[1] Some of Lyson's research interests are focused around his field work in the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of southwestern North Dakota.
He is currently working on two sites from this area: a large population of baenid turtles from a single locality and an exceptionally well-preserved hadrosaur dinosaur.
He is also the co-founder with Harold Hanks of the Marmarth Research Foundation, located in his hometown, which provides volunteers with hands-on field and laboratory work on fossils.
The specimen mammal palate was found above the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary at Corral Bluffs, Colorado, indicating it followed the extinction of the dinosaurs, and was embedded in a concretion.
Lyson and his colleagues decided to hunt for fossils embedded in concretions, and made unprecedented finds documenting the rise and early evolution of mammals.