If, as Emerson said, “the health of the eye demands a horizon,” Big Bend National Park is the ultimate tonic for the eyes. Visitors are awed by expansive desert-mountain vistas.

The story that landscape tells about the history of life is equally vast. Big Bend's fossil record is unparalleled among national parks. With more than 1,200 species, it's a nearly uninterrupted record of 130 million years of evolutionary history.

It includes charismatic “stars” of the dinosaur age – tyrannosaurus, alamosaurus, quetzalcoatlus. But at multiple sites, Big Bend's rugged topography preserves a line, a layer of rock, where such fossils cease. In this feature of the West Texas landscape, ... Hosted by for KRTS