Kirk Johnson, Curator of Paleontolgy and Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, holds an Ammonite, or a marine fossil that is a relative of the octopus. It dates back 70 million years and was discovered by a m

Kirk Johnson, Curator of Paleontolgy and Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, holds an Ammonite, or a marine fossil that is a relative of the octopus. It dates back 70 million years and was discovered by a man in Colorado Springs in 1994 when he was digging a Bar-B-Que pit in his backyard. Fossils are abundant in the Rocky Mountain region and date back millions and millions of years. (Photo By Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images)