(Laser Design Inc.: Minneapolis) -- The National Park Service’s Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument in Idaho contains the largest concentration of Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens) fossils in North America. It is nationally and internationally significant for its world-class paleontological resources that include the world’s richest fossil deposits, in terms of quality, quantity, and diversity, from the late Pliocene epoch. Many of its fossils represent the last vestiges of species that existed before the last Ice Age, the Pleistocene, and the earliest modern flora and fauna.

The National Park Service paleontologists at the Fossil Beds were curious about the technology of 3-D scanning but had never used it in their research. They were interested in finding out more about its educational applications and how their research could benefit from its use. Fortuitously, while attending a conference, one of the paleontologists experienced 3-D scanning firsthand because Laser Design Inc. and GKS Services Corp. were performing demonstrations of 3-D scans. That paleontologist had brought along a 3-million-year-old horse skull and was able to have GKS scan the skull with the portable Laser Design Surveyor FA system.

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