Denver Museum of Nature & Science awarded largest research grant in its history

DENVER — The Denver Museum of Nature & Science was awarded the largest research grant in its history.

The National Science Foundation’s Frontier Research in Earth Sciences program gave more than $1.28 million to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, according to a news release Thursday, as part of a $3 million total grant for a collaborative research project.

A team of 12 different kinds of scientists from seven institutions across the country are working together to better understand the ecological and environmental changes that occurred on land after dinosaurs and other living organisms went extinct during the Cretaceous era.

The researchers think this time frame can teach us more about the evolution of modern plants and animals, and extinction occurring now.

“Over the next five years, we are looking forward to building some amazing datasets to expand our knowledge of how and when life on land rebounded after Earth’s last mass extinction event 66 million years ago. And we can’t wait to share our amazing fossil discoveries with the world,” said Dr. Tyler Lyson, the museum’s curator of vertebrate paleontology.

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When that mass-extinction event happened, roughly 75% of all species on Earth went extinct, according to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

It completely changed the course of life as we know it today, the museum wrote in its news release Thursday.

The scientists who are involved plan to share the project’s findings over the next five years in classrooms and museum exhibits at the different institutions.

Brooklyn College, the College of Charleston, Colorado College, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oregon, University of Wyoming, University of British Columbia and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural Science are all working with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on this collaborative research project.