Monday, July 29, 2019

Ben Burger, Rocks of Utah - geology videos - What a scientist sounds like.

Benjamin Burger announcing his The Rocks of Utah Series

I’d love to be more excited about Ben Burger, he's doing YouTube geology videos for an area near and dear to me - The Colorado Basin in Utah.  But, I’m the Professor Zentner type, I’m looking for serious substance, I want to be wow’ed by the amount of facts being presented and woven together with other understanding we have.  

I dream of someone wanting to Tell The Story of the Colorado Plateau - (Ron Blakey & Wayne Ranney have already developed a powerful template, amazing things could be done with it).  But it’s a big commitment. 

It takes the sort of commitment Nick made to his beloved Washington state, along with his public speaking chops.  

I don’t know of any other examples for any other region of our country.  If there are, please do share links.

While Professor Burger has his excellent moments, there’s too much filler for my tastes.  Too many selfies, too much travelog, not enough maps or schematics or coherent scientific story being told.  I’m always left with a list of questions begging to be asked left unanswered.  

That’s just me.  At least Professor Burger deserves credit, he's stepped up to do something that’s far more difficult than it looks from the outside, and he does speak to people and he has fans, and I keep going back him - decide for yourself.

Beyond that -  I keep dreaming of some sharp, up and coming, self-possessed young professor to take the challenge by the horns and better explain the dynamic story behind how our landscape got to look the way it does.  And why it's about so much more than simply beautiful scenery.  I'd counsel starting by first watching Nick Zentner and figuring out for yourself what it is he does so well, then run with it.  

Below the fold is a linked index to Professor Burger's "Rocks of Utah" (23) along with his ongoing lectures (90+) on aspects of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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{Listed according to geologic age, starting with the youngest at the top.}

Benjamin Burger - 13:58 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 37:20 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 15:33 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 27:23 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 25:26 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 13:42 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 25:33 minutes 


Benjamin Burger - 18:16 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 28:50 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 22:27 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 30:45 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 19:42 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 13:02 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 16:56 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 26:31 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 15:42 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 1:09:09 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 16:50 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 22:37 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 23:35 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 11:10 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 39:26 minutes



Benjamin Burger - 11:25 minutes

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Benjamin Burger - 2:51 minutes


Benjamin Burger - 7:58 minutes

Lecture 2 Amphioxus, the Quintessential Chordate
Benjamin Burger - 4:38 minutes

Lecture 3 Our Ancestry with Sea Squirts
Benjamin Burger - 4:03 minutes

Lecture 4 How to Grow a Brain and Backbone. Neural Crest Cells
Benjamin Burger - 4:42 minutes

Lecture 5 Three Hypotheses on the Origin of Chordates
Benjamin Burger - 6:33 minutes

Lecture 6 Owen's Body Plan and the Fossils of Chengjiang
Benjamin Burger - 6:03 minutes

Lecture 7 How fossils are made?
Benjamin Burger - 7:56 minutes

Lecture 8 Where to Look for Fossil Vertebrates?
Benjamin Burger - 7:53 minutes

Lecture 9 Fossils and the Geological Time-Scale
Benjamin Burger - 6:24 minutes

Lecture 10 Why do Vertebrates Look that Way? Functional Morphology
Benjamin Burger - 11:25 minutes

Lecture 11 What is a Cladogram?
Benjamin Burger - 6:45 minutes

Lecture 13 Early Fish and the Origin of Bone, Scales and Teeth
Benjamin Burger - 7:36 minutes

Lecture 14 When Fish Lacked Jaws
Benjamin Burger - 13:53 minutes

Lecture 15 Living Fish Without Jaws: Hagfish and Lampreys
Benjamin Burger - 7:13 minutes

Lecture 16 Origin of Jaws in Fish
Benjamin Burger - 4:41 minutes

Lecture 17 Fossil Armored Fish and Other Primitive Jawed Fish
Benjamin Burger - 7:09 minutes

Lecture 18 Origin of Bony Fish, Early Actinopterygians
Benjamin Burger - 4:06 minutes

Lecture 19 The Evolution of Fish Jaws and Fish Tails
Benjamin Burger - 3:09 minutes

Lecture 20 The Difference between Lung Fish and Coelacanths
Benjamin Burger - 5:32 minutes

Lecture 21 How Vertebrates Conquered the Land
Benjamin Burger - 12:28 minutes

Lecture 22 The First Tetrapods
Benjamin Burger - 9:31 minutes

Lecture 23 Early Amphibians of the Paleozoic
Benjamin Burger - 14:07 minutes

Lecture 24 Its all in the Backbone, Vertebra in Early Tetrapods
Benjamin Burger - 5:34 minutes

Lecture 25 Jaw Muscles in Early Tetrapods and Amphibians
Benjamin Burger - 2:26 minutes

Lecture 26 The Origin of Frogs and Salamanders
Benjamin Burger - 17:14 minutes

Lecture 27 The Reptile Skull
Benjamin Burger - 8:25 minutes

Lecture 28 The Reptile Skeleton
Benjamin Burger - 3:16 minutes

Lecture 29 The Origin of the Extraordinary Egg
Benjamin Burger - 4:10 minutes

Lecture 30 Holes in the Skull: Temporal Fenestrae Patterns
Benjamin Burger - 2:42 minutes

Lecture 31 Who are the Early Anapsid Reptiles?
Benjamin Burger - 9:17 minutes

Lecture 32 Who are the Early Diapsid Reptiles?
Benjamin Burger - 4:47 minutes

Lecture 33 Who are the Early Synapsid Reptiles?
Benjamin Burger - 17:57 minutes

Lecture 33a A Closer Look at Dicynodonts
Benjamin Burger - 17:57 minutes

Lecture 35 Key Traits of Archosauromorpha: A new group of Diapsid Reptiles
Benjamin Burger - 8:29 minutes

Lecture 36 Breathing in Archosauromorphs
Benjamin Burger - 6:51 minutes

Lecture 37 Triassic Archosauromorphs
Benjamin Burger - 6:56 minutes

Lecture 38 Ankle Bones: Crurotarsi vs. Avemetatarsalia
Benjamin Burger - 4:30 minutes

Lecture 39 Curotarsians of the Triassic and Beyond
Benjamin Burger - 6:59 minutes

Lecture 40 Triassic Marine Reptiles
Benjamin Burger - 7:32 minutes

Lecture 41 How Triassic Reptiles Became Fast
Benjamin Burger - 5:07 minutes

Lecture 42 Where did the Dinosaurs come from?
Benjamin Burger - 6:20 minutes

Lecture 43 Prehistoric Sharks
Benjamin Burger - 9:33 minutes

Lecture 44 How Sharks Conquered the Oceans
Benjamin Burger - 5:17 minutes

Lecture 45 The Radiation of Ray-Fin Fish and the Skulls of Mimipiscis and Amia
Benjamin Burger - 10:28 minutes

Lecture 46 Fossil Fish Scales
Benjamin Burger - 3:02 minutes

Lecture 47 The Great Feeding Innovation in Fish
Benjamin Burger - 5:50 minutes

Lecture 48 The Modern Fish: Neopterygii and the Arrival of the Teleostei
Benjamin Burger - 8:48 minutes

Lecture 48a The Fossil Record of Trout
Benjamin Burger - 10:04 minutes

Lecture 49 Saurischian vs. Ornithischian Dinosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 7:20 minutes

Lecture 49a- A New Dinosaur Tree?
Benjamin Burger - 13:16 minutes

Lecture 50 Overview of Saurischian Dinosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 5:31 minutes

Lecture 50a How Tyrannosaurus rex became king of the dinosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 37:36 minutes

Lecture 50b Zophia’s Monster: Deinocheirus
Benjamin Burger - 15:56 minutes

Lecture 51 Overview of Ornithischian Dinosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 10:00 minutes

Lecture 51a The Story of Stegosaurus
Benjamin Burger - 31:12 minutes

Lecture 52 Thermoregulation in Dinosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 7:58 minutes

Lecture 53 Feathered Dinosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 4:27 minutes

Lecture 54 Pterosaurs Prehistoric Dragons
Benjamin Burger - 13:15 minutes

Lecture 54a Anahanguera Brazil's Pterosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 12:31 minutes

Lecture 55 The Origin of Turtles
Benjamin Burger - 10:06 minutes

Lecture 55a A new fossil in the origin of turtle debate
Benjamin Burger - 10:00 minutes

Lecture 56 The Turtles: Pleurodires vs. Cryptodires
Benjamin Burger - 2:33 minutes

Lecture 57 The Fossil Record of Lizards
Benjamin Burger - 6:48 minutes

Lecture 58 The Origin of Snakes
Benjamin Burger - 6:31 minutes

Lecture 59 Mosasaurs, Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs
Benjamin Burger - 4:08 minutes

Lecture 60 The Skeleton of Archaeopteryx
Benjamin Burger - 5:49 minutes

Lecture 61 The Origin of Flight in Birds
Benjamin Burger - 3:46 minutes

Lecture 62 Mesozoic Birds
Benjamin Burger - 6:35 minutes

Lecture 63 How did Birds Survive the K-T Extinction?
Benjamin Burger - 4:19 minutes

Lecture 64 The Fossil Record of Cenozoic Birds
Benjamin Burger - 13:39 minutes

Lecture 64a Fossil Turkeys!
Benjamin Burger - 11:16 minutes

Lecture 65 Cynodonts: Between Reptile and Mammal
Benjamin Burger - 8:41 minutes

Lecture 65a Baby Kayentatherium
Benjamin Burger - 9:29 minutes

Lecture 66 Evolution of the Mammal Ear
Benjamin Burger - 4:26 minutes

Lecture 67 The Origin of Chewing in Mammals
Benjamin Burger - 2:59 minutes

Lecture 68 Morganucodon: The First True Mammal?
Benjamin Burger - 3:26 minutes

Lecture 69 The Fossil Record of Multituberculates and Monotremes
Benjamin Burger - 11:51 minutes

Lecture 70 The Tribosphenic Molar
Benjamin Burger - 5:37 minutes

Lecture 71 Why are there so many Marsupials in Australia?
Benjamin Burger - 3:31 minutes

Lecture 71a Have you ever heard of Taeniodonts?
Benjamin Burger - 10:04 minutes

Lecture 72 What is an Afrothere?
Benjamin Burger - 10:11 minutes

Lecture 73 Mastodons and Mammoths
Benjamin Burger - 9:48 minutes

Lecture 74 The Mystery of Bat Origins
Benjamin Burger - 12:15 minutes

Lecture 75 The Evolution of Shrews and Moles
Benjamin Burger - 4:32 minutes

Lecture 76 The Evolution of Rodent Jaws
Benjamin Burger - 7:46 minutes

Lecture 76a The Fossil Record of Hamsters
Benjamin Burger - 24:50 minutes

Lecture 77 How to Distinguish the astragulus bone of perissodactyls and artiodactyls.
Benjamin Burger - 10:48 minutes

Lecture 77a Hyopsodus: Why Common Fossils are Important
Benjamin Burger - 18:02 minutes

Lecture 78 Fossils and the Origin of Whales and Dolphins
Benjamin Burger - 10:15 minutes

Lecture 78a - What is Andrewsarchus?
Benjamin Burger - 11:48 minutes

Lecture 79 Extinct and Living Perissodactyla
Benjamin Burger - 10:37 minutes

Lecture 80 Meat Eating Mammals: Creodonts and Carnivores
Benjamin Burger - 13:44 minutes

Lecture 80a Hyainailouroidea Creodonts: a post-Eocene group
Benjamin Burger - 11:16 minutes

Lecture 80b: Fossil Record of Dogs, Foxes and Wolves
Benjamin Burger - 14:58 minutes

Lecture 81 Who Killed the Mega Mammals?
Benjamin Burger - 20:21 minutes

Lecture 81a What Killed the Mega Mammals? Update!
Benjamin Burger - 14:40 minutes

Lecture 82 The First Primates
Benjamin Burger - 9:15 minutes

Lecture 83 Primate Noses: Fossil Strepsirrihini and Haplorhini
Benjamin Burger - 6:56 minutes

Lecture 84 Why are there so Many Lemurs in Madagascar?
Benjamin Burger - 4:28 minutes

Lecture 85 The First Monkeys
Benjamin Burger - 11:28 minutes

Lecture 85a Rooneyia: An enigmatic fossil primate from Texas.
Benjamin Burger - 13:55 minutes

Lecture 86 Fossil Apes
Benjamin Burger - 6:52 minutes

Lecture 87 Ardipithecus and the Origin of Bipedial Walking in Humans
Benjamin Burger - 8:42 minutes

Lecture 88 Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Homo
Benjamin Burger - 7:58 minutes

Benjamin Burger - 11:07 minutes

Professor Burger is adding new videos regularly so this will soon be out of date - compiled July 29, 2019
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I wrote Professor Burger letting him know about this blog post and received a nice letter from him.  Besides some interesting background, he pointed out his other video collections, which I was aware of but didn't have the time to do justice, so skipped over.  Here's those links for the curious.

I have about 250 videos on my YouTube channel, broken into various playlists:


Vertebrate Paleontology lectures with 107 videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9o6KRlci4eBBreHKyuGwHSwhmSfpxwqv

Natural History of Dinosaurs lectures with 66 videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9o6KRlci4eCDwPnLQWdXkL4CFl4dFcQ9

Invertebrate Paleontology and Paleobotany lectures with 38 videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9o6KRlci4eAyElYru4zsTRJDZQqz37fF

And my earliest videos on fossil mammals, Bestiapilosus which was my first experimentation of uploading videos onto YouTube, with 17 videos. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9o6KRlci4eBJ23kONGcowTemQowqe2az

...

I have two videos that might be more your style (lots of maps and visuals), which are sample lectures for my Advanced Stratigraphy class. I posted them way back in 2013, using a video capturing tool and PowerPoint.

Lecture: Paradox Lecture GEO 6400 Advance Stratigraphy


GEO 6400 Lecture on Uinta Basin


These lectures are more for professional geologists, particularly interested in oil and gas extraction in the two major petroleum plays in Utah, the Uinta Basin and Paradox Basin, they are a little dry and too serious for popular consumption, but maybe of interest for someone with a more detailed geology background. ...

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