Iowa lawmakers: After 500 million years, crinoid fossils deserve recognition

The Eastern goldfinch is Iowa's state bird, and the wild rose is the state flower. Iowa's official rock is the geode, and the oak is the state tree.

Now a group of seven Democrats in the Iowa Senate is stepping forward with a new proposal. They want to recognize the fossils of crinoids, which are marine invertebrates abundant in the rock of marine origin underlying the state, as the state's official fossil.

The lawmakers, led by Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, have introduced Senate Joint Resolution 2001, which they believe would pay proper homage to the role of crinoids in the geological and paleontological history of Iowa. Bolkcom said he was approached by some of the state's leading geologists in Iowa City to pursue the measure.

The crinoid, also referred to as the sea lily, has survived about 500 million years of Earth history, according to the resolution, and the crinoids skeletal fragments make up a significant portion of Iowa's limestone deposits. This limestone is used for road base, as agricultural lime, as building stone, and as a component in concrete.

"This bill won't cost us a dime," Bolkcom said. "And I hope it will recognize the important of crinoids in the state's development. You know, when you think about all the building materials in the state's development, we couldn't do without the crinoid."

Sen. William Dotzler, D-Waterloo, who has a degree in biology, is a co-sponsor of the measure. He talked enthusiastically about the significance of crinoids in Iowa's ancient history.

"I think we need to have a state fossil because of the education that would go along with it," Dotzler said. "We teach about our state geode and state oak tree and state flower and bird. I think it's important to understand the amazing amounts of true climate change that have occurred over the eons, and it's really something that interests young people."

The resolution says there are significant deposits of crinoids in the cities of Burlington, Le Grand, and Gilmore City. In fact, some paleontologists have referred to Burlington as the "crinoid capital of the world."

In addition, the resolution says crinoids have brought recognition to the state, including the work of Charles Wachsmuth, a German immigrant in Burlington who researched crinoids in the 1800s and received an appointment to the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. Another was Frank Springer, a Burlington attorney and colleague of Wachsmuth who has a room named after him at the Smithsonian Institution.

Yet another was Bernice Bean, a farmer near Le Grand who died in 1966, who saved thousands of perfectly formed crinoids from destruction, providing universities and museums across the country with specimens.

In Iowa City, the University of Iowa's Paleontology Repository is a research collection of more than one million fossils from all over the world, and from all geological time periods, according to Tiffany Adrain, the repository's collection manager. Crinoid fossils make up a large part of the collection, she added.

"The collection is held in trust for the State of Iowa and has its origins in the Cabinet of Natural History that was created by an Act of Iowa Legislature in 1855," Adrain said. She also noted that the State Historical Museum in Des Moines is home to "some spectacular crinoid fossils."

Besides Bolkcom and Dotzler, other Democrats sponsoring the resolution include Nate Boulton of Des Moines, Robert Dvorsky of Coralville, Rich Taylor of Mount Pleasant, Kevin Kinney of Oxford, and Chaz Allen of Newton.

Bolkcom said he is hopeful the crinoid resolution will win approval in the Iowa Legislature. But based on other past lobbying initiatives for state recognition — including the failure of the regal fritillary to win approval in 2015 as Iowa's official butterfly — the crinoid fossil faces an uphill battle.

"This is one of those things where advocates need to come and make their case," Bolkcom said. "There is really a lot of good information about the crinoid there."