Oceans of Kansas Paleontology is a website founded in 1996 by Michael J. Everhart, a paleontologist specializing in Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 marine reptile

Marine reptile

Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semi-aquatic life in a marine environment.The earliest marine reptiles arose in the Permian period during the Paleozoic era...

s, mosasaurs in particular, of western Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, and author of Oceans of Kansas- A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea. The site specializes in providing information about marine vertebrate

Vertebrate

Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...

 finds in the Smoky Hill Chalk

Smoky Hill Chalk

The Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk formation is a Cretaceous conservation Lagerstätte, or fossil rich geological formation, known primarily for its exceptionally well-preserved marine reptiles. The Smoky Hill Chalk Member is the uppermost of the two structural units of the Niobrara...

, an extensive and fossiliferous marine Cretaceous structural unit of the Niobrara Formation

Niobrara Formation

The Niobrara Formation, also called the Niobrara Chalk , is a geologic formation in North America that was laid down between 87 and 82 million years ago during the Coniacian, Santonian, and Campanian ages of the Late Cretaceous. It is composed of two structural units, the Smoky Hill Chalk Member...

, underlying the Pierre Shale

Pierre Shale

The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from North Dakota to New Mexico....

, an Upper Cretaceous formation common in western Kansas. In 2003 the site received a SCI-TECH Web Award in Anthropology and Paleontology from the magazine Scientific American

Scientific American

Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...

and a "Best of the Web" NetWatch award from Science

Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

magazine.