The 30th annual Tate Conference will be held Friday May 29 through Sunday May 31, 2026.  The theme this year:

Twilight of the Dinosaurs: 

Terrestrial Life in the Cretaceous

The Tate Field Conference features a day of speakers on Saturday and two days of field trips.  Saturday evening includes a dinner and Keynote Speaker.

Keynote Speaker:  Kirk Johnson, Director of the National Museum of Natural History

Speakers    (This list will be updated as the program fills in)

Cary Woodruff, Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science

“The first pachycephalosaurid from the Late Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation: effects of the Western Interior Seaway on North        American pachycephalosaurid evolution”

Anton Wroblewski, Flatbush Geoservices

“28 Years Later: New Information on the K/Pg Boundary in Southern Wyoming and the Bandwagon Effect”

Brayden Green, University of Wyoming

“Micro-CT Analysis of The Internal Bone Structure of Nodosaurid Osteoderms: A Comparative Study of Osteoderm Morphology Across the Cervical, Thoracic, and Caudal Regions of Denversaurus“

Joel Crothers, Appalachian State University

Topic: Cretaceous Fishes

Rachel Stevens-Stark, University of Wyoming at Casper College

“Pathology study in the left Femur of the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen known as ‘Lee Rex’ “

Aidan Murphy, Casper College

“Faunal Assemblages of the Lance Formation at the TTT Micro Fossil Anthill Localities in Natrona County, Wyoming”

Zach Tenney, University of Wyoming

Topic: Mesa Verde Formation

Ian Trevethan, Fort Hays State University

Topic: Kansas Float and Bloat Dinosaur

Jesse Easterwood, University of Wyoming

Topic: Cretaceous Insects

David Krause, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

“Dinosaurs and Other Vertebrate ‘Game Changers’ from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar: Implications for the Plate Tectonic and Biogeographic History of Gondwana”

Miky Lova Raveloson, ASJA Catholic University

“Bromalites from the Late Cretaceous Lameta Formation of India.”

Ethan Cowgill, Weber State University

Topic: Mesa Verde Formation

Registration 

To register click here. We are not doing online registration, so print the form, fill it out and send it to:

Tate Museum
125 College Drive
Casper, WY 82601

Registration deadline is May 15th, 2026.  

The Ramkota Hotel in Casper is the host hotel.  The Keynote Dinner will be held there.  They also have a shuttle available to bring folks to the Casper College campus, as long as there is no airport shuttle at that time.  The number is 307-266-6000.

The Fujita Family Stipend–

Casper College graduate and Tate Museum intern, Lisa Fujita, started this fund in honor of her family to help pay for conference registration for interested Casper College students.  We are accepting donations to keep this fund and its cause going; feel free to donate to this fund on the registration form.  We have also been known to pass the hat during the conference to keep CC students attending.   : )

Field Trips–

Note: Field trips are open to conference attendees only.  Space is limited on both field trips… first come first served.

Friday 29 May… Lance Formation, eastern Wyoming

Friday’s field trip will be to the type Lance Formation area in eastern Wyoming.  The Lance was deposited in the latest Cretaceous and has produced many dinosaur remains as well as non-dinosaurian fossils from the end of the Cretaceous.  We will visit sites that have been worked on by Tate Museum crews for years, including the Lee Rex site and several bone beds.  There will be time for prospecting.  This is less of a collecting trip, but rather a show and tell.

On our field trips we usually allow personal collecting and/or collecting for your institution, but the Tate Museum and the landowner would have first rights of refusal for any fairly complete or unusual specimens found on this trip.

Sunday 31 May…Mesa Verde Formation, central Wyoming

The Sunday field trip will be to two different sites in the Mesa Verde Formation.  The Mesa Verde is a little older than the Lance, preserving fossils form the Campanian Age.  The two sites we will be visiting have produced remains from many different animals, from little mammal teeth to parts of large dinosaurs.  The sites are both on BLM lands.  We will be collecting here with the permission of the BLM with appropriate BLM surface collecting permits.  All fossils found will be curated at either the Tate Museum or the University of Wyoming Geology Museum.  There will be no personal collecting on this trip, as that is a federal offense.

Field trips require some walking on natural terrain, and are therefore not wheelchair friendly.    

If you have any questions, please contact JP Cavigelli by email or by phone 307-268-3008.

Lodging

We will have blocks of rooms reserved at the Ramkota Hotel for the pre-tax price of $89.  Give them a call to reserve one of these rooms and make sure to tell them you are with the Tate Geological Museum group.  Rooms need to be reserved before May 6th to get this group rate.

The Ramkota offers both airport pickup and shuttles around town, including to the Tate Museum.

Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center – Casper
800 N. Poplar
Casper, WY 82601

Ramkota: (307-266-6000)