Previous Speakers

Guest Speaker Domenic D'Amore will be speaking on Finding Gnatalie: Excavating Dinosaur Fossils in Southeastern Utah  about the sauropod he worked on that will be mounted in LA this fall. 

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​October 4, 2024

Raymond C. Vaughan, Ph.D., P.G., is a professional geologist and environmental scientist in Buffalo. His Ph.D. in geology is from UB. Ray is semi-retired, does some consulting, and has worked on local environmental issues for many years. Earlier in his career, he worked for 33 years in research and development in Niagara Falls and Buffalo, then from 2000 to 2012 as an environmental scientist in the NYS Attorney General’s Office. He has served since 1997 on the West Valley Citizen Task Force which advises NYSERDA and the U.S. Department of Energy on cleanup issues at the West Valley nuclear waste site. From 1980 to 1999 he served on theTown of Hamburg Conservation Advisory Board. He currently sits on the boards of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences (parent organization of Buffalo Museum of Science and Tifft) and the Nature Sanctuary Society of WNY, and he formerly served on the Western New York Land Conservancy board from 1991 to 2002. He has a wide range of interests including WNY history, on which he has presented at conferences in Buffalo, Lewiston, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Canoeing, hiking, and sailing are some of his favorite activities. He and his wife Sheila have been married 58 years, share many interests, and have traveled together to many favorite places.​

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April 5, 2024

Caleb Walcott is a PhD candidate in the geology department at the University at Buffalo. He studies the evolution of northern hemisphere ice sheets throughout the late Quaternary using a variety of geochronological tools. His research often takes him far afield to Alaska and Greenland, but some of his most memorable field experiences have been around western New York. Outside of work, he enjoys the bountiful nature that western New York provides year-round by biking, running, skiing, hiking, and hunting – all atop glacial sediments!

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April 4, 2024

In April 2023, two off-duty staff members unearthed the remains of a mysterious and previously undescribed echinoderm while digging for trilobites at Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Reserve in Hamburg. The discovery rocked the scientific community – pun intended, as this particular line of primitive animals was thought to have gone extinct nearly 30 million years earlier. Revival of this ‘Lazarus taxon,’ which originated during the Cambrian explosion when most major animal groups first appeared, sheds new light on our planet’s history of life. The new species is currently under study at the Smithsonian Institution by experts who are eager to establish its proper place in the animal kingdom."

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February 2, 2024

January 5, 2024

Marilyn and Bill Broad discuss how to do wire-wrapping for jewelry and how to do cabochons. Demonstrations will be done. Marilyn has all of the requisite supplies to help you in doing wire-wrapping and Bill has some nice slabs he will work with in making some cabochons. 

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June 28, 2023

November 3, 2023

Mark Castner, retired senior seismologist at Canisius College.

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April 26, 2023

Dr. Lisa Amati, the State Paleontologist at the New York State Museum will be presenting the talk, "New York's Finest Fossils."

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May 5, 2023

The Associate Director of Science Communication at the Paleontological Research Institution will be presenting on the PRI exhibit, “Year of the Devonian."

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April 7, 2023

Glen LaPlaca of Past & Present Science and Nature Store will be giving a presentation on the acquisition of the dinosaur models for this year's Annual Show together with tales of his excavations last summer and the set-ups of the respective displays at various shows.

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March 29, 2023