Southern Colorado is the home to yet another site recognized for efforts to preserve the night sky.
The Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument now joins Mesa Verde and the Great Sand Dunes as a certified International Dark Sky Park.
Jeff Wolin with the National Park Service says the designation highlights the scenery at the park, both high and low.
"The main fossils that people can see are some of the biggest petrified tree stumps on the earth, and so we like to talk about 'stumps and stars' because there's both," Wolin said.
Volunteers played a large part in the three-year effort to earn the certification. Wolin said that included members of the Colorado Springs Astronomical Society. The group helped host programs on-site about the stars and spent time measuring the darkness of the night sky, as well as making changes to reduce light pollution.