Corbin Bullard didn't know exactly what he'd found while on a field trip with his 4-H Geology Club, "but I knew that it was something big." Corbin, who was 11 at the time and in sixth grade, had stumbled across six or seven vertebrae, and they looked large.

Several months and three excavation trips later, Corbin and his fellow Geology Club enthusiasts had unearthed a 15-foot-long ancient marine reptile that swam over Kansas some 85 million years ago.

Big picture view: Corbin, of Clearwater, Kansas, is a member of the Sedgwick County 4-H Geology Club.