What do dinosaurs and space exploration have in common? Interested in a whale of a dinosaur? Celebrate National Fossil day with us and find out! Join us for a fossil filled evening at the Natural History Society of Maryland. Come explore some of the fossils from our collections with some local experts and enjoy a wonderful presentation by Dr. Stephen J. Godfrey from the Calvert Marine Museum who will be talking about some very cool local dinosaur discoveries!
Cost: $10 per person. You can either pay in cash at the event or prepay online.
PARKING INFORMATION: Our parking lot has been renovated with a stormwater management system, with native landscaping. It's beautiful!, but we have fewer parking spots. Click here for information, directions, and maps to alternative over-flow parking. Once parked, come to the double glass doors at the top of the ramp and stairs.
** Who is Dr. Stephen J. Godfrey you may ask?
Stephen J. Godfrey, the middle of five children, was born and raised in the Province of Quebec, Canada. He has always been fascinated with nature and natural history museums. As an early teen, he began to collect fossils, seashells, insects, pine cones, and skeletons for his own bedroom Natural History Museum!
He received his B.Sc. in Biology from Bishop’s University (Quebec) and a Ph.D. in paleontology from McGill University (Quebec). Following a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto (Ontario), he moved to Drumheller, Alberta, the “Dinosaur Capital of Canada,” where he became involved in paleontological exhibit work for museums around the world.
Well-known museums or theme parks where his work is now on display include the Field Museum in Chicago, the Noorder Dierenpark in Emman the Netherlands, and at both Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure and Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. He has also had numerous sculpting contracts with the University of Chicago (Paul Sereno) and National Geographic and has appeared in three of their TV specials on extinct dinosaurs from Africa.
In 1998, Dr. Godfrey became the Curator of Paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland where his mandate is to collect, preserve, and interpret fossils from the famous Calvert Cliffs along the Chesapeake Bay. Most of the fossils that he quarries from the cliffs are of extinct whales and dolphins.
When not jumping on the trampoline with some of his children, Stephen loves to paint (with oils or water colors).