Dr. Gale Bishop, a North Dakota native and professor emeritus from Georgia Southern University, will present a special lecture titled “Two Thousand Sunrises — Ten Thousand Surprises! The Return of Sea Turtles to North Dakota After 75 Million Years,” on Thursday from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in Hartnett Hall, Room 106, at Minot State University.

“Dr. Bishop connects geology with marine biology and conservation of sea turtles to tell a story of important paleontological discoveries,” said Nikita Neyschtadt, president of the Association of Undergraduate Geologists in Industry, Technology and Education (A.U.G.I.T.E.). “We are excited to sponsor Dr. Bishop’s talk, and we think it will be of interest to anyone with an interest in geology, paleontology or marine biology.”

Bishop’s talk, partly a retrospective of an eventful life as a geologist, paleontologist and educator and partly anticipating possible new discoveries, will journey back through 110 million years of geological history, to the time when dinosaurs and crocodiles watched as sea turtles nested on ancient beaches.

Bishop was born in Jamestown and has now returned to his roots, moving to Minot in August. Among his achievements, the St. Catherine’s Island Sea Turtle Conservation Program was founded by Bishop in 1990 with co-founder and K-12 educator Nancy Marsh. From 1991 to 2016, the program’s interns tended 3,613 loggerhead sea turtle nests, producing 217,546 hatchlings that reached the ocean. Grounded in hands-on learning, the program involved more than 100 undergraduate college students from several states, trained 275 K-16 teachers as sea turtle interns, and through those teacher interns, reached about 325,000 K-12 students with science-based conservation outreach.

Bishop’s work with modern sea turtle nests on the heavy-mineral sand beaches of Georgia and his familiarity with the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway, which once covered what is now North Dakota, came together when he recognized the first known fossil sea turtle nest on the paleoshore of the Cretaceous seaway in Colorado. Since then, he has worked with collaborators in Croatia on the discovery of the oldest known sea turtle rookery, containing 39 nests and dinosaur tracks.

“I’m delighted to be bringing my fascination with sea turtles full circle, back to my roots in the Dakotas,” Bishop said. “The themes of geology, paleontology, conservation, marine biology and authentic hands-on education intersect in a way in which each complements the others. The prospect of looking for more fossil sea turtle nests in North Dakota is the icing on the cake.”

Bishop grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and earned bachelor’s (1965) and master’s (1967) degrees from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, then earned his Ph.D. (1971) in geology with a dissertation on the Cretaceous fossil crabs of South Dakota at the University of Texas at Austin. He taught at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, for 28 years, served as the founding director of the Georgia Southern Museum, has published more than 115 scientific papers and won 99 competitive grants with an aggregate value of more than $2 million.