Program Calendar

Franklin County has Jurassic armored mud balls, one of the rarest sedimentary features on the planet!  In fact, this is the only place in the world where you can easily see, touch, and study these interesting, photogenic, and fun geological oddities!  Prof. Little, the discoverer of these intriguing features, will explain how he found them, how they form and why they are so rare.  The armored mud ball saga is a story of plate tectonics, flash floods, climate change, and other very fortuitous geologic events.  It a human story of the birth of a suspension bridge (yes, it had to be a suspension bridge), the death of a bowling alley and a fortuitous field trip picnic.  What a story!  The Jurassic armored mud balls are unique to the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts and deserve to be officially celebrated as a Massachusetts “Sedimentary Structure!”  They are in the same geologic layers as Podokesaurus holyokensis, our State Dinosaur and Dinosaur Footprints, our State Fossil.  We are very lucky to have these “JAMBs” and they need to be officially celebrated for the world of science as well as our Massachusetts heritage.

Presented by Richard Little, professor emeritus, Greenfield Community College