Designed by Carol Abraczinskas, Scientific/Biological Illustrator at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology (UMMP), the NAPC 2024 logo incorporates iconic fossils from Michigan and the Great Lakes region.

From left to right, these are:

Skull of the American mastodon Mammut americanum. The state fossil of Michigan, mastodons roamed the Great Lakes region until around 10,000 years ago. UMMP houses significant collections of Pleistocene proboscideans that provide clues about how individual animals lived and died, as well as why these species may have gone extinct.

The Devonian tabulate coral Hexagonaria percarinatum. It is shown here as a polished example, known colloquially as a “Petoskey stone”: Michigan’s state gemstone.  It is frequently found on northern Michigan beaches, from the Leelanau Peninsula to Harbor Springs, where naturally worn examples show the six-sided, star-shaped pattern of adjacent corallites.

Leaves of the Carboniferous seed fern Neuropteris schlehani. A representative of tropical coal-forming peat swamps of North America, fossils of Neuropteris can be found near Grand Ledge, Michigan. You might even find an example on an optional NAPC 2024 field trip to this site, which is celebrated for its diversity of plant fossils.

Armor of the giant Devonian placoderm fish Dunkleosteus terrelli. The most famous examples of this marine apex predator from the “Age of Fishes” come from rocks in northeastern Ohio, not far from the shores of Lake Erie. Strata of similar age in northern Michigan also yield fossils of Dunkleosteus, complementing the diversity of placoderms known from older rocks in the state.