The next Sunday with a Scientist program for children and families at the University of Nebraska State Museum will focus on the Great Miocene Bonebed at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in northwest Nebraska. The program will be 1:30-4:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at Morrill Hall.

Museum visitors will join Bob Hunt, vertebrate paleontology curator emeritus for the NU State Museum; Rob Skolnick, the museum’s vertebrate paleontology preparator; and paleontologist Ellen Stepleton on a journey back in time to the Miocene epoch, 23 million years ago, when northwestern Nebraska resembled today’s Serengeti plain in Africa. They will learn about the strange mammals that lived and died there, and explore the mystery of the great Agate bonebed which preserves thousands of fossil mammal bones.

In August 1904, Carnegie Museum paleontologist Olaf Peterson visited the Agate Springs ranch in northwestern Nebraska, and was the first to recognize the great fossil bonebed there. From 1904 through 1923 several major museums, including the University of Nebraska State Museum quarried the bonebed, which produced large blocks of sandstone that were rich with fossil mammal bones. In the 1980s, State Museum paleontologists mapped the regional geology and reopened the Agate quarries in order to solve the mystery of how the bonebed formed. During this exploration, the world’s oldest large fossil carnivore dens were discovered.

Sunday with a Scientist is a series of presentations that highlight the work of scientists, while educating children and families on a variety of topics related to science and natural history. Presenters share scientific information in a fun informal way through demonstrations, activities or by conducting science on site. Programs are 1:30-4:30 p.m. on the third Sunday of each month, although there will be no program in December this year.

For more information onthe program, including upcoming topics, go to the museum’s website, http://www.museum.unl.edu.

The University of Nebraska State Museum of Natural History in Morrill Hall is open 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays, and 1:30-4:30 p.m. Sundays. Regular admission is $6 for adults (19 and over), $3 for children (5-18 years), free for children 4 and under, and $13 for families (up to two adults and children). UNL staff, faculty and students are admitted free with NU ID during all regular hours. Friends of the Museum are also free. Parking is free in front of the museum.