility but has always lost out to other parks. So officials scaled back their plans from a 10,000-square-foot building to 4,048 square feet, and the panel that reviews development plans for the National Park Service has approved the proposal.

As well as combining storage, research and the visitors center into one building, the new center would have an entirely different atmosphere, with timelines, rocky walls — albeit fake rock — colorful exhibits and interactive stations where visitors can use microscopes.

There would be many more fossils on display.

“We just feel like there are a lot of things we’d like to show. We don’t show as many as we like,” Payne said.

The current visitors center would be torn down, with the new building to go in at the same location.

The park has an environmental impact assessment up for public review. Officials concluded no fossils would be disturbed by the construction.

Although the money for the project has yet to be earmarked, it is on the National Park Service’s long-range plan.

Construction would begin in 2011.

The Florissant fossil beds were formed by volcanic eruptions and mud flow during the era between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the rise of mammals. Paleontologists have been collecting the insect and plant fossils since 1873, and they can be found in more than 20 museums and universities.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1605 or scott.rappold@gazette.com

ABOUT THE FLORISSANT FOSSIL BEDS

The Florissant fossil beds were formed by volcanic eruptions and mud flow during the era between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the rise of mammals. Paleontologists have been collecting the insect and plant fossils since 1873, and they can be found in more than 20 museums and universities.