tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88971538769739640632024-03-25T09:58:25.831-04:00The Great Cretaceous WalkAdventures and Misadventures of an American Paleontologist in AustraliaAnthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-44720365008769929332011-09-30T15:46:00.000-04:002011-09-30T15:46:07.054-04:00The Great Cretaceous Walk Takes a Rest<div style="line-height: 18px;">
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About six weeks ago, I shared the happy news of our <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/discovering-dinosaur-tracks-of.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">discovering dinosaur tracks at Milanesia Beach, Victoria</b></a>, which turned out to be the largest collection of polar
dinosaur tracks known in the Southern Hemisphere. Those tracks were found during
the month-long excursion (May-June 2010) along the Victoria coast that inspired
the start of this blog. And although we found heaps more trace fossils, the
tracks constituted out most important scientific find. So even though we have a
but more science to do, this is as good of a time as any with this blog to say,
“Catch you later” and make a transition both geographical and temporal.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1J81MLITlnU60Mwav4zQMVlLHEx_zC_yLkyaxserIsJIzBUfUpzUiwSL8H91FPcFveXqtUHg_-qL5NbjbuREYkXUYkt2ermMKLRjFtdagtRuRwGp9L2wP-Xt1B2Y4R8yXc9P6ck-5yk8/s1600/Great-Cretaceous-Rest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1J81MLITlnU60Mwav4zQMVlLHEx_zC_yLkyaxserIsJIzBUfUpzUiwSL8H91FPcFveXqtUHg_-qL5NbjbuREYkXUYkt2ermMKLRjFtdagtRuRwGp9L2wP-Xt1B2Y4R8yXc9P6ck-5yk8/s320/Great-Cretaceous-Rest.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Cretaceous Walk</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
has been very, very good to me. But it’s time to take a pause in all of the
walking and talking about the Cretaceous of Australia, and look closer to home (Georgia)
and at this time in the present (otherwise known as “now”). Photo by Tom Rich, and taken on
May 28, 2011 (Day 2) of our month-long field survey of the Cretaceous trace
fossils of Victoria.</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<a name='more'></a><i> </i>As loyal readers probably know, I live most of the year in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_%28U.S._state%29"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Georgia</b></a> (the one in the USA, not the
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_%28country%29"><b>"other" Georgia</b></a>), and have been here
for about 25 years. But ever since 2006, when my wife <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ruth</b></a> and I lived for 3-4 months in <a href="http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/AboutMelbourne/Pages/Default.aspx"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Melbourne, Victoria</b></a>, I’ve been back to Australia almost every year,
normally staying for 4-8 weeks each time. Most of those visits have involved
going to Victoria for paleontology or <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/07/cruising-cretaceous-of-queensland.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">teaching Emory University students in Queensland</b></a>, but Ruth and I have also managed to visit every
state and territory in Australia, with all-too-brief glimpses of Cretaceous
rocks and fossils in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Queensland</b></a> and <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/06/dinosaur-tracks-of-western-australia.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Western Australia</b></a>. To be sure, we adore
Australia and its fascinating natural history, and it now feels like our adopted
home.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBr6CyDnJfHxlMQ660sV3eGjXFivDWsgYxZmx1cg_0PbLZV0cS_WMXfTgMgdgs7u7OLxldgKgqmESTSg0IJDLtEIz_2SPvCZmiNkTrcng-3m896wYd4GuBDObIQnrpG4YOBHddQhPrtGk0/s1600/australia11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBr6CyDnJfHxlMQ660sV3eGjXFivDWsgYxZmx1cg_0PbLZV0cS_WMXfTgMgdgs7u7OLxldgKgqmESTSg0IJDLtEIz_2SPvCZmiNkTrcng-3m896wYd4GuBDObIQnrpG4YOBHddQhPrtGk0/s320/australia11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Ruth and me, at the end of a typical day of paleontological field work in Australia. Well, OK, I'll admit the truth: neither one of us had a horse. Photo from <a href="http://cutprintreview.com/reviews/3-12-stars/australia-review/"><b>cutprintreview.com</b></a>.</i></div>
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Part of this blog, then, has been a big, juicy, love letter
written to Australia. Granted, loving Australia <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE0pwJ5PMDg"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">is easy ‘cause it’s beautiful</b></a>, given<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>its fantastic Cretaceous rocks, natural scenery, geologic history,
body fossils, trace fossils, people, and (of course) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esrNyIg_SMI"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">good beer</b></a>. But as often happens with long-distance relationships,
it’s lately been superseded by what’s closer to home.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5bjMHcXa1gxl4Fhpl0cShea2N_FjLpnIjJJaLOgt6eAUdJm0SQ3aEQvJOEzKlW7L1Q9yF3XlpMI3WkksVPYnrSoDWnvYYXsbrISvnq0qLfNJYRooc3ACBcuGN6KHYMHyvm6a91SLQu3of/s1600/Victoria-Coast-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5bjMHcXa1gxl4Fhpl0cShea2N_FjLpnIjJJaLOgt6eAUdJm0SQ3aEQvJOEzKlW7L1Q9yF3XlpMI3WkksVPYnrSoDWnvYYXsbrISvnq0qLfNJYRooc3ACBcuGN6KHYMHyvm6a91SLQu3of/s320/Victoria-Coast-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>I'm going to miss seeing tasty outcrops of Cretaceous rocks - like these - on the Victoria coast...</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy9MPGppBLSpLFW1GNK6iMZ6OXBJQoPc7luw5BJQzjql7ycL7BkvKiPZkheXXNkrAxKjRtfnwWrrzZbAl3-BXDT30JUo2HjPl7iFyyCfTJtQ0VA3fSWEiSlxNDMeA7fXh2ttCNIWLDcRDR/s1600/Victoria-Coast-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy9MPGppBLSpLFW1GNK6iMZ6OXBJQoPc7luw5BJQzjql7ycL7BkvKiPZkheXXNkrAxKjRtfnwWrrzZbAl3-BXDT30JUo2HjPl7iFyyCfTJtQ0VA3fSWEiSlxNDMeA7fXh2ttCNIWLDcRDR/s320/Victoria-Coast-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>...and gorgeous, dramatic vistas like this. I can't believe I almost got paid to do this.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTSOh-WBhwxO25rrlicvIygmSOGRsftwGSeRFM3WnU-rKlbkfrCp1a5780mdlGs8ekrr4NpStcPoOGiVaHSjsmSccpl4N414TXSFFrz1edFeXoYsIYDecwcaH8RvA6YxE_xZ8OWQrVOKlA/s1600/Walk-And-You-Die.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTSOh-WBhwxO25rrlicvIygmSOGRsftwGSeRFM3WnU-rKlbkfrCp1a5780mdlGs8ekrr4NpStcPoOGiVaHSjsmSccpl4N414TXSFFrz1edFeXoYsIYDecwcaH8RvA6YxE_xZ8OWQrVOKlA/s320/Walk-And-You-Die.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<i>But you know what I'll miss the most about doing field work on the Victoria coast? All of the signs warning me of my impending doom.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVdfP6h1Ib6hb1qZ-kTkvjXs2Og260oAdsu5szgRSk1sIt70Nng-yzkweowg9Yx4gKWt39IXBOPqZFKJCZX5CCn_N5fjCOzQ1flrjF9XYuoul3N0pD9dE9AWZGyz6HWav6DhHeeA9HhqGy/s1600/Rules-Must-Be-Followed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVdfP6h1Ib6hb1qZ-kTkvjXs2Og260oAdsu5szgRSk1sIt70Nng-yzkweowg9Yx4gKWt39IXBOPqZFKJCZX5CCn_N5fjCOzQ1flrjF9XYuoul3N0pD9dE9AWZGyz6HWav6DhHeeA9HhqGy/s320/Rules-Must-Be-Followed.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<i>Speaking of signs, I just want to point out that nobody, and I mean nobody, pays attention to following the rules more than Tom.</i></div>
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What could be so distracting that it would cause me to cast an
ichnological gaze elsewhere? Well, what many of you may not know is that while
writing <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Great Cretaceous Walk</b> –
which started in May 2009 – I was also writing a book about the modern traces
of plants and animals of the Georgia barrier islands.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg71zu317sdYOLz3mqll2sCZ_nxqzqoBex25fw3Zv4lgasTHYaxULDk5Byf2A8O6bFKCVQ4wqfRno4VATDNWSGvEXjxAKtYE4BkVDbT0ITAn8vwQHMHUnQu5CKwKU6uCU04fKSqF49-z9nz/s1600/SC-Island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg71zu317sdYOLz3mqll2sCZ_nxqzqoBex25fw3Zv4lgasTHYaxULDk5Byf2A8O6bFKCVQ4wqfRno4VATDNWSGvEXjxAKtYE4BkVDbT0ITAn8vwQHMHUnQu5CKwKU6uCU04fKSqF49-z9nz/s320/SC-Island.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This is one of the
brazen, shameless hussies keeping me from thinking about Australia: <b><a href="http://www.sherpaguides.com/georgia/coast/central_coast/st_catherines_island.html">St.Catherines (Island)</a></b>, Georgia (USA). Not to mention her sisters Sapelo,
Cumberland, Jekyll, Ossabaw, and Wassaw. How could any ichnologist resist their
siren calls to study their copious modern traces?</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6wXngbcWuNDMrDcuVJt_8AWl6SmG5hn0QOclEkLx3lHKtawznwOPhaITiqH5XOW1D85iEQdE6t-kWtZpzBfJ7Y7L3X-TD1w3EzigU1POoCgMjSXtf9-dgpqG0tUFgC80eagq3J_o8Dv_A/s1600/Victoria-Coast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6wXngbcWuNDMrDcuVJt_8AWl6SmG5hn0QOclEkLx3lHKtawznwOPhaITiqH5XOW1D85iEQdE6t-kWtZpzBfJ7Y7L3X-TD1w3EzigU1POoCgMjSXtf9-dgpqG0tUFgC80eagq3J_o8Dv_A/s320/Victoria-Coast.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Remember the saying, "Variety is the spice of life"? Compare and contrast the previous photo with this one, taken while doing field work on the Victoria coast, and you'll get a taste of the curry I've been experiencing the past few years from doing field work in both Australia and Georgia.</i></div>
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My book, titled <i><b><a href="http://www.georgialifetraces.com/">Life Traces of the Georgia Coast</a> </b></i>(Indiana University Press), is now in pre-production, meaning that it could
come out later this year, but more likely will be publicly available the first
half of 2012. It’s going to be a bloody big book, coming in at an estimated 600
pages long and with more than 130 figures, the latter consisting mostly of my photos and
illustrations. It will also have color plates depicting some of the
tracemakers, none of which are in Australia: alligators, armadillos, great
blue herons, vultures, moon snails, horseshoe crabs, and many more species
native to the southeastern U.S.<br />
<br />
Best of all for paleo-philes, though, this book
doesn’t just dwell in modern times, but looks at how these modern traces can be
compared to similar-looking trace fossils in the geologic record, helping us to
better interpret <a href="http://www.trilobites.info/feeding.htm"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">trilobite burrows</b></a>, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/07/cruising-cretaceous-of-queensland.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">dinosaur tracks</b></a>, and other such
vestiges of past life.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bXJYmq-yGZGLPCj_wefyckNgYwKHnWVwdhQaVmvQpUN3ZpgOFNavcJwDNPee_rR-ark563zbaENrqQSvAVFQDHPqTH1tE30N7xHDM6eseTeauQ9skNbNGiLYt2yo9mrVgeV_oCv6xliC/s1600/Heron-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bXJYmq-yGZGLPCj_wefyckNgYwKHnWVwdhQaVmvQpUN3ZpgOFNavcJwDNPee_rR-ark563zbaENrqQSvAVFQDHPqTH1tE30N7xHDM6eseTeauQ9skNbNGiLYt2yo9mrVgeV_oCv6xliC/s320/Heron-Tracks.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<i>Tracks of a great blue heron (</i>Ardea herodias<i>) in a beach sand on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, providing a nice analogue for thin-toed dinosaur tracks that might have been preserved in similar sandy deposits from the geologic past.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQXen37vunj5BoB1ayUiu1CyWSwIquIMopHhzG8r-1l9-d3l_e0mnVhIyaxYMjFowd0MmpTEeMAODN8vLZ65XbsN2ZH1V_aPcxqwNgRFs26cngvNeeyItik5iwP5q0QOnSDHrZknwgRv16/s1600/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQXen37vunj5BoB1ayUiu1CyWSwIquIMopHhzG8r-1l9-d3l_e0mnVhIyaxYMjFowd0MmpTEeMAODN8vLZ65XbsN2ZH1V_aPcxqwNgRFs26cngvNeeyItik5iwP5q0QOnSDHrZknwgRv16/s320/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Thin-toed theropod dinosaur tracks, preserved in former riverbank sands from 105 million years ago, at Milanesia Beach, Victoria (Australia). See what I mean about comparing modern and fossil traces?</i></div>
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Because of this book and its impending publication, I’ve
been shifting my creative energies away from the Cretaceous rocks of Australia
and more toward what is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jSp2xmmEE&ob=av3e"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">right here, right now</b></a> in Georgia. I even began another blog, lazily given the same title
as the book (<a href="http://www.georgialifetraces.com/blog/"><i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Life Traces of the Georgia Coast</b></i></a>). Thus for me to continue trying to write <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Great Cretaceous Walk</b> while also devoting thoughts, energy, and
words to a new blog that deals with subjects that are literally closer to home would
dilute both, pleasing no one.</div>
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<i>A map showing our route one day (June 10, 2010) along the Victoria coast near Apollo Bay, when I turned on my GPS unit at the start and turned it off at the end of the field day. Just look for the little blue dots, which recorded my position throughout the day. Yes indeed, that was a lot of walking, but it was worth it for all of those luscious trace fossils we saw along the way.</i><br />
<br />
But before saying “bye for now” on this blog, I thought it
would be best to talk about you, gentle reader. For example, of everything mentioned
here, what topics did you find the most interesting? Unlike a lot of other blogs
– such as those about funny cats, being a mommy in a first-world country, or
mommies in first-world countries who have funny cats (no, I’m not linking them)
– this one had two primary and connected goals: to educate <i>and</i> entertain.<br />
<br />
So I’ll
bet a lot of readers came to it with the expectation that they might become a
little more educated about the paleontology of Australia. But hopefully they
also found it happily humorous, or were surprised to see a science site suffused with a surfeit of surly suppositions, or an alarming amalgam of alliterations. (But never palindromes, unless you
find yourself in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenelg,_South_Australia"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Glenelg</b></a>. <a href="mailto:http://www.palindromelist.net/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In words, alas, drown I</b></a>.)</div>
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Anyway, as
of today – September 30 (Eastern U.S. time zone) – here are the top five posts,
based on your page views:</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1. </i></b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/clancy-matilda-and-banjo-australian.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clancy,
Matilda, and Banjo: Australian Dinosaurs, Living Large</i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2. </i></b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who
Made the Three-Toed Dinosaur Track?</i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></b></div>
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<b><i>3. </i></b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/02/diving-down-under-in-cretaceous-sea.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Diving
Down Under in the Cretaceous Sea</i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">4. </i></b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why
Dinosaur Tracks Matter</i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">5. <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/06/dinosaur-tracks-of-western-australia.html">The
Dinosaur Tracks of Western Australia May Go Extinct</a></i></b></div>
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Four of
those five posts had the ever-magical word “dinosaur” in the title, so it’s not
exactly shocking to discover these at or near the top of the chart. Which made
#3 (<b><i><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/02/diving-down-under-in-cretaceous-sea.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Diving
Down Under in the Cretaceous Sea</i></b></a></i></b>) all the more pleasing to see perform
so well. What’s really amazing is that it’s about <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-eat-rock-gastroliths-stomach-stones.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">gastroliths</b></a> (stomach stones) and their function in sea-dwelling Cretaceous
critters! (Granted, these were some pretty neat critters, too.)<br />
<br />
Similarly, the post that just
barely came in #6 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(</i><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/04/kronosaurus-king-or-queen-of-queensland.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kronosaurus<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">: The King (or Queen) of the Queensland Sea</i></b></a>) was also
gratifying, and I was glad to provide more public awareness about one of
Australia’s most spectacular - but underappreciated - marine predators of all time (also mentioned <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/the-frustrating-legacy-of-plasterosaurus/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">here</b></a> and <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/kronosar.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">here</b></a>).<br />
<br />
I also hope that my posting of #5 on the list (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/06/dinosaur-tracks-of-western-australia.html">The
Dinosaur Tracks of Western Australia May Go Extinct</a></i></b>) made a very small difference in decisions made about
bestowing <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/08/30/3305908.htm"><b>National Heritage status</b></a> to areas with dinosaur tracksites along the
coast of Western Australia. As I write this, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-29/dinosaur-footprints-found-near-planned-gas-plant/3035086"><b>paleontologists are surveying some of the tracksites there</b></a> to assess their
scientific value in light of proposed development along the coast.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir5tKQuPx3XXNoztYSiTjctmHTXuu9fAt5isGbFPuLBKp70ZSkbV0S5JMPqwIMxyFwN4L4QXF_ZiBx1yXIP7FL7M0NktgVaLP7hrbZtv4huiEb4AQEBx8jAYaVfdWuodWAfAxGJIHEapqK/s1600/Dinosaur-Cove-Tunnel-Site.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir5tKQuPx3XXNoztYSiTjctmHTXuu9fAt5isGbFPuLBKp70ZSkbV0S5JMPqwIMxyFwN4L4QXF_ZiBx1yXIP7FL7M0NktgVaLP7hrbZtv4huiEb4AQEBx8jAYaVfdWuodWAfAxGJIHEapqK/s320/Dinosaur-Cove-Tunnel-Site.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Just put the word "dinosaur" in something's name, and suddenly people start paying attention to it. You know, like<a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/history/dinosaur.html"> <b>Dinosaur Cove, Victoria</b></a>, where I'm pictured here with Ruth and Tom Rich. Photo by Greg Denney, <a href="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4605/rare-dinosaur-footprints-found-victoria"><b>one of the world's greatest dinosaur trackers</b></a>. (Hey, I'm just quoting.)</i><br />
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Something
else I was very pleased to see from reader statistics was how many people from a
wide range of countries were checking out the blog. For instance, here are the
top-ten nations represented by you, the readers:</div>
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<b>1. United
States</b></div>
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<b>2. Australia</b></div>
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<b>3. United
Kingdom</b></div>
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<b>4. Canada</b></div>
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<b>5. Germany</b></div>
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<b>6. Italy</b></div>
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<b>7. Russia</b></div>
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<b>8. France</b></div>
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<b>9. Brazil</b></div>
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<b>10. New
Zealand</b></div>
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Sure, I was
not surprised to see that a blog written by an American in passable American
English (with occasional forays into Australian <a href="http://goaustralia.about.com/cs/language/a/gday.htm"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Strine”</b></a>) would be read mostly by Americans, who also have the
decided advantage of a 300+ million population and an overabundance of
computers and free wireless connections.</div>
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Yet what was
most gladdening for me – and impressive – is how enthusiastically Australians
took to reading what this Yank had to say about their country and its fossils.
Despite Australia having only about 8% of the population of the U.S. and
not-so-free wireless (once causing me to even walk into a much-loathed <a href="http://www.theminesite.com/index.php/miningresources/index.php?option=com_definition&func=display&letter=M&Itemid=81&catid=87&page=1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Maccas</b></a> to avail myself of its complimentary
Internet connection) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">17% of all page
views</b> over the past year-and-a-half originated from <a href="http://www.zenashapter.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/australia-lights.jpg"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Australia</b></a>! That’s bloody marvelous, and makes me feel good about giving
something back to the wonderful people of Oz after you put up with me for so
many visits. Good on ya, mates!</div>
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But I was
also warmed to know that people in Uruguay, Qatar, Indonesia, Slovakia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, and many other countries set their eyes on my words and
photos. Thank you all, and I hope you learned something.</div>
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Will <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Great Cretaceous Walk </b>ever make a
comeback? Yes, but in two very different ways. More conventionally, I’ll still write
and publish an occasional post, especially if some really cool fossil
discoveries come out of the Cretaceous rocks of Australia. This is highly
likely, especially considering the exciting research continuing in the
Cretaceous of <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/dinosaur-hibernation-theory-debunked.htm"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Victoria</b></a>, <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Queensland</b></a>, and <a href="http://tracker.org.au/2011/09/experts-to-review-wa-dinosaur-footprints/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Western Australia</b></a>.</div>
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But the main
way you’ll again read about “Way Back Then Down Under” will be as a book,
probably with the following title and subtitle:</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Great Cretaceous Walk: Adventures and Misadventures of an American
Paleontologist in Australia</i></b></div>
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(Wait a minute, that
sounds familiar.)</div>
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Why write a
book? Well, thanks to this blog, much of it has already been written, so it’s
actually low-hanging fruit for someone who likes to write books. But rather
than simply recycling old posts – which would be deadly dull – a book presents
an exciting opportunity to give readers more details, more experiences, and more
stories about the Cretaceous worlds of Australia. I also expect that these
stories will be greatly improved through the loving attention of a good editor
and a little bit of peer review.<br />
<br />
For example, almost all of what you read in my
previous 50 posts was self-edited, which is not the best way to guarantee high-quality
work. I mean, in one post, I misspelled <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.kylie.com/">Kylie Minogue’s</a> </b>name, for crissake. (For that mistake alone, I should be flogged. Preferably by Kylie
herself.) My point is, for all of the blather and boasting the
techno-literati are making about the joys of self-publishing through the new <a href="http://www.idealog.com/blog/four-years-into-the-ebook-revolution-things-we-know-and-things-we-dont-know?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=four-years-into-the-ebook-revolution-things-we-know-and-things-we-dont-know"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“e-book revolution,”</b></a> there is no
substitute for professional guidance in improving a book and making it a more
satisfying experience for the author and readers.</div>
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Who will
publish <i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Great Cretaceous Walk</b></i>,
and when? I don’t know the answer to either question, as I’ll have to put
together a semi-coherent proposal, find a likely publisher, send the proposal, then
keep fingers, toes, and other appendages crossed while waiting to
find out whether it’s accepted (or not). If not the first time, then try, try
again.<br />
<br />
Regardless, I'm confident that it will get published some day, as the
stories of Australia past, made clearer through the fossils discovered today
and the people who find them, are just too beguiling to be ignored. Once the
book is published, even more of the world will walk with me as they learn about
the unique and fascinating Cretaceous lands, skies, and seas of Australia.</div>
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Until then, I
give you all an Aussie salute, ta muchly, and cheers.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja0HsPP_ekrBvlxsYtMaFExMHEJB0qk5ggGgqptYNCarZZtph61TrYKowUSS29UHNLyJb7sWhLIO5Ru_7G_JQMESxjKZzOs4nkyArdGS3nQc_lQ19Vtq8erxwP1s5VNM00Mm2dSeI3wRC9/s1600/Tracking-the-Cretaceous.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja0HsPP_ekrBvlxsYtMaFExMHEJB0qk5ggGgqptYNCarZZtph61TrYKowUSS29UHNLyJb7sWhLIO5Ru_7G_JQMESxjKZzOs4nkyArdGS3nQc_lQ19Vtq8erxwP1s5VNM00Mm2dSeI3wRC9/s320/Tracking-the-Cretaceous.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Paleontologists' tracks on a sandy beach of Victoria, heading to and from a Cretaceous outcrop, made during </i>The Great Cretaceous Walk<i> last year. Will these traces outlast the lives of the paleontologists? No, they were washed away with the next tide. But at least I took a picture.</i></div>
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<i>Hard to believe I hadn't yet linked to anything from one of the greatest "on the road" movies ever made in Australia, </i><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109045/"><b>Priscilla: Queen of the Desert</b></a>. </i><i><u>Spoiler</u>: Priscilla was the bus. And my last piece of advice for everyone? No more bloody <a href="http://www.abbasite.com/"><b>Abba</b></a>!</i><br />
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Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-87682450550027441012011-08-14T19:19:00.000-04:002011-08-14T19:19:58.956-04:00Discovering the Dinosaur Tracks of Milanesia Beach<div style="line-height: 18px;"><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>(In my <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/dinosaur-tracks-of-milanesia-beach-part.html"><b>previous entry</b></a>, I described the start of a day in the field – June 14, 2010 – at Milanesia Beach, Victoria (Australia), just hours before <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-research/sciences/staff/thomas-h-rich/"><b>Tom Rich</b></a>, Greg Denney and I discovered the largest assemblage of polar dinosaur tracks in the Southern Hemisphere. In that entry, I also pointed out how few dinosaur tracks had been documented in Victoria before then, which also meant very few polar dinosaur tracks had been found in the Southern Hemisphere. This background gave some context on why this find is a big deal, paleontologically speaking. So, would you like to want to learn how these tracks were discovered? Then read on.)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">As Tom Rich, Greg Denney, and I walked down Milanesia Beach the morning of June 14 2010, my thoughts were about the dearth of dinosaur tracks found thus far in Victoria, Australia. Geological research of these <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/cretaceous/cretaceous.html"><b>Cretaceous</b></a>-age rocks had been going on for <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/discovering-australias-tyrannosaurus-rex.htm"><b>more than 100 years</b></a>, and paleontological studies there had been particularly intense <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=19972"><b>during the past 30 years</b></a>. Yet during that time, only four definite dinosaur tracks had been discovered in all of the extensive Cretaceous outcrops of coastal Victoria. Moreover, all of these were individual prints, with no dinosaur trackways showing at least two sequential steps. The previous three weeks of field work Tom and I had done along the coast seemed to bear out this notion that dinosaur tracks were rare here, even scarcer than their bones.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nonetheless, I also tried to shake a premonition, experienced only a half hour after arriving at Milanesia Beach, that we might find dinosaur tracks there. Rest assured, this hunch was not inspired by séances, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija"><b>Ouija boards</b></a>, psychic-pet hotlines, or any other forms of necromancy. Instead, it was based on our seeing the physical sedimentary structures and small invertebrate trace fossils (burrows) that told me we were looking at the former deposits of river floodplains. These environments would have been perfect for preserving dinosaur tracks. Regardless, I reminded myself to just be a cold, clear-headed, objective scientist: you know, a pessimist.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4hnlPaQosKqAWGrAW-faYFz6B-kyf5I-41gzsHTDa-KfhaHKWv_ohfvPSZk69NjDiAyKijiBBge_hqxFXpBtq6Q7blNNOpB0XFemsAG3D87yPSSjNZ9M_Zmh4dGjFwCljOmoAo6xytfc/s1600/Milanesia-Theropod-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4hnlPaQosKqAWGrAW-faYFz6B-kyf5I-41gzsHTDa-KfhaHKWv_ohfvPSZk69NjDiAyKijiBBge_hqxFXpBtq6Q7blNNOpB0XFemsAG3D87yPSSjNZ9M_Zmh4dGjFwCljOmoAo6xytfc/s320/Milanesia-Theropod-Tracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>A few more of the dinosaur tracks of Milanesia Beach, Victoria (Australia). Three size categories were there: small, medium and large, all made by three-toed<b> <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html">theropod dinosaurs</a></b>. Greg Denney found the ones shown here, which he discovered by recognizing how this rock matched another one with dinosaur tracks that I had found just a few hours before. Please buy him an adult beverage next time you see him, slap him on the back, and say, “Good on ya, mate!”</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: large;">Just to dissipate these inward distractions, I decided to look intently at more of the small invertebrate burrows in the outcrop along Milanesia Beach. At this point, Greg abandoned me, and I didn’t blame him. He walked ahead to join Tom, who was already several hundred meters east of us, searching for bones, teeth, or other bodily remains of fossil vertebrates.</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, I took some more photographs and measurements of the burrows we had only found 20 minutes before. Once that was done, I ambled leisurely, scanning both the outcrop and large boulders strewn across the beach. While walking, I carefully picked where my feet landed, having learned the hard way that these rocks often had nearly invisible slippery surfaces caused by slimy algal overgrowths. I had already fallen a few times during more than a hundred kilometers of walking along the Victoria coast, and did not want to add another bruise, bump, or scrape to my three-week-old collection.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxX3N__hrUPSKJiOIs3ZXL3wABieWJ0cyfqgIFJi9B_pav7kTXXNT1NN5bRTShGuNcX-YiEcCdCMQpWDJTnfohm8QYB51WqK7kBQEIk8q4BaHe6O3zI53GcvcYtrMt9NBNPbJXyDQFhBsO/s1600/Slippery-Rocks-Milanesia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxX3N__hrUPSKJiOIs3ZXL3wABieWJ0cyfqgIFJi9B_pav7kTXXNT1NN5bRTShGuNcX-YiEcCdCMQpWDJTnfohm8QYB51WqK7kBQEIk8q4BaHe6O3zI53GcvcYtrMt9NBNPbJXyDQFhBsO/s320/Slippery-Rocks-Milanesia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_UYYPb-Gk"><b><i>Walk this way</i></b></a><i>, but be careful. The boulders of Milanesia Beach and other rocky shorelines of the Victoria coast, aided by their algal friends, can become hazardous when prospecting for fossils.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">To this day, I don’t know why, but one large, rectangular block of rock among dozens along the shoreline compelled me to stop and take a moment to stare at it. All I can imagine now is that this sensation stemmed from more than ten years of tracking animals in the sands and muds of the <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Barrier_islands_of_Georgia_%28U.S._state%29">Georgia barrier islands</a> </b>and other places in the world, a collective experience that led to a subliminal recognition of something real, something worth noticing on the periphery of my vision. I looked to my left, then down at the top surface of the boulder.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">There was a small, three-fold impression, looking vaguely like the middle three fingers of a human hand. It was close enough to touch, so I did. My own three middle digits molded to the indentations, confirming what my eyes had seen but not quite believed. It was a small dinosaur track.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">After a quick inhalation of breath and almost trembling, I dared to look at the rest of the rock, scanning from left to right. More patterns of three came into focus, one after another, each identified faster than the previous one. Within about 5-10 seconds, I realized the bumpy surface was loaded with dinosaur tracks. Instead of shouting “Eureka!” or some similarly noble and dignified sentiment, I whispered a much shorter synonym of the phrase, “<i>Hallowed excrement!</i>” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxMBY9m23PaawlM3W6AkeoQzYGB26xmGG_ThfSgPnssofuhNvqD3_hR7rECz002G-5NWzoa_JWYIEBB1htm8rWiP1X4FdGM1eOeHG_j3abre2lZHZpHRmvYNwr9vO1Td_ej9ivaehgoj8/s1600/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxMBY9m23PaawlM3W6AkeoQzYGB26xmGG_ThfSgPnssofuhNvqD3_hR7rECz002G-5NWzoa_JWYIEBB1htm8rWiP1X4FdGM1eOeHG_j3abre2lZHZpHRmvYNwr9vO1Td_ej9ivaehgoj8/s320/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgQBk7jkUFHdyrjaC6-wLHdm-4GRboTf7_e2fdWCpisumSTGfk1f32PIE3C5AE91xQg3tz42Nt8M44fwO4rIfwFY1HJUBcrZPakfGWkd3JoCvKJ4D3XJC3brSBSE2wMgFJ0Pk7fJoFOzs/s1600/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia-Enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgQBk7jkUFHdyrjaC6-wLHdm-4GRboTf7_e2fdWCpisumSTGfk1f32PIE3C5AE91xQg3tz42Nt8M44fwO4rIfwFY1HJUBcrZPakfGWkd3JoCvKJ4D3XJC3brSBSE2wMgFJ0Pk7fJoFOzs/s320/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia-Enhanced.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuJlkguKrJ29BfTZ4aqvb3UjIKlS7xWinCGwhthC2H27MkSMgvucjH37bD82I7wN9yWXANSCem47JkXgttZanzTt8ysubKjdRLetbA5mRLMj4S8-hxIGBu7pQy4tnvgpkTT27lNdJ153-A/s1600/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia-Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuJlkguKrJ29BfTZ4aqvb3UjIKlS7xWinCGwhthC2H27MkSMgvucjH37bD82I7wN9yWXANSCem47JkXgttZanzTt8ysubKjdRLetbA5mRLMj4S8-hxIGBu7pQy4tnvgpkTT27lNdJ153-A/s320/Dinosaur-Tracks-Milanesia-Map.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> The slab of rock that made me ready to buy a <a href="http://www.aussiepubs.com.au/talk/"><b>slab of beer</b> </a>to celebrate. It has at least 16 dinosaur tracks on it, although some are so shallow that you can’t see them very easily in the first photo (top), and at least two are only represented by paired clawmarks. With a little bit of digital enhancement, though, you can then see some of the fainter ones (middle image), and I later mapped track locations (bottom). That map is now a testable hypothesis, and potentially could be disproved or otherwise modified in the future by me or someone else. That’s science, folks.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of footprints – a chicken-sized one, only about 7 cm (2.8 in) long – was close to the edge of the slab. With my heart beating faster, I then did something I almost never do with modern tracks, which was to backtrack. I shifted my focus behind the track nearest me to see if any similar preceded it. Sure enough, there was another one of the same size, aligned with the previous one. Halted briefly by disbelief, I backtracked one more time. Another track was exactly where it should be, at a distance nearly identical to the space between the other two, although slightly off the line of travel. One, two, three steps in sequence, showing a slight rightward turn. A preserved motion from more than 100 million years ago, made by a small theropod dinosaur on a river floodplain during a polar summer. It the first known dinosaur trackway in all of southern Australia, and the first polar-dinosaur trackway from the Southern Hemisphere.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK33c-2vb-jRZJhtFGaiK0HFgNTUdnhUxaYAnL2mcrzf5_lDqd1ZPUal-FbBWwh80afr7Yim5mhDlyzhL4iyGhTpYSXtXcNs25RPgYoEY6xMOmVl9p6XD4aciLeycMo6tNJHBD5Poqbu6B/s1600/Dinosaur-Trackway-Milanesia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK33c-2vb-jRZJhtFGaiK0HFgNTUdnhUxaYAnL2mcrzf5_lDqd1ZPUal-FbBWwh80afr7Yim5mhDlyzhL4iyGhTpYSXtXcNs25RPgYoEY6xMOmVl9p6XD4aciLeycMo6tNJHBD5Poqbu6B/s320/Dinosaur-Trackway-Milanesia.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The first known dinosaur trackway from southern Australia, made by a <a href="http://www.australiablog.com/culture/favorite-australian-slang-chook.html"><b>chook</b></a>-sized theropod dinosaur, about 105 million years ago and probably during a polar summer. While walking, it decided to turn slightly to the right. At first I speculated it did this because it moved around an irregularity in its landscape caused by two overlapping dinosaur tracks on its right. That idea didn’t make it through peer review, though. Again, that’s science, folks. Scale = 13 cm (5 in) long.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">But there was no time to celebrate. I needed to get to work and do something that went beyond mere discovery. I looked more closely, and felt the rock surface to augment what my eyes told me. Following this, I began sketching what was there and marking locations of the tracks, using graph paper in my geological field notebook to make a scaled drawing that served as a “track map.” Unlike taking photographs, drawing forced me to look at the rock and its fossil tracks repeatedly, carefully, and critically, a time-honored observational technique I teach to my students. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">This method soon paid off, for within about 10 minutes, I found a few more tracks, subtle ones that either consisted of very faint toe impressions or were missing parts. For instance, two tracks were only evident as paired marks made by sharp claws from two toes. A quick, initial count yielded about 14 tracks, all showing three or fewer toes. The surface itself only had an area of about 0.7 m<sup>2</sup> (7.5 ft<sup>2</sup>), so it held a lot of information in a small space. This was a busy little piece of real estate during the Early Cretaceous.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">A small indulgence in 21<sup>st</sup> century technology that was necessary, though, was to use a handheld <a href="http://www8.garmin.com/aboutGPS/"><b>GPS unit</b></a> to determine the location of this rock. With this, it quickly determined the latitude-longitude coordinates of where I was standing. These were saved as a waypoint but also written in my notebook, just in case the GPS unit somehow ended up in the seawater that just happened to be crashing in waves behind me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">My staying in one spot for nearly 45 minutes and writing in a notebook provoked some curiosity in Greg, who left Tom and came back down the beach to see what was holding my attention. He was all smiles as he walked up to where I was seated, which was on another boulder in front of the track-bearing slab.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What’d you find?” he asked cheerfully.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I grinned back, gestured toward the slab surface, and said with a mixture of pride and awe, “Dinosaur tracks.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Greg’s jaw dropped, and he briefly looked like a <a href="http://alldownunder.com/australian-slang/dictionary-phrase-3.htm"><b>stunned mullet</b></a> as his eyes took in what was there. In silence, I thoroughly enjoyed watching him re-discover each dinosaur footprint, a wonderful moment to share with a field compatriot. Once he regained his voice, he exclaimed, “Wow, this is fantastic!” Yes, it was.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Putting my scientist hat back on (covering up the <a href="http://www.zazzle.com.au/paleontologist_hat-148247642099622248"><b>stylish paleontologist hat</b></a>), I then decided to test some of these preliminary results. I asked Greg, a non-paleontologist but a skilled observer, to point to everything he thought was a dinosaur track. Within a few minutes of studying the surface, he quickly identified nearly every one I had detected, with only a few misses. “Nice job!” I told him, and we then went over his test results, just like I would with any eager and talented student of mine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tom soon joined us. Like Greg, he also wondered what had held our interest so raptly, and he asked the same question: “What’d you find?” My reply to him, though, was slightly different, as I got a little professorial and answered his question with a question: “What do <i>you</i> think is there?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tom coolly looked at the rock surface, bringing to bear more than 40 years of paleontological experience, with more than 30 of those years spent studying the Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Victoria. A moment passed, then he pointed to the best-preserved dinosaur track, and said matter-of-factly, “Looks like a dinosaur track.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I smiled. “Yes, it is. See any others?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">One by one, he pointed to each track, and like Greg, found nearly every one I had identified. This was a great example of a little scientific principle called <a href="http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/%7Eacarpi/NSC/1-scimethod.htm"><b>repeatability</b></a>: that is, a scientist should be able have her or his results repeated independently by other scientists.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">But I wasn’t through with Tom, and asked him to take a close look at the little, chicken-sized track nearest me. “Anything special about it?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">That stumped Tom. “Help me out. What am I supposed to see?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Look behind it. See anything like it?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">He quickly put his finger on the small track preceding the one nearest me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Good. Anything behind that one?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“That one,” he said, putting his finger on another identically small-sized track.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I smiled again, something I was doing a lot of that day. “It’s a trackway,” I shared, letting understated brevity speak for its importance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">When that little bit of information sunk in, Tom allowed himself the indulgence of a very small, almost <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18019-mona-lisas-smile-a-mystery-no-more.html"><b>Mona Lisa</b></a>-like smile. I had already pointed out the trackway to Greg, but he kept silent as he enjoyably watched Tom go through much of the same interrogation he had just experienced. After all, it’s always better to watch someone else take a test than to take one yourself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So with this affirmation from my field partners spurring me on, I resumed with taking measurements and writing notes, then took some photographs. Greg helped with the data collection, acting as a scribe with my field notebook as I measured lengths, widths, and depths of the footprints with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliper"><b>digital calipers</b></a>. As we did this, I could tell Tom’s mind had gone somewhere other than gathering data about the dinosaur tracks. At some point, he asked to borrow my tape measure, and he immediately went about measuring the length, width, and thickness of the slab. He sat down, wrote in his notebook, and then revealed what he was thinking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Greg, do you think we could get a front-end loader down here to take this up?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was surprised by Tom’s question, but shouldn’t have been. As an <a href="http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/EducationalActivities/_archives/2010/12/19/4707174.html"><b>ichnologist</b></a>, I’ve never been much of a collector. My work normally consists of describing, measuring, and photographing trace fossils, recording their locality information, then bidding adieu, sometimes never seeing them again. After all, I don’t have a museum with storage space or research labs at my disposal, let alone collection managers and the means for collecting large, heavy rocks. On the other hand, Tom has all of these amenities available to him, along with a collecting permit. Why did he have a collecting permit? We were actually in <a href="http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=47"><b>Great Otway National Park</b></a>, which meant that no fossils could be taken without the written permission of the Australian government.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thus Tom had made a perfectly valid inquiry. He wasn’t planning to let this big hunk of rock stay here on Milanesia Beach, but instead was already plotting how to put it in Museum Victoria. His scribbling consisted of back-of-the-envelope calculations of the approximate length, width, and height measurements, which yielded volume, which was then multiplied by density of the rock – sandstone interbedded with siltstone, which was about 2.7 g/cc, or more than 2.5 times the density of water. This yielded an estimated weight of about 700 kg (1,500 lbs) for the rock in front of us.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Amazingly, nearly a year later, in early June 2011, Tom, with the help of <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/rich/index.html"><b>Pat Vickers-Rich</b></a>, their daughter Leaellyn Rich, Greg Denney, David Pickering (Museum Victoria), and personnel from Parks Victoria succeeded in carrying out his quixotic goal of transporting this block of rock with dinosaur tracks safely off the beach. It and the other block containing dinosaur tracks from the same site were then transported and deposited in Museum Victoria in Melbourne, where they are now stored for future reference and further study.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPU-tB59U1LUrckx1fhfZrWzhYrmAu_v8eMTmZUZjMIp0wYqQrpVuiy8bJPmZRcEWcoWG5u_AmlydSdMVu3D4zhXEMso-B9IAr0F9UjYe2hEICas5396CCBhV0jMVPV-1ruvU6R3R9-NGb/s1600/Tom-Measuring-Block.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPU-tB59U1LUrckx1fhfZrWzhYrmAu_v8eMTmZUZjMIp0wYqQrpVuiy8bJPmZRcEWcoWG5u_AmlydSdMVu3D4zhXEMso-B9IAr0F9UjYe2hEICas5396CCBhV0jMVPV-1ruvU6R3R9-NGb/s320/Tom-Measuring-Block.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Tom measuring the first block of dinosaur tracks on Milanesia Beach, plotting how to bring ‘em back alive, er, well, you know what I mean. Photo stolen brazenly from <b><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2010/12/otways-7-dec.html">Dinosaur Dreaming</a></b>. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TpMLuPWHTDA" width="560"></iframe></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>In this video (produced by <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/"><b>Museum Victoria</b></a>), Tom explains the scientific significance of the Milanesia Beach dinosaur tracks, although he’s giving this explanation from the relative comfort of a storage room at the museum in Melbourne. Watch further, and you’ll see both Tom and Greg helping with the recovery of both blocks containing the dinosaur tracks, which were put on a small front-loader and carried up the trail from the beach.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Oh, right. There was a second block of dinosaur tracks. Greg discovered that one. With that, he handily provided yet another reason why <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/fossil-collectors-and-academic.html"><b>academic paleontologists are extremely dependent on non-academic folks</b></a> to make significant contributions to our science. Greg’s discovery was also a lesson in hubris for me. I was so giddy (and more than a little prideful) about finding the first block, I didn’t bother to look around to see if any more like it were nearby.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Greg did. So while I was self-satisfyingly writing field notes about the tracks on the first block, and imagining future fame (perhaps even an appearance on <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/"><b>The Colbert Report</b></a>), he was looking at every nearby boulder. Suddenly, at some point he started acting like a <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>larrikin</b></a>, and ran around the beach looking for a piece of driftwood. Within a few seconds, he found a <a href="http://iplanttheseeds.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/2_by_4_clue_stick.jpg"><b>2” X 4” board</b></a> (you’d be surprised at what washes up on some of these beaches), and quickly placed one end under a boulder less than 2 m (6.5 ft) away from where I sat. Clearly inspired by <a href="http://www.math.nyu.edu/%7Ecrorres/Archimedes/Lever/LeverIntro.html"><b>Archimedes</b></a>, he started to flip the rock by using the board as a lever.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Greg, what are you doing?”, I asked, as Tom and I watched him with slightly alarmed curiosity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“This rock is the same as that one!” he shouted gleefully.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">As if watching a tennis match, Tom and I swiveled our heads back-and-forth between the slab with the dinosaur tracks and the one Greg was attempting to turn over. He was right: they matched perfectly, although this one was upside-down, with its uppermost surface hidden from view. Realizing that Greg had, indeed, not turned into a <a href="http://www.writing-for-children.com/AustralianWildlifeGalah.html"><b>galah</b></a>, we ran over to help, and got the block turned over.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">On its top surface were more dinosaur tracks. I pulled out a small brush from my field vest and cleaned off the distracting modern beach sand on its surface, and we then stared at the lithified sand from a 105-million year-old floodplain. Sure enough, some of this Cretaceous sand had been molded into the three-toed shapes of dinosaur feet. So only three hours beforehand, when we first descended onto Milanesia Beach, only two confirmed dinosaur tracks had been found in the Eumeralla Formation of western Victoria. Now we had 24. You could say we were having a good day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3nuk-EsMeOqcwKPCl9xUntYQW3hKhlP5aiAJiA-3kbp_q6plyiFf90BCGRBbKhkNBW9St1-D3A3NmrKy5Fd4EWM5i3RgRPgaNpfeHUnAazM9ERtmPUNHwduB8b__Ex6shsh-ak0S4FFq/s1600/Denney-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3nuk-EsMeOqcwKPCl9xUntYQW3hKhlP5aiAJiA-3kbp_q6plyiFf90BCGRBbKhkNBW9St1-D3A3NmrKy5Fd4EWM5i3RgRPgaNpfeHUnAazM9ERtmPUNHwduB8b__Ex6shsh-ak0S4FFq/s320/Denney-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The second block of dinosaur tracks from Milanesia Beach, minutes after Greg Denney discovered it. It has at least eight tracks on it, probably all of them from theropods, and its layering and rock types perfectly match those of the first block with dinosaur tracks I had found three hours before. With this slab, the number of dinosaur tracks discovered at Milanesia Beach went up about 50%, and our respect for Greg went up immeasurably.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVReWQILhbrFuTUj_-MrBt-T3_4EDhnL3Gt3tTqE-Ks4Ic9mxyDqWBB8gUxBj0cpnYRyrvNh0OG7_ai2RAEiUbZhEsv7mtPY56Gxvx-XG_nfh2ZRkRNLPP03820TaDNj-o8lGAqwendfpI/s1600/Flipping-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVReWQILhbrFuTUj_-MrBt-T3_4EDhnL3Gt3tTqE-Ks4Ic9mxyDqWBB8gUxBj0cpnYRyrvNh0OG7_ai2RAEiUbZhEsv7mtPY56Gxvx-XG_nfh2ZRkRNLPP03820TaDNj-o8lGAqwendfpI/s320/Flipping-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>About a week later, Greg Denney demonstrates how he found the second slab and its dinosaur tracks at Milanesia Beach by using a lever to move weighty rocks. Here he is assisted by my wife Ruth, who had just arrived in Australia a few days before (but looking completely unaffected by jet-lag).</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Greg’s method for finding the tracks was both simple and brilliant. He had noticed the thickness of the first block, its thinly interbedded sandstones and siltstones, and a gray siltstone a little more than halfway down its thickness, looking much like a different ingredient in an otherwise monochrome layer cake. He then glanced around to see if any other boulders shared those traits, and matched one of them with the one in front of me. Seeing that the gray siltstone bed was less than halfway down its thickness, he correctly surmised that it was wrong-side-up, and intuited that the dinosaur tracks could be on its top surface. He was right.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA-alpDozelZgyrzAmmUqLyKXqMG1pbRXdgGkipW9-QhAbXAbJRZUr5g-tAuqCZIrpv1YLOuvvbpNGp00qNQnONB0QiILRI9HUo2n0-jyEU4jERkFmUQzErBK_CPVY5qLiCej0hUoLEWuf/s1600/DInosaur-Slabs%2526Me-Milanesia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA-alpDozelZgyrzAmmUqLyKXqMG1pbRXdgGkipW9-QhAbXAbJRZUr5g-tAuqCZIrpv1YLOuvvbpNGp00qNQnONB0QiILRI9HUo2n0-jyEU4jERkFmUQzErBK_CPVY5qLiCej0hUoLEWuf/s320/DInosaur-Slabs%2526Me-Milanesia.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Photo of me studying the dinosaur tracks from the block I found on Milanesia Beach; the block Greg Denney found is in the foreground. Look for the gray band of siltstone in both blocks, which along with the little detail about dinosaur tracks being on their top surfaces shows they were originally part of the same bed. Photo by Ruth Schowalter, taken a week after the initial discovery</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Again, there was little time to celebrate, as it was now mid-afternoon on a near-winter day. This meant we were soon going to lose our sunlight, and we still had a long uphill hike ahead of us back to the car park. Tom quickly measured the second slab’s dimensions and figured out its weight. He reckoned it was about 400 kg, smaller than the first one, but still too massive for any (or all) of us to haul up the trail.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I hurriedly photographed the overall surface, conscious of how our light would soon disappear, and started sketching the forms and locations of the tracks on the surface. I also noted any similarities or differences between these newly found tracks and the ones found a few hours earlier. One of the last items on the agenda was to take a few video clips of me talking about the dinosaur tracks, which I knew later could be edited into a informative video. Looking at these clips later brought a smile to my face, because I was trying to be informative and objective, but also couldn't help but show how thrilled I was with what had happened.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aA78Flyl4jI" width="560"></iframe></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A short video that tells about the dinosaur-track discovery at Milanesia Beach that went out with the press release about the peer-reviewed article. The initial video footage was taken by Greg Denney the same afternoon he and I found the two slabs with their dinosaur tracks. That and other footage taken by me and Ruth Schowalter were then edited and produced by Carol Clark of <a href="http://www.emory.edu/"><b>Emory University</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Greg again assisted me in recording measurements, as I used the digital calipers to gather data on the dinosaur tracks from this second block (number of toes, length, width, depth, and so on), and he wrote down the numbers in my field notebook as I read them aloud. Only then did I take close-up photographs of individual tracks with a photo scale next to each, documenting their dimensions and other details.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Much later, back in the comfort of my office at Emory University in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta"><b>Atlanta,Georgia</b></a>, I re-measured the tracks from photographs to double-check these results, just in case I had misspoken or Greg had miswritten that afternoon. Because I did not know whether I would ever see these tracks again – notwithstanding Tom’s relentless plotting to acquire them – I was being extra careful about making sure the results could be repeated, checked by others, and otherwise pass peer review in the future.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">As the sunlight faded, we decided we had enough for now, and vowed to come back the next week to better assess the geological context of the tracks, study and photograph them once more, and figure out how to recover them from this high-energy, wave-filled place.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsb2C1RXCAAavzutvE8jfXhgsxP_sjYx-nuxM4TB3ByPfo_q864uvRegbZSIvYU4TkF-oiqOAqRC7PEKaaAMEqQ4reulKrg1T7PoFBXcW_ROMjyhzdvPGALpBb9rNMcJGIk2vMHwHghls/s1600/Goodbye-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsb2C1RXCAAavzutvE8jfXhgsxP_sjYx-nuxM4TB3ByPfo_q864uvRegbZSIvYU4TkF-oiqOAqRC7PEKaaAMEqQ4reulKrg1T7PoFBXcW_ROMjyhzdvPGALpBb9rNMcJGIk2vMHwHghls/s320/Goodbye-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Our tracks connecting with the dinosaur tracks of Milanesia Beach on the walk home at the end of the day, June 14, 2010.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Milanesia Beach had been very good to us that day, and as we all slogged up the steep trail, we were filled with smiles and excitement. The three of us did indeed come back the next week, along with geologist <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/hall/index.html"><b>Mike Hall</b></a> and my wife Ruth Schowalter. Once the tracks were relocated, I recorded more measurements and descriptions, while the others did a reconnaissance of the local geology.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">We knew that some more science had to be done before we could share our finds with the rest of the world, which was that peer-review thing scientists like to talk about. Nonetheless, we were confident that day would come.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sure enough, exactly one year later – on June 14, 2011 – my coauthors and I - Tom Rich, Pat Vickers-Rich, Mike Hall, and <a href="http://www.envs.emory.edu/faculty/prokopec.html"><b>Gonzalo-Vazquez Prokopec</b></a> - received the good news that our scientific article had been accepted for publication in the journal <a href="http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tALC"><b><i>Alcheringa</i></b></a>. Our peers had confirmed what we knew that day one year before: we had just discovered the best assemblage of polar dinosaur tracks in the Southern Hemisphere, the first dinosaur trackway from the southern part of Australia, and extended the geographic range of dinosaur finds in Victoria.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">And although these tracks were only a drop in the proverbial bucket when it comes to paleontological discoveries, they help to affirm the most important point about the fossil record: it gets better every day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">****************************************</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">(This entry is dedicated to the memory of my nephew, Thomas Schowalter, 1995-2011, who loved animals and nature. This story is for you.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">**************************************** </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Peer-Reviewed Article</u> </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Martin, A.J., Rich, T.H., Hall, M., Vickers-Rich, P., and Vazquez-Prokopec, G., 2011, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115518.2011.597564">A polar dinosaur-track assemblage from the Eumeralla Formation (Albian), Victoria, Australia</a>. <i>Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology</i>. DOI:10.1080/03115518.2011.597564</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>News Stories, Blog Links</u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
<a href="http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2011/08/polar-dinosaur-tracks-open-new-trail-to.html"><i>Escience Commons (Emory University):</i> Polar Dinosaur Tracks Open New Trail to the Past</a></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/about/mv-blog/aug-2011/first-victorian-dinosaur-trackway/"><i>Museum Victoria:</i> First Victorian Dinosaur Trackway</a> </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2024468/Over-20-toed-dinosaur-tracks-Australian-coast.html"><b><span style="font-size: large;"></span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><b><i>Dinosaur Dreaming:</i> Our Dinosaur Tracks</b></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4605/rare-dinosaur-footprints-found-victoria"><b><i>Cosmos Magazine:</i> Rare Dinosaur Footprints Found in Victoria</b></a></span><b><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><b><br />
</b></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><b><span style="font-size: large;"></span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2011/08/victorias-first-dinosaur-trackway/"><b><i>Smithsonian Magazine:</i> Victoria’s First Dinosaur Trackway</b></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/08/10/ciencia/1312976856.html"><i>El Mundo:</i> Hallan huellas de dinosaurios polares australiano</a></b></span><b><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><b><br />
</b></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-daily-reports-our-dinosaur.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/polar-dino-tracks/"><i>WIRED:</i> Huge Group of Polar Dinosaur Tracks Discovered in Australia</a></b></span><b><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i> </i></b></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/15507-ancient-polar-dinosaur-tracks-theropods.html"><b><i>Livescience.com:</i> Tiny Dinosaurs Left Footprints On Ancient South Pole</b></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2024468/Over-20-toed-dinosaur-tracks-Australian-coast.html"><i>Daily Mail (U.K.):</i> The Wonderful Lizards of Oz: Over 20 Three-Toed Dinosaur Tracks Found on Australian Coast</a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/polar-dinosaur-trackways-found-in-victoria.htm">Australian Geographic: Polar dinosaur trackways found inVictoria</a></b></span></div><b><span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2024468/Over-20-toed-dinosaur-tracks-Australian-coast.html"> </a></span></b><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></b></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-53479980702005563662011-08-09T10:30:00.000-04:002011-08-09T10:30:31.745-04:00The Dinosaur Tracks of Milanesia Beach: Part I<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 18px;"><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Because of the sparse and uneven record of dinosaurs in Australia, their fossil footprints are more valuable here than anywhere else on Earth.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>- </i>Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich, <i>A Century of Australian Dinosaurs</i> (2003).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Preamble</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dinosaur tracks are hard to find. This humbling realization struck me during the third week of a month-long field excursion in May-June 2010, while doing field work along the craggy coast of Victoria, Australia. Why was I there, engaging in such an apparently fruitless quest? Paleontologist <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-research/sciences/staff/thomas-h-rich/"><b>Tom Rich</b></a> of <b><a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/">Museum Victoria</a> </b>had invited me<b> </b>to look for trace fossils made by dinosaurs and other <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/cretaceous/cretaceous.html"><b>Cretaceous</b></a> animals that might be preserved in the rocks of Victoria. Yet as was often the case with looking for fossils of any kind, there were no guarantees of success. He and I had already searched more than a hundred kilometers of coastal cliffs and platforms east of <a href="http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ABOUTMELBOURNE/Pages/Default.aspx"><b>Melbourne</b></a>, and were then working our way through sites west of there.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zNva2rxxje-196ZZsWzqfsPo93JCgTCFBNR7lVC5dbKjLRZivU5kqCKBImTBy3B0SkewbkKpbJ8odC8xJrq8pPytuoRCom_puBibkFXy0bG8QYAjbi909hYsFkDx4CDjVoQVg7z6bhkO/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-Dinosaur-Tracks-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zNva2rxxje-196ZZsWzqfsPo93JCgTCFBNR7lVC5dbKjLRZivU5kqCKBImTBy3B0SkewbkKpbJ8odC8xJrq8pPytuoRCom_puBibkFXy0bG8QYAjbi909hYsFkDx4CDjVoQVg7z6bhkO/s320/Milanesia-Beach-Dinosaur-Tracks-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Here are four three-toed dinosaur track,s preserved on a block of sandstone at Milanesia Beach, Victoria (Australia). They’re faint, but there – look closely for all four. These tracks were probably made by small <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html"><b>theropods</b></a> on a river floodplain during a polar summer about 105 million years ago, when Australia was close to the South Pole. On June 14, 2010, I discovered the block that contained these tracks, and a few hours later, Greg Denney found another block with more tracks. This is a big deal, as they represent the greatest number of polar dinosaur tracks found in any one place in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s enough to make you want to do a <a href="http://www.nhlcyberfamily.org/special/happydance.htm"><b>happy dance</b></a>. Scale bar in photo (lower left) = 10 cm (4 in).</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So a bit of stubbornness underpinned our visit to Milanesia Beach, located in southwestern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_%28Australia%29"><b>Victoria, Australia</b></a>. Milanesia Beach is about a three-hour drive from the big city of Melbourne, but is a relatively isolated place. A testament to its relative inaccessibility is that, despite its possessing a beautiful beach, framed by dramatic seacliffs, the people who normally see it are not swimmers, surfers, or sunbathers, but hikers. Moreover, it is only a brief waypoint for these recreationalists as they otherwise enjoy the gorgeous scenery of one of the most famous walking routes in Australia, <a href="http://www.the-great-ocean-road.com/great-ocean-walk.html"><b>The Great Ocean Walk</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">On Monday, June 14, 2010, we were not visiting Milanesia Beach to hike and enjoy the bucolic countryside. Instead, Tom Rich, local guide Greg Denney (of nearby <b>Apollo Bay</b>) and I were there to look for fossils in that area that area dating back to about 105 million years ago. The landscape was certainly very different back then; it was a time when Australia was close to the South Pole, and dinosaurs walked across broad floodplains of rivers that coursed through its circumpolar valleys.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;">Milanesia Beach was a new place for me, and it might as well have been new for Tom, as he had not visited it in more than 20 years. His main reason for looking at its rocks was for fossil bones, especially those of dinosaurs or mammals. My purpose, however, was different. I am an <a href="http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/EducationalActivities/_archives/2010/12/19/4707174.html"><b>ichnologist</b></a>, and was there to look for <a href="http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/tracefossils/english/sections/whatare.html"><b>trace fossils</b></a>, vestiges of life that would most often consist of burrows and trails made by invertebrate animals, like insects, crustaceans, or worms. Tom had invited me to come to Victoria to fulfill this purpose, which was to find as many trace fossils as possible. If we were really lucky that day, though, these rocks might also reveal trace fossils of vertebrates, such as the burrows or tracks of mammals, dinosaurs, or other back-boned animals. Unfortunately, during the preceding three weeks of field work, I had only found a few invertebrate trace fossils and no vertebrate trace fossils. We seemed more than due for a big break.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">It was a fine day, denoted by crisp morning temperatures and overcast conditions, but with no signs of the antipodal winter thunderstorms – accompanied by rain, gusting winds, and powerful waves – that had kept us off the coastal outcrops for much of the previous week. Earlier that morning, Tom and I drove from where we were staying in Apollo Bay, picked up Greg at his home along the way, and parked our field vehicle near a trailhead, about 2 kilometers upslope from the beach. The walk down to the outcrops, punctuated by muddy, slippery patches, promised a vertically challenging slog later in the day, just when we would be most spent from our explorations below.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29JuLTtN1AHZDXbpEA6bZNUdrmkhS_M1q_RDWrs-lcW11RVAL1a_Jpbo7mYA8sT5nJkzb9LZAIc7IOamrSlWO54vq5eCh8hCANLiwcM7Rpafl30hx9Y5NUKxZjV5d4rrYsRISZZHhvQuQ/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-Trail-Sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29JuLTtN1AHZDXbpEA6bZNUdrmkhS_M1q_RDWrs-lcW11RVAL1a_Jpbo7mYA8sT5nJkzb9LZAIc7IOamrSlWO54vq5eCh8hCANLiwcM7Rpafl30hx9Y5NUKxZjV5d4rrYsRISZZHhvQuQ/s320/Milanesia-Beach-Trail-Sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The sign at the trailhead (top) along the Great Ocean Walk telling us the distance to Milanesia Beach. Annoyingly enough, it said absolutely nothing about uphills and downhills along the way. But we were gratified that none of us had brought along bicycles, dogs, cats, tents, fires, or any combination of those items.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKK9uFqlkVdRy7Wu25BISpH8p-oF32EwFTdZRBVUn_HSoBn7nI_HOeMC6dz7ysVRQyp3jnRp1dflOEkwgtSxI0AGGi_PRvYV8DWGDEikVUUs7MNESag8jLkhJ-_ZNd3S3IUN94e58OULdo/s1600/Milanesia-Beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKK9uFqlkVdRy7Wu25BISpH8p-oF32EwFTdZRBVUn_HSoBn7nI_HOeMC6dz7ysVRQyp3jnRp1dflOEkwgtSxI0AGGi_PRvYV8DWGDEikVUUs7MNESag8jLkhJ-_ZNd3S3IUN94e58OULdo/s320/Milanesia-Beach.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Within about 15 minutes down or up this trail, you get some great views, including this first glimpse of Milanesia Beach the morning of the dinosaur-track discovery. It’s a beautiful place with beautiful trace fossils. Now if only it had a pub at the trailhead, it’d be perfect.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Greg, who had joined us for our scouting rocks of the <b><a href="http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/landform_geomorphological_framework_3">Lower Cretaceous Eumeralla Formation</a> </b>composing the dramatic cliffs near Apollo Bay, had a long-standing relationship with Tom as a field assistant and friend. He had grown up in the area and had the good fortune of living next to one of the most famous dinosaur sites in Australia, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/return-to-dinosaur-cove.html"><b>Dinosaur Cove</b></a>. In the 1980s, Greg and his father (David Denney) assisted Tom, <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/rich/index.html"><b>Pat Vickers-Rich</b></a>, and a crew of volunteers with some of the most technically difficult conditions any dinosaur dig site should ever have to endure, detailed by Tom and Pat in the book <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=19972"><b><i>Dinosaurs of Darkness</i></b></a> (2000, Indiana University Press). In our more recent venture in June 2010, Greg had quickly proved a valuable asset in our field endeavors, suggesting roads and parking spots for our field vehicle, and advising on safe access points for outcrops via trails leading from wherever we parked.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw2yHRJf9F7l2yI9VEMHFsbcGuTwoiH6pLREmYL-8t7yDK1B1L3lb_iphuRr0L2auYuYN_nWGzUOHpzoTAg3A' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Here’s a brief interview I conducted with Greg Denney about his and his father’s (David Denney's) role in the recovery of dinosaurs at Dinosaur Cove. Fittingly, this interview was done at Dinosaur Cove, and the day before we discovered the dinosaur tracks at Milanesia Beach, only 9 km (5.5 mi) west of there.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Greg had also become my ichnological apprentice during our previous week together in the field, and was now quite good at spotting small fossil invertebrate burrows in Cretaceous outcrops. I would have liked to take credit for his rapid ichnological success because of my extraordinary teaching abilities, but (less delusionally) I instead chalked it up to his spending much of his life outdoors. After all, he had already trained his eyes to pick up small details in his natural surroundings, such as wallaby tracks, echidna dig marks, and kangaroo poo. These skills also had not been sullied by the constant distractions of “big-city life,” a challenge I face every day when not in the field and living at home in the metropolitan area of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta"><b>Atlanta, Georgia</b></a> (USA).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The 30-minute trip promised by the trailhead sign next to the parking area was surprisingly accurate, considering how carefully we placed our feet while walking down the steep, winding track. Toward the bottom of the trail, we also had to cross a small stream teeming with <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/leeches-little-bloody-marvels.htm"><b>freshwater leeches</b></a>. Other than these blood-sucking parasites, it was no big deal, and all three of us had been through far worse. At the bottom of the trail, we were greeted by an upside-down sign bearing the usual warnings about all of the potential forms of mayhem and death that awaited us if we proceeded.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsIYv_PINMBWOXeditV13IorshmhbJTc9oZxIEnvjXThWDKxFHkrc8TgzH7yXEWgtfQF3En2NBedcJnzBevIuLk3IjzLNFGNyOJ-WOrtfG6ZK_6AEl4bp8-m3fN2scJ3kEPgLvwlF8yKnK/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-Warnings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsIYv_PINMBWOXeditV13IorshmhbJTc9oZxIEnvjXThWDKxFHkrc8TgzH7yXEWgtfQF3En2NBedcJnzBevIuLk3IjzLNFGNyOJ-WOrtfG6ZK_6AEl4bp8-m3fN2scJ3kEPgLvwlF8yKnK/s320/Milanesia-Beach-Warnings.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>An upside-down trail sign at Milanesia Beach, which was either auspicious or cheeky, depending on perspective. (Naturally, I choose “cheeky.”) Note all of the graphic admonitions of impending doom if you bother to go on from that point, none of which we heeded.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the more level ground of Milanesia Beach, two choices faced us in our fossil explorations. Either go to the outcrop on our immediate right with only beach sand in front of it, or to a more modest outcrop on our left, with our path complicated by numerous blocks of rock that had fallen from cliff-faces above. We looked briefly at the closest part of the outcrop to the right, but these rocks seemed too coarse-grained to have many discernible trace fossils. Fine-grained sandstones or siltstones are much better for preserving identifiable invertebrate burrows or vertebrate tracks. Thus we chose to go left, a decision that was helped by high waves already lapping against the outcrop on our right.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7G9-mJiBzjagEBjQRm-nMvR-fkZlTmGZDGDF0yKd4dXt1wjN5CHz9zn-nnV2YjjLQBdCgHBTOu-2-PssNwwsrzQg2pW5kiT1Y_pbmZTclnCYeRgkQEuLldqu4aeUkLlXJnxp_AI70PWXA/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-Fishing-Hut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7G9-mJiBzjagEBjQRm-nMvR-fkZlTmGZDGDF0yKd4dXt1wjN5CHz9zn-nnV2YjjLQBdCgHBTOu-2-PssNwwsrzQg2pW5kiT1Y_pbmZTclnCYeRgkQEuLldqu4aeUkLlXJnxp_AI70PWXA/s320/Milanesia-Beach-Fishing-Hut.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A view over our shoulders after exiting the trail onto Milanesia Beach, showing a coarse-grained sandstone without any trace fossils. In other words, boring. What </i>was<i> exciting, though, was getting a glimpse of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32800229199"><b>Milanesia Beach fishing hut</b></a> (arrow), which apparently has its own Facebook fan page. (You didn’t believe me, did you?)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">While walking parallel to the shoreline, we quickly went from a sandy beach to rocky shore. Some of the blocks of rock we passed were much smaller and rounded than others, providing indirect clues of their relative time on the beach. For example, the surf had shaped the smaller and more rounded rocks for a longer time than the bigger ones, and the larger blocks retained angular corners from their more recent breakage off nearby cliff faces. Normally in a talus field like this, I would just stroll across it and not spend much energy looking at each stone for its paleontological value. Nonetheless, I did glance at them, albeit more out of a sense of self-preservation while making sure I stepped in all the right places and didn’t slip on any slimy algal films.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, we stopped occasionally to scan the rocks in the vertical outcrops, as well as the larger angular blocks scattered across the upper part of the shore. The several-meter-high vertical exposures of layered shale, sandstone, and conglomerate were at the top of the beach, marking where the sea had eroded these sedimentary strata. The surf crashed behind us, causing us to shout to one another as we pointed out anything of geological interest. We also warily watched the sea for any rogue waves or elevation of the tide that might catch us by surprise. Field work along the Victoria coast is treacherous enough to encourage a healthy paranoia in its practitioners, and that day was no different.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAlwNT17_TValCGjTF2RCJyRmeDveVxv9zL1DyxwQSdJHy89iTR3EQTNMwsiSmmIUG8H-oAimTPr1snY60729vZZcwaeh0IKfUUHfnBwdvwcyW_ztnGhfTkx75seJsp79OhDb1k2fdKJk/s1600/Scouting-Milanesia-Beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAlwNT17_TValCGjTF2RCJyRmeDveVxv9zL1DyxwQSdJHy89iTR3EQTNMwsiSmmIUG8H-oAimTPr1snY60729vZZcwaeh0IKfUUHfnBwdvwcyW_ztnGhfTkx75seJsp79OhDb1k2fdKJk/s320/Scouting-Milanesia-Beach.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Cretaceous outcrop to the left, ocean waves to the east on Milanesia Beach. You might say we were stuck between rock and a wet place. Tom is walking in front, Greg is just behind him, and I was lollygagging behind, which later turned out to be a good thing. You can even see how my footprints (left) show where I looked at the outcrop, then backtracked to get a better overall view.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">In retrospect, we were fortunate to have the winter solstice approaching that time of the year, which meant the sun would begin to set close to 5:00 p.m., thus urging us to use our time judiciously. Sure enough, within less than 10 minutes of our arriving, Greg and I started finding trace fossils – invertebrate burrows – in fine-grained sandstones and siltstones exposed in the outcrop. One type of burrow was a stubby vertical cylinder. Another was a thin, reddish J- or U-shaped structure; both were formerly open tubes that had been filled with sand very soon after they were made, more than 100 million years ago. Each burrow form was abundant in the thin strata.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9lfrqJP-SqHkev1keXhfQau38SMS4byVzHCRiV8COXMwPeoib-yquvAV5b3JAr47dbs7aLWtxsfKCcPxo_aCXtx98fY90gip4NNcCMTLXeilZlArzij9pqs4I40UOsaOIGQIi8MqdKhU/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-Trace-Fossils-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9lfrqJP-SqHkev1keXhfQau38SMS4byVzHCRiV8COXMwPeoib-yquvAV5b3JAr47dbs7aLWtxsfKCcPxo_aCXtx98fY90gip4NNcCMTLXeilZlArzij9pqs4I40UOsaOIGQIi8MqdKhU/s320/Milanesia-Beach-Trace-Fossils-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoD3lHyq8ZUU1vH89T-7uoqaIitXkuiwHRUqKjTfJ7CH2oaa8X57d-jTvj-dfTIWidBviECav8QX-wbmVWpgpUJg8nvUtTulCHqlZ7mAF5DoCYROMTAawz_WW3ikW9Mh_Aqt_D3h7pelO_/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-trace-Fossisl-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoD3lHyq8ZUU1vH89T-7uoqaIitXkuiwHRUqKjTfJ7CH2oaa8X57d-jTvj-dfTIWidBviECav8QX-wbmVWpgpUJg8nvUtTulCHqlZ7mAF5DoCYROMTAawz_WW3ikW9Mh_Aqt_D3h7pelO_/s320/Milanesia-Beach-trace-Fossisl-2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_fzuHGloNPvBasCewpR0_VY28-tmww4KBMtNU4cRq0Q7B1Ef73qaZKjGQFOGNx_o3Nkk8jJhp0AVuF_M5tYGIzpZTmMqZOp2rGeLOudqWiPdPub_H75D2A-qLtgI0WtNjQJIbEgBmPKmT/s1600/Milanesia-Beach-Trace-Fossils-%2523.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_fzuHGloNPvBasCewpR0_VY28-tmww4KBMtNU4cRq0Q7B1Ef73qaZKjGQFOGNx_o3Nkk8jJhp0AVuF_M5tYGIzpZTmMqZOp2rGeLOudqWiPdPub_H75D2A-qLtgI0WtNjQJIbEgBmPKmT/s320/Milanesia-Beach-Trace-Fossils-%2523.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Wow, look – invertebrate trace fossils! Two types were at Milanesia Beach, identifiable by size, color, orientation, and other features. The first (top) are sand-filled burrows that are mostly horizontal, but with some short vertical shafts. These sometimes have an internal structure that show their tracemakers – probably insect larvae – packed their burrows with sand behind it as they moved forward. The second (middle) are thin J- or U-shaped burrows, also filled with sand, but colored red by hematite (iron oxide). Sometimes the “U” form manifests as a “J” if only part of the burrow is exposed, but the tops will show a pairing of tubes (bottom) that reveal their true “U’s”. Such burrows may have been made by larval insects, such as <a href="http://www.ento.csiro.au/education/insects/diptera.html"><b>dipterans</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">These little trace fossils invoked an excitement in me that cannot be described with words, but I’ll try anyway. Such burrows are sensitive indicators about the ecology of this area 105 million years ago, and typical of what you might see in a modern river floodplain. For instance, some insect larvae will dig burrows in the sediment under very shallow water or on the surfaces of emergent sand bars. The presence of these burrows alone was scientifically important, and when put in the context of having been formed in a polar environment, they were doubly significant.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">You see, insects and other invertebrates in polar environments can’t burrow into frozen sediment. Rather, they wait until late spring or summer to make their domiciles or brooding burrows, after the <a href="http://arctic.fws.gov/permpics.htm"><b>uppermost layers of sediments have thawed out</b></a>, or once new, soft surfaces have been formed by sediment deposited by spring run-off. Moreover, the <a href="http://geology.about.com/od/geoprocesses/ig/sedstrucs/"><b>physical sedimentary structures</b></a> associated with the trace fossils, consisting of <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Egeol105/images/gaia_chapter_5/sedimentary_structures.htm"><b>ripple marks and cross-bedding</b></a>, also indicated a healthy flow of water, which would have more likely formed during a polar spring or summer following snow melts. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Along those lines, I had published a paper in 2009 about physical sedimentary structures, invertebrate burrows, and vertebrate tracks associated with <a href="http://gq.pgi.gov.pl/gq/article/view/7527"><b>a point bar in the Colville River, on the North Slope of Alaska</b></a>. Hence the rocks in front of us, when combined with what I had learned from that Alaskan point bar a few years beforehand, almost acted like a time machine. The Cretaceous rocks of Australia and the modern sediments of Alaska could be compared as polar ecosystems, even though they were separated by more than 100 million years and thousands of kilometers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLZaxhoWWh66nvd5el6-p3USXoQABVsvGjjmOBgrnVYkz_SvS3tNySIj054W-OHmtLxBQx5AjiOVRG_-iRTdryK0GyUzJHuoxmQtRk8CO_IQLxRfgN9XCoClgIjEwbYAbbLyd6tbGW6OW/s1600/Poverty-Bar-Alaska-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLZaxhoWWh66nvd5el6-p3USXoQABVsvGjjmOBgrnVYkz_SvS3tNySIj054W-OHmtLxBQx5AjiOVRG_-iRTdryK0GyUzJHuoxmQtRk8CO_IQLxRfgN9XCoClgIjEwbYAbbLyd6tbGW6OW/s320/Poverty-Bar-Alaska-Tracks.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Poverty Bar, a point bar of the Colville River on the North Slope of Alaska, which during the summer holds heaps of insect, nematode, and vertebrate traces. This makes for a nice modern analogue when looking at sedimentary rocks formed in Cretaceous polar environments of Australia. Why yes, those are <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/grizzly-bear/"><b>grizzly bear</b></a> tracks just to the left of mine, which is why you won’t hear me whinging about freshwater leeches in Victoria. By the way, those are Cretaceous rocks (partially covered by vegetation) </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>in the background</i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>, which contain dinosaur bones and tracks from other Cretaceous polar environments. But that's another story.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yet another justification for my growing elation was that these burrows closely resembled trace fossils I had seen in rocks at another place - Knowledge Creek- which was just a few kilometers east of us. Knowledge Creek is the place where the only well-documented dinosaur track was discovered from the Eumeralla Formation. In 1980 – a little more than 30 years before he, Greg, and I stepped foot on Milanesia Beach together – Tom and Pat found this track, which was probably made by a small <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ornithischia/ornithopoda.html"><b>ornithopod</b></a> dinosaur.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjon0uJ9YFxZLgc03zZ7ckQV4O70F0CuQHNrBAp0mWtAiTBU1aOSPWtIacgTZ6sIbgLrxK7uKGshbC82QPW6xKALczt5UEb3Pwh7KmUMjBOPI2umEeEApN-VowpMQQqam5CjjY-kKGVWosZ/s1600/Knowledge-Creek-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjon0uJ9YFxZLgc03zZ7ckQV4O70F0CuQHNrBAp0mWtAiTBU1aOSPWtIacgTZ6sIbgLrxK7uKGshbC82QPW6xKALczt5UEb3Pwh7KmUMjBOPI2umEeEApN-VowpMQQqam5CjjY-kKGVWosZ/s320/Knowledge-Creek-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The only previously documented dinosaur track from the Lower Cretaceous Otway Group, probably made by a small ornithopod dinosaur, and discovered in 1980 by Tom Rich and Pat Vickers-Rich at Knowledge Creek, only 2 km (1.2 mi) east of Milanesia Beach. It’s in Museum Victoria in Melbourne, and a rare example of a dinosaur track from Victoria. Or, should I say, was.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although I had visited Knowledge Creek three times in recent years (2006, 2007, and 2009), I had not found any other definite dinosaur tracks there. Nonetheless, I was lucky enough to have discovered possible <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8144000/8144199.stm"><b>dinosaur burrows</b></a>, and invertebrate trace fossils nearly identical to the ones we were seeing that morning at Milanesia Beach. Similar sedimentary rocks and trace fossils at Knowledge Creek and Milanesia Beach implied similar environments produced these rocks. So perhaps the conditions at both places were conducive to dinosaurs walking across floodplain surfaces, allowing their tracks to get preserved well enough that they would be identified some day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">After photographing and noting the locations of these trace fossils, Greg and I continued down the eastern extent of the beach. Tom, on the other hand, had already gone well ahead of us to look for bones. I think he was glad that Greg was helping with my ichnological investigations, which allowed him to concentrate more on finding the bones of dinosaurs or other vertebrates. In his previous scouting of Milanesia Beach with others of his body-fossil-hunting ilk more than 20 years before, they had not found any skeletal material. Thus they had since written it off as a place to look for such fossils. Nonetheless, he also knew that during that elapsed time, rockfalls and weathered surfaces might have revealed previously hidden body parts, new to human eyes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Excited about the invertebrate burrows and their host rocks, I turned to Greg as we sauntered down the beach, and said casually, “Now all we have to do is find some of those other things we’ve been looking for. But I won’t say what, because I don’t want to jinx it!” Greg grinned and said, “Righto, say no more!” Somehow he knew I was talking about dinosaur tracks. In our previous forays, I had mentioned these trace fossils as something we should be looking for at every turn.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">What was the reason for such vigilance? Well, up until that day, only four well-defined dinosaur tracks had been found in all of the Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, a part of Australia only slightly less in area than California. The first track, found by Tom and Pat at Knowledge Creek, was only about 10 cm (4 in) wide and long. Tom and Pat were doubly lucky that day: once for finding the track, and twice for having the right tools to collect it. Using a hammer and chisel, they carved it out of the rock and hiked out of the site. The latter task was so difficult, they vowed never to return. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Upon their return to Melbourne, they immediately placed the specimen in the Museum Victoria fossil collection. This track later became the template for thousands of reproductions used for science education in Victoria, and photographs of it appeared in many popular-outreach articles and books. Hence it became iconic. For many people, and for more than 25 years, this was <i>the</i> dinosaur track from the Cretaceous of Victoria.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Attentive readers who are also well versed in arithmetic are now waiting for the other three shoes to drop, so to speak, and I’m glad to oblige. In 1989, another isolated dinosaur track was found during a fossil-hunting group led by Tom Rich. Discovered at a place called <a href="http://www.whereis.com/vic/skenes-creek#session=MTI="><b>Skenes Creek</b></a>, more than 30 km (19 mi) east of Knowledge Creek, but bearing rocks of the same age as those at Knowledge Creek, Dinosaur Cove, and Milanesia Beach. This specimen was also a small ornithopod track, nearly identical to the one from Knowledge Creek. The field crew had a rock saw with them, so they neatly cut the surrounding rock into an easily transportable square slab, and likewise took it to Museum Victoria. Once there, it received a catalog number and sat in a drawer for the next 21 years. I saw it in its museum drawer in May 2010 – only three weeks before our sojourn to Milanesia Beach – and verified it as the second dinosaur track reported from the Eumeralla Formation. However, it still has not been formally described in the scientific literature. (Note to all: I got dibs.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>This space left intentionally blank, but some day will be filled with a photo of the second ornithopod track from the Eumeralla Formation, found in 1989 at Skenes Creek, Victoria, and relegated to a museum drawer for more than 20 years. Ignored no longer, I should be describing it in the upcoming year and will compare it directly to the track from Knowledge Creek.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The other two dinosaur tracks from Victoria were both made by large <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html"><b>theropods</b></a> and are east of Melbourne, at the <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/dinosaur-dreaming--the-inverloch-fossil-site/"><b>Dinosaur Dreaming</b></a> dig site in the geologically older rocks (115-120 million years old) of the <a href="http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/landform_geomorphological_framework_3"><b>Strzelecki Group</b></a>. I found one in 2006 (not pictured here, because it’s not very pretty), then a dig-site volunteer, Tyler Lamb, <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071019123615.htm"><b>found a nicely defined one in 2007</b></a>, only about 5 meters from the main dig site.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkLm0KtOTWrxO0_33VwfXSTtK1gkU0sIN4tWUWIYrvU4WLyAJzxpk3GcnP4O3wbvK5eUScjB7Txmzjtc2NFIK4PWZQfalc2ToDbnrDP7HC6gP0COglwKBQE7R2r8gRjEPDb_cKy65QxZ_R/s1600/Flat-Rocks-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkLm0KtOTWrxO0_33VwfXSTtK1gkU0sIN4tWUWIYrvU4WLyAJzxpk3GcnP4O3wbvK5eUScjB7Txmzjtc2NFIK4PWZQfalc2ToDbnrDP7HC6gP0COglwKBQE7R2r8gRjEPDb_cKy65QxZ_R/s320/Flat-Rocks-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" width="293" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A single dinosaur track from the Strzelecki Group, made by a large theropod dinosaur, and only the fourth definite dinosaur track from Victoria. The track is about 35 cm (14 in) long, which when multiplied by 4.0 gives the approximate hip height of the dinosaur: 1.4 m (4 ft. 7 in). That’s eating size, as in, it would have been big enough to have eaten us, had it been interested in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3NJ4cvDAn0&feature=related"><b>consuming slightly fatty bipedal mammals</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So there you go: four definite dinosaur tracks from all of the Cretaceous of Victoria, after more than 100 years of paleontological research in those rocks. The two tracks from 105-million-year-old rocks west of Melbourne – Knowledge Creek and Skenes Creek – were attributable to small ornithopod dinosaurs. Large-sized theropods likely made the two 115-million-year old tracks in rocks east of Melbourne.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">An abundance of dinosaur bones found during the past 30+ years in this part of Australia, though, indicate a more diverse fauna should be there, and these dinosaurs should have been leaving tracks during the springs and summers in between harsh polar winters. Moreover, in most places where dinosaurs used to live, <b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html">dinosaur tracks tend to be more abundant than their bones</a>. </b>Frustratingly enough, the situation in the Cretaceous rocks of Victoria was just the opposite. Paleontologists deal with gaps in the fossil record all of the time, but this was a big one for the fossil record of polar dinosaurs in Australia.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately, that gap was about to get filled. How? That's the subject of my next entry, coming soon.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">**************************************** </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Further reading:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2011/08/polar-dinosaur-tracks-open-new-trail-to.html">Polar Dinosaur Tracks Open New Trail to Past</a>, by Carol Clark: Emory University news release, Aug. 9, 2011</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Martin, A.J., Rich, T.H., Hall, M., Vickers-Rich, P., and Vazquez-Prokopec, G., 2011, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115518.2011.597564">A polar dinosaur-track assemblage from the Eumeralla Formation (Albian), Victoria, Australia</a>. <i>Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology</i>. DOI:10.1080/03115518.2011.597564</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-48702095361747291322011-07-18T15:46:00.000-04:002011-07-18T15:46:44.607-04:00Cruising the Cretaceous of Queensland: Student Edition<div style="line-height: 18px;"><style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-size: large;">Earlier this month – July 4-8, 2011 – was my third time to see the wondrous Cretaceous fossils of Queensland, Australia. But it was my first with university students in tow to share in that paleontologically inspired excitement. Our trip together to outback Queensland was during the third week of a five-week program for <a href="http://www.emory.edu/"><b>Emory University</b></a> students taking a study-abroad program in Australia, taught by me and my good friend (and oh yeah, colleague) Steve Henderson from <a href="http://www.oxford.emory.edu/"><b>Oxford College of Emory</b></a>. We did this trip to give them a taste of what life was like in the modern-day outback and 100 million years ago during the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/cretaceous/cretaceous.html"><b>Cretaceous Period</b></a>, when <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html"><b>theropod dinosaurs</b></a> like <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Australovenator"><b><i>Australovenator wintonensis</i> (“Banjo”)</b></a> likely chowed down on hapless <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ornithischia/ornithopoda.html"><b>ornithopod dinosaurs</b></a>, and the whopping pliosaur <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/the-frustrating-legacy-of-plasterosaurus/"><b><i>Kronosaurus queenlandicus</i></b></a> was ruling the inland seaway that covered much of the area we saw during our trip.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpRvGSfKTyDDqt8hQ1uRc-94QMUBrDsupySzuGUfGhZq-PdtqHQbJSoNGqO6Ru6gCUOSvHGdI7DPigWUfIBaM6RYJGNLRWutuSbq9WllHdVkxfExNch1lpAr7OkxwEGQdX8Yse4fqE9CkN/s1600/Students%2526Muttaburrasaurus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpRvGSfKTyDDqt8hQ1uRc-94QMUBrDsupySzuGUfGhZq-PdtqHQbJSoNGqO6Ru6gCUOSvHGdI7DPigWUfIBaM6RYJGNLRWutuSbq9WllHdVkxfExNch1lpAr7OkxwEGQdX8Yse4fqE9CkN/s320/Students%2526Muttaburrasaurus.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Paleontological innocents abroad, about to get acquainted with the past lives of outback Queensland. And who could resist posing with a life-sized recreation of the large ornithopod dinosaur </i><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/ozfossil/ageofreptiles/northern/muttaburrasaurus.htm"><b>Muttaburrasaurus langdoni</b></a><i>, located in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughenden,_Queensland"><b>Hughenden, Queensland</b></a>? Well, OK, I told them their grades depended on it, so they quickly got into the spirit of things.</i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Our trip was a bit frenzied, involving more than 2,500 km of driving (fortunately all of it handled by B.J., perhaps the greatest bus driver in the history of Australia), and it was done over the course of just five days, but still provided for a most excellent learning experience. Here is a brief synopsis of what happened and what we learned.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Day 1: Monday, July 4</b> – We started our trip in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townsville"><b>Townsville, Queensland</b></a>, which is the home of <a href="http://www.jcu.edu.au/"><b>James Cook University</b></a> and site for the classroom work we do in the first and last two weeks of the program. The plan was to drive to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winton,_Queensland"><b>Winton, Queensland</b></a> that day, with a stop en route in Hughenden, which is about halfway to Winton. As loyal readers may recall (or not), Hughenden has the <a href="http://www.hughenden.com/Document1.aspx?id=808"><b>Flinders Discovery Centre</b></a>, which has a mounted replica skeleton of <i>Muttaburrasaurus</i> and many plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate fossils local to the Cretaceous rocks of that area, as well as a smattering of exotic fossils, such as those all of the way from the U.S. This plan worked brilliantly – which is to say, it worked – as we were able to see heaps of fossils in Hughenden while also getting a much-needed lunch break during the six-hour trip from Townsville to Winton.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9hFMZHDEKsBp5ai5dPXCKKYGP0TBvm9cfMAXJc3iuQ78uf5LNZi-GsMGWMv5cKMM_nsqXZkdAzWxIpnObFp1XwMy57r-a4vIEve5pTmbtlegUx7OjVbgNaT5bcIy8x0XwrOuUQ464cHHr/s1600/Students%2526Muttaburrasaurus-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9hFMZHDEKsBp5ai5dPXCKKYGP0TBvm9cfMAXJc3iuQ78uf5LNZi-GsMGWMv5cKMM_nsqXZkdAzWxIpnObFp1XwMy57r-a4vIEve5pTmbtlegUx7OjVbgNaT5bcIy8x0XwrOuUQ464cHHr/s320/Students%2526Muttaburrasaurus-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A few Emory students, admiring a replica of </i>Muttaburrasaurus<i> at the Flinders Discovery Centre in Hughenden. I could swear one of them said, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5A7SULKV4"><b>“It looked much bigger on TV.”</b></a></i></span> </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Later that same afternoon, we made it into Winton with time to spare for a visit to the <a href="http://www.action-graphics.com.au/matilda/pages/winton/wintoncombo.html"><b>Fitzmaurice and Corfield Building</b></a>. This building, with its unassuming and decidedly non-paleontological name, actually holds a very nice collection of Cretaceous fossils, including one of the better representative samples of fossil plants from the<b> <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/dinosaurs/index.html?page=14156">Winton Formation</a></b>. Its main claim to fame, though, is its life-sized diorama depicting some epic dinosaurian panic inspired by the Lark Quarry dinosaur tracksite, a mere 110 km (68 km) to the south of where we were gawking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOSPPysC2GbbxdjKanrRdbestCmE44IUSeJE_pM6sEeYbwRSDwtzKe7nm33WDKSvSHSlgErI9V8e-D-XCZLwowz3rJHvV3OdADARS_NPp4s75zdZcaBiJVjnIZgAVWKY0Esic05yaBkFky/s1600/Drawing-a-Bloody-Big-Theropod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOSPPysC2GbbxdjKanrRdbestCmE44IUSeJE_pM6sEeYbwRSDwtzKe7nm33WDKSvSHSlgErI9V8e-D-XCZLwowz3rJHvV3OdADARS_NPp4s75zdZcaBiJVjnIZgAVWKY0Esic05yaBkFky/s320/Drawing-a-Bloody-Big-Theropod.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Why run away when you can draw? A dedicated student attempts to render the dramatic diorama of a massive, rampaging theropod dinosaur and a host of fleeing small theropod and ornithopods, viewable at the Fitzmaurice and Corfield Building in downtown Winton.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJA7Ne1UkKRpsre1_LVOM_gSizXeYhEYwsgUCNkBpaFTu0m5p1ze6mZXTyrXwd2ZDV4Dt3UNUHkw7CHfGQEccfAcqvcdTJUCezxOkqCk5qK77P0TOhPPqZF_UuRWaP7awR-_7VcQnhfqrD/s1600/FossilsonDisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJA7Ne1UkKRpsre1_LVOM_gSizXeYhEYwsgUCNkBpaFTu0m5p1ze6mZXTyrXwd2ZDV4Dt3UNUHkw7CHfGQEccfAcqvcdTJUCezxOkqCk5qK77P0TOhPPqZF_UuRWaP7awR-_7VcQnhfqrD/s320/FossilsonDisplay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Lots of real fossils – plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, and (best of all) trace fossils in the display cabinets at the Fitzmaurice and Corfield Building in Winton also made us stop, look, and listen.</i></span> </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Day 2: Tuesday, July 5, 2011 –</b> After staying for the first of two nights in Winton, we got off to an early start in the morning to the <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b>Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Centre</b></a>. Here we were treated to a tour of the facilities by Trish (“Tricky”) Sloan, who, with her extensive paleontological knowledge delivered with good-natured aplomb, informed and entertained us about the dinosaurs that had been found near there recently, such as huge <b><a href="http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/typesofdinosaurs/a/titanosaurs.htm">titanosaurs</a>, </b>namely <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_796260365"><b><i>Wintonotitan</i></b> (</a><b><a href="http://aaodl.com/dino-wintonotitan.php">“Clancy”)</a> </b>and<b> <a href="http://aaodl.com/dino-diamantinasaurus.php"><i>Diamantinasaurus</i> (“Matilda)</a></b>, as well as the baddest of the bad of Australian theropods, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/clancy-matilda-and-banjo-australian.html"><b><i>Australovenator</i></b></a> ("Banjo").<b> </b>Trish also let us in on a few recent fossil discoveries that will gain the AAOD even more attention from the paleontological community and general public in the next few years (nope, I ain’t telling).</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56eLCXIF5pWck1o4rorU9Y_4ZWUXFmmc2ayQne7e-DW-UD2caezBsoF3sgNIdvp8SdHVefL5pb8FH4VzJMItxEbTNo_aj1I4thdMCq0btJXYVDXIl7cBQpRAYpgHuM1mkEt81O9e0oewU/s1600/LookAtDemBones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56eLCXIF5pWck1o4rorU9Y_4ZWUXFmmc2ayQne7e-DW-UD2caezBsoF3sgNIdvp8SdHVefL5pb8FH4VzJMItxEbTNo_aj1I4thdMCq0btJXYVDXIl7cBQpRAYpgHuM1mkEt81O9e0oewU/s320/LookAtDemBones.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg"><b><i>Look at the bones!</i></b></a><i> The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre (AAOD) has enough dinosaurs to study for a long, long time. And what do they do anyway? They keep finding more. Do you blame them?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGpX8gl6HU4j3-cpUbd3nrF2BKy-1aD0ohmXyjaswhEaVEMDT_fCorSYJ6JRnFijmpmA_jypTbS5h9K0clgx_OAH9aFFx1Woua68-BYJ8MS0LrTDCWThv_YHMoXK6CREwkLvQbd8mpns2/s1600/Bone-Prepping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGpX8gl6HU4j3-cpUbd3nrF2BKy-1aD0ohmXyjaswhEaVEMDT_fCorSYJ6JRnFijmpmA_jypTbS5h9K0clgx_OAH9aFFx1Woua68-BYJ8MS0LrTDCWThv_YHMoXK6CREwkLvQbd8mpns2/s320/Bone-Prepping.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Trish “Tricky” Sloan of the AAOD shows everyone the right way to prepare a dinosaur bone, using the latest tools of the trade, while also making allusions to dental hygiene that elicited a few winces of painful remembrance.</i></span> </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">The students were also wowed by a look at the preparation lab, the sizes of some of the bones being prepared, and getting to hold a real dinosaur bone or two. A surprise appearance by <b>David Elliott</b> – who co-founded the AAOD with his wife <b><a href="http://aaodl.com/news-riversleigh-medal.php">Judy Elliott</a> </b>–topped off a great morning for everyone. Actually, it was just a surprise for the students, because I asked David to stop by to meet them, and he graciously agreed. (I owe that bloke a <a href="http://www.australiatravelsearch.com.au/trc/slang.html"><b>slab</b></a> or two.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, you can’t go to Winton without visiting the <a href="http://www.matildacentre.com.au/"><b>Waltzing Matilda Centre</b></a>, so we did just that immediately after the AAOD tour so that everyone could learn about the story behind the <a href="http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/index.php"><b>unofficial national anthem of Australia</b></a>. What was unexpected about this visit, though, was that one of my students alerted me to a few small dinosaur tracks and other Cretaceous fossils on display in a room containing old medical equipment. Despite two previous visits to their facility, I never knew about this little collection, literally tucked away in a corner. The Waltzing Matilda Centre also has a small replica of the Lark Quarry dinosaur tracksite rendered in cement outside and in the back, which meant that even a “cultural stop” in our study-abroad curriculum kept referring back to paleontology.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwwYEa8CI3UolqHIcpXLM6I_eXaojQauOHCWiQAqZS3n1wGCbToYRfLzSU-OeeXFV7QXMvy_DKlmLPEFvZMyfFrJLLbRRILtTaSyGxNxt76Xv3z_myyb3nB_KgXsBCetVxVZTnn-UwB15P/s1600/Waltzing-Matilda-Tracks-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwwYEa8CI3UolqHIcpXLM6I_eXaojQauOHCWiQAqZS3n1wGCbToYRfLzSU-OeeXFV7QXMvy_DKlmLPEFvZMyfFrJLLbRRILtTaSyGxNxt76Xv3z_myyb3nB_KgXsBCetVxVZTnn-UwB15P/s320/Waltzing-Matilda-Tracks-1.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Real dinosaur tracks on display at, of all places, the Waltzing Matilda Centre, alongside old medical equipment. Here’s where I would normally make some witty analogy about doctors and dinosaurs, but I’ll leave that up to you.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF2paqLdQ2nwySZ6Dsto-PSvSDXT-dUq4LHQIA9qwkMjc0s8dI2cFOmpNnwoaC6RmnLoviWkQyOFONUCYRLw1gyMdga75dU7PThm1nKuEBMp0-W__nPJsJfULpNNqonxscQtMRLsc9mMoo/s1600/Waltzing-Matilda-Tracks-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF2paqLdQ2nwySZ6Dsto-PSvSDXT-dUq4LHQIA9qwkMjc0s8dI2cFOmpNnwoaC6RmnLoviWkQyOFONUCYRLw1gyMdga75dU7PThm1nKuEBMp0-W__nPJsJfULpNNqonxscQtMRLsc9mMoo/s320/Waltzing-Matilda-Tracks-2.jpg" width="297" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Fake dinosaur tracks in concrete at the Waltzing Matilda Centre, but based on real dinosaur tracks not too far from Winton. I think the chain was to prevent people from adding their tracks to those of the dinosaurs, <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy.html"><b>which has been known to happen.</b></a></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">This just goes to show you that it is nearly impossible to avoid bumping up against the rich fossil record of central Queensland and its effect on the people of the area. This point was emphasized even more so that evening when we went to dinner at <a href="http://www.gdaypubs.com.au/QLD/winton.html"><b>The Australian Hotel</b></a> in Winton, and the owner, upon hearing I was a paleontologist, went into a back room and brought out a very nice specimen of a theropod dinosaur track for us to study and admire. This impromptu consultation could not have better demonstrated to our students how deeply paleontology has been integrated into the culture of outback Queensland.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZSElfzNh-IFMfBE5XQjtrtaSG12Q6etMkqFZB6JTUCxQYxkNgVJ3u0vc3q2Vw3M21at-DL-X_0Nzn1wsrPnLQG_ajbVG-y7g8fMdLwVP3XvoZga1Qr0dt4cB8NTMx1D4G2a0SEE8lAQtc/s1600/Theropod-Track%2526Beer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZSElfzNh-IFMfBE5XQjtrtaSG12Q6etMkqFZB6JTUCxQYxkNgVJ3u0vc3q2Vw3M21at-DL-X_0Nzn1wsrPnLQG_ajbVG-y7g8fMdLwVP3XvoZga1Qr0dt4cB8NTMx1D4G2a0SEE8lAQtc/s320/Theropod-Track%2526Beer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A paleontologist walks into a bar, and the bartender brings him a dinosaur track. Sorry, that no joke: it’s all part of being in Winton. Yes, a beer in one hand and a dinosaur track in the other is indeed a dream come true for me. My life is now complete. (Note also how Steve is looking enviously at both items.)</i></span> </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Wait, I didn’t tell you what we did after the Waltzing Matilda Centre, which was make our way 110 km (68 mi) south of Winton to one of the most famous dinosaur tracksites in the world, <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>Lark Quarry</b></a>. I’ve written about this tracksite several times before (<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-of-lark-quarry.html"><b>here</b></a>, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/case-of-mistaken-dinosaur.html"><b>here</b></a>, and <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>here</b></a>), so I won’t rehash why it’s so revered.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxTWy3ViLoajdV28UQAbvdi7D4CmGaL75hyqbX3tVm1AaY15umIowA7R9wcGcrPBSBbfIhKy-OjTVhLEJA2UwJoxRllzoZBjSeiG-3BjhamrDWSfqgkt3yyoK5q1UOgHNoF7UaGIuNetar/s1600/Sign-for_Lark-Quarry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxTWy3ViLoajdV28UQAbvdi7D4CmGaL75hyqbX3tVm1AaY15umIowA7R9wcGcrPBSBbfIhKy-OjTVhLEJA2UwJoxRllzoZBjSeiG-3BjhamrDWSfqgkt3yyoK5q1UOgHNoF7UaGIuNetar/s320/Sign-for_Lark-Quarry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>You have to really want to see the Lark Quarry dinosaur tracksite (which we did), and it was worth every kilometer of travel along that mostly unsealed road while dodging sheep, cows, and ‘roos.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">And as a testament to the enduring (and growing) popularity of this tracksite in the public imagination, a big, boisterous crowd on a regularly scheduled tour preceded us. Fortunately, a trail outside of the Lark Quarry Conservation Building beckoned and gave us an opportunity to learn about the geology and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ijoXMcS1XI"><b>geomorphology</b></a> of this desert region. So Steve, an expert teacher of desert geology in the field, gifted us with a lecture on that topic and engaged in discussion with the students about the landforms around us and how they originated. For example, most erosion in this arid environment was, paradoxically enough, a result of running water, caused by flash flooding from infrequent rainstorms and torrential runoff.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0CyUSY2IdmGdnL81LxDQ4_5w-x8xF303saujUDqpblv1n1_i9GhlthiLFM0KdN4gMNfLrlmG2rJ4VcShWTkC3ANZ5WBMFcrrWwxUh8OMGuy8nnv4e8T0QWxoGw0JwZO8KzDToSbS3WRN4/s1600/Steve%2526Students-Lark-Quarry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0CyUSY2IdmGdnL81LxDQ4_5w-x8xF303saujUDqpblv1n1_i9GhlthiLFM0KdN4gMNfLrlmG2rJ4VcShWTkC3ANZ5WBMFcrrWwxUh8OMGuy8nnv4e8T0QWxoGw0JwZO8KzDToSbS3WRN4/s320/Steve%2526Students-Lark-Quarry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Learning geology in what used to be called, before The Computer Age, “the field,” “outdoors,” or simply “outside” (I know, how retro) on the Spinifex Trail outside of the Lark Quarry Conservation Building, south of Winton, Queensland. This quaint approach to education mostly worked, although judging from the photo, most of our students still need some help in lengthening their attention spans. To be fair, I’m sure they were still puzzling over the meaning and implications of "swagmen," "tucker bags," and "jumbucks" learned earlier that day at the Waltzing Matilda Centre.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">After a walk on the trail, it was time to see the tracksite, which we had all to ourselves as the last tour group of the day. Our guide, Vern, told the students the “old” (traditional) story about how a group of more than 100 small dinosaurs – ornithopods and theropods – were startled by the approach of a much larger theropod dinosaur, triggering a stampede nearly 100 million years ago that was recorded by their tracks in the then-soft lakeshore sediments. The students were also<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8897153876973964063&postID=4870209536174729132" name="_GoBack"></a> awed by this place (at least, I think they were), and one told me later how he suddenly realized, while staring at the tracks, “Wait a minute. There were dinosaurs <i>right here</i>!” Those are the “ah-ha!” moments teachers of paleontology live for, and again demonstrates how trace fossils, like, totally rule. </span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB16Evt_YWl1nYPui0-dxaPp8dUl2bB_6uvyxuZN5jqooaunSb6SEW72QzBlgjAYdnGLqMQhdstdQ_lf_yS4nkUHgp4WP2WTOuspG8qDrQYBzbpYUpWhyEGwH0x0I4yat4sU1mRoD8Way9/s1600/Lark-Quarry%2526Students.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB16Evt_YWl1nYPui0-dxaPp8dUl2bB_6uvyxuZN5jqooaunSb6SEW72QzBlgjAYdnGLqMQhdstdQ_lf_yS4nkUHgp4WP2WTOuspG8qDrQYBzbpYUpWhyEGwH0x0I4yat4sU1mRoD8Way9/s320/Lark-Quarry%2526Students.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Students lining up along the walkway overseeing the thousands of dinosaur tracks preserved at Lark Quarry. Don’t worry, I made sure all of the students got out OK, because it would be very embarrassing <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-of-lark-quarry.html"><b>to get accidentally locked in</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB1I3BxbVHXP8enZzB1pVZRK7Weprdx7w5K3MYkpoXcCrlj0CUFLv1S2roifE1LVsKhj3UHvC5lr7EGf-WW8KQpVOI90g7snuFmsZ2ux7KFlIMJY4WFl5foNDDKklJbySVLMNau8Z5g7EG/s1600/Paleontologist-Barbie-Lark-Quarry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB1I3BxbVHXP8enZzB1pVZRK7Weprdx7w5K3MYkpoXcCrlj0CUFLv1S2roifE1LVsKhj3UHvC5lr7EGf-WW8KQpVOI90g7snuFmsZ2ux7KFlIMJY4WFl5foNDDKklJbySVLMNau8Z5g7EG/s320/Paleontologist-Barbie-Lark-Quarry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.museumofplay.org/blog/play-stuff/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/paleontologist1.jpg"><b><i>Paleontologist Barbie</i></b></a><i> makes a special guest appearance at Lark Quarry to see the tracksite, and helpfully explains that</i> Wintonopus <i>is an ichnogenus and</i> Wintonopus latomorum <i>is an ichnospecies, both of which are based on a distinctive and recurring form of a dinosaur track preserved here, and not of its inferred trackmaker, which was likely a large ornithopod dinosaur. Need to learn more about the basis of naming trace fossils? <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/trace-fossil-by-any-other-name.html"><b>Well, you came to the right place</b></a>. And just in case you’re also intrigued with Paleontologist Barbie, a photo album of her recent adventures in Australia are <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2262773695867.2135740.1444203318&l=3df6d79b8f"><b>here</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Day 3: July 6, 2011 –</b> Sadly, we said goodbye to Winton on Wednesday morning, but were off to take a dip in the Cretaceous seaway. And there’s no better place to see the fossil evidence for this seaway than at <a href="http://www.kronosauruskorner.com.au/"><b>Kronosaurus Korner</b></a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Queensland"><b>Richmond, Queensland</b></a>. Richmond is about a four-hour drive from Winton if you want to stay on paved roads (which we did), and was well worth the effort, as we saw a great variety of Cretaceous marine fossils there.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Even better, we had a guided tour by <a href="http://www.stumkatstudios.com/theartist.htm"><b>Paul Stumkat</b></a>, who wears a lot of hats at Kronosaurus Korner: fossil preparator, paleontologist, and paleo-artist. Like Trish Sloan at the AAOD Centre, he was an extraordinary fount of knowledge for our students, and what I originally thought would be a one-hour tour became two-and-a-half times as long. (This was a good thing.) Paul not only led us through the regular exhibits of <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/pliosaur.html"><b>pliosaurs</b></a> and other <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/plesiosaur.html"><b>plesiosaurs</b></a>, <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ichthyosauria.html"><b>ichthyosaurs</b></a>, turtles, fish, <a href="http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/ammonites.htm"><b>ammonites</b></a>, and much, much more, he also took us into their fossil-preparation lab and a storage shed, the latter of which held a very large and newly discovered Cretaceous fish.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5WB2CiA_38NvtPDHbK20UQhtOYG_lMknOf4fcK9-dREBl5YUAsyZ0cIC9LAXKri9njHywmkHkwM7OHooljn09i2GE1NfpMW-glfpc9iBdkgYPINkZkE81Zhol8XEhlK4BTyaIQ2yytYHX/s1600/Kronosaurus%2526Students.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5WB2CiA_38NvtPDHbK20UQhtOYG_lMknOf4fcK9-dREBl5YUAsyZ0cIC9LAXKri9njHywmkHkwM7OHooljn09i2GE1NfpMW-glfpc9iBdkgYPINkZkE81Zhol8XEhlK4BTyaIQ2yytYHX/s320/Kronosaurus%2526Students.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The students get to view an actual fossil specimen of the giant pliosaur</i> Kronosaurus queenlandicus, <i>after seeing a life-sized recreation of one <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/07/teaching-past-cretaceous-and-other.html"><b>only two weeks before in the Museum of Tropical Queensland</b></a>.</i> <i>Paul Stumkat (left) of Kronosaurus Korner regaled us with tales of fossils found and yet to be found in the Cretaceous rocks around Richmond.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Day 4: July 7, 2011 –</b> The previous night, we got into Charters Towers to get a little bit of sleep before our next leg of the trip, got up early in the morning, and headed north to the <a href="http://undara.com.au/lava-tubes/"><b>Undara Lava Tubes</b></a>, which are just south of <a href="http://www.ravenshoevisitorcentre.com.au/"><b>Ravenshoe, Queensland</b></a>. Although formed in the mere Pleistocene (190,000 years before now), these geologic features are very spectacular, and, after all, we were also teaching <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_geology"><b>environmental geology</b></a> along with paleontology as part of the study-abroad program. Thus it was an entirely justifiable part of the trip while also being on our way to the coast.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeoYALrH_sbNDMDBkBIWfc_gKZai-7HKdBMXHpBBbbOLJbmO5TOhZmq7UdjVQ4CiqHl8NVFXlDivAW-YGNj2vAk1aR-T0glsOZdtvBYvEprYnvgshjG0FIhLVeLhcqWfLysvXIm8U19cM_/s1600/Lava-Tube-Freud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeoYALrH_sbNDMDBkBIWfc_gKZai-7HKdBMXHpBBbbOLJbmO5TOhZmq7UdjVQ4CiqHl8NVFXlDivAW-YGNj2vAk1aR-T0glsOZdtvBYvEprYnvgshjG0FIhLVeLhcqWfLysvXIm8U19cM_/s320/Lava-Tube-Freud.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>One of the many lava tubes at Undara National Park, with our students wading through its moist interior. This is where some psychoanalyst might make a remark about the symbolism of descending into a long, dark, tunnel, no doubt while riding a train and smoking cigars. Fortunately, we instead talked about hot magma, subduction, and orogenies.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Lava tubes are formed when the outside part of a <a href="http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Basaltic_lava.html"><b>basaltic lava</b></a> cools quickly, but the <a href="http://www.galagogame.com/wp-content/uploads/dr_evil_liquid_hot_magma.jpg"><b>liquid hot magma</b></a> continues to flow underneath that hardened crust, leaving a huge, hollow tunnel. Basaltic lava has low viscosity – owing to its high temperature (about 1,200° C) and low silica content, among other factors – and in this instance, the lava flowed a long ways: just more than 160 km (> 100 mi) from the central volcano. Because Steve and I had never been there, nor seen lava tubes like these, our group was folded into a guided tour, which was excellent. The students even became immersed in their subject by, well, immersing themselves. The walkway into one of the tubes was partially underwater, so we ventured undaunted into wetness and darkness. A good time was had by all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">That night (our last of the trip) we spent in Ravenshoe, which began with Steve and me making sure we celebrated our lava-tube-filled day with dinner and an adult beverage at <a href="http://publocation.com.au/pubs/qld/ravenshoe/tully-falls-hotel"><b>Tully Falls Hotel</b></a>, the highest pub in Queensland. Later, Steve and I joined a spirited discussion with the students at the pub hotel (where we stayed overnight). Much to our delight, the students were earnestly proposing and debating a wide range of topics – paleontological, geological, biological, environmental, and otherwise. It was almost as if they were behaving like real paleontologists or geologists. We felt like proud parents, only with the decided advantage of not having to pay for their college tuition.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Day 5: July 8, 2011 –</b> Our last full day of the field trip, in which we went from Ravenshoe to Mission Beach and back “home” to Townsville, involved more environmental geology and a little bit of ecology, but with a surprise paleontological twist. In the morning, we witnessed the southern edge of the <a href="http://www.daintree-rec.com.au/daintree.html"><b>Daintree rainforest</b></a>, a <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/about/"><b>World Heritage</b></a> site noted for its incredible biodiversity, and a brief stop at a roadside overlook along the way gave us a taste of what was there. Our main goal for the day, though, was to see how <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2011/h2011_Yasi.html"><b>Cyclone Yasi</b></a>, a Category 5 tropical storm, had affected the coastal region near there when it made landfall in Queensland on February 3, 2011.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">Once we arrived at the coast, we went to the visitor’s center in Innisfail, a place that had been also hit hard by <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0321_060321_cyclone_larry.html"><b>Cyclone Larry</b></a> in 2006. While there, I asked one of the employees about how the <a href="http://rainforest-australia.com/southern_cassowary.html"><b>cassowaries</b></a> (specifically, the southern cassowary, <i>Casuarius casuarius</i>) had fared since the most recent cyclone, knowing that many of their fruit trees – which they depended on for food – had been knocked out of commission. She then gave us a great tip about a nearby area (Etty Bay, just north of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Beach,_Queensland"><b>Mission Beach</b></a>) that had easy-to-see cassowaries.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1MbkWNa16dcIEOng0_16FIGYO1Dz47FdHYMcsCHSuvIqCv7YCRjkz3K-jcx7fRHk_l-h6VWIvQYxizHWZjX4EL7Uw7_pA2QvZdoIeFQIby2lQTVu16e_r4yLbxJoWWjLLytLwrZcPeQoA/s1600/Cassowary-Crossing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1MbkWNa16dcIEOng0_16FIGYO1Dz47FdHYMcsCHSuvIqCv7YCRjkz3K-jcx7fRHk_l-h6VWIvQYxizHWZjX4EL7Uw7_pA2QvZdoIeFQIby2lQTVu16e_r4yLbxJoWWjLLytLwrZcPeQoA/s320/Cassowary-Crossing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Why did the cassowary cross the road? None of your bloody business, mate. (P.S. I really love these birds.)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Knowing that this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to our students to see live cassowaries outside of a zoo, we headed to Etty Bay. Sure enough, there they were, walking around in the open, in an uncomfortable coexistence with people on holiday at the beach. Why was this uncomfortable (at least, to me)? Because the southern cassowary is one of the few birds capable of severely injuring or killing humans (although this reputation is <b><a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=66857&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0952836999009905">mostly a bum rap</a>, </b>as they’re nowhere near as dangerous as<b> <a href="http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html">dihydrogen oxide</a></b>). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nonetheless, before exiting the vehicle, Steve and I made sure that all of the students were well versed in “cassowary safety” by giving them the following tips:</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Do not feed them, no matter how much they may beg, whimper, or threaten.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">• Do not approach them in any way, whether aggressively, whimsically, or with an ironic, post-modern perspective.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Do not put your arm around them to pose for pictures, especially while wearing silly hats.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Do not attempt to place a saddle on them or otherwise attempt to ride them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Do not, by any means, make fun of their secondary flightlessness. (This really makes them mad.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8JLouuai1Wy62FsHWd7RZiKVZ_isU-mWW9FlIvJ-lbyuGMuTSg09gt5RTqQ4avZoo6XAjEI7QVVBHdY_XjV16Hvu2mtRN7IKXQ7K7G2NaPdp97yhPatUXjQc6odbbQQ_jgit8xqa-dfFU/s1600/Cassowary-Awareness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8JLouuai1Wy62FsHWd7RZiKVZ_isU-mWW9FlIvJ-lbyuGMuTSg09gt5RTqQ4avZoo6XAjEI7QVVBHdY_XjV16Hvu2mtRN7IKXQ7K7G2NaPdp97yhPatUXjQc6odbbQQ_jgit8xqa-dfFU/s320/Cassowary-Awareness.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A few students, distracted by a beautiful beach at Etty Bay, Queensland, temporarily forgot that a large modern theropod dinosaur was sitting just behind them, while others watch warily. No worries, they all steered clear of one another, and no harm was done by either humans or dinosaurs.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately for our students (and the cassowaries), the former heeded our warnings and kept respectful distances from these potentially dangerous birds. Why were these avian theropods hanging out by the beach, other than for the pleasant atmosphere? Evidently people had been feeding them, so they were now habituated to human food and presence, which is ultimately not good for the cassowaries.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, I was in ichnological heaven, because these big birds were making abundant and exquisitely detailed three-toed footprints on the beach sands. These tracks are absolutely wonderful modern analogues for <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>three-toed dinosaur tracks</b></a>, especially those made by theropod dinosaurs. It also served as a very nice example of how cassowaries are wide-ranging in their habitats. Normally viewed as “forest birds,” cassowaries <b><a href="http://www.wildlife.org.au/wildlife/speciesprofile/birds/cassowary.html">play an essential ecological role</a> </b>in the rainforests of tropical Queensland, eating a wide variety of fruits and dispersing seeds through their excrement (colloquially known as “poo”).</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bMXWmIUm5WIri12abceADZUZSTNFmwjK-fFAL5FGSYZ7mIbRKZzX2AUsA7UtNnHgO1Qe6uhV9dDnPXwzzQjOP-vy67ZUQwar3OsJnfjfnqOLutwwim1rpgn4YNVXdTBEzS7OnJikd-u1/s1600/Cassowary-Tracks-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bMXWmIUm5WIri12abceADZUZSTNFmwjK-fFAL5FGSYZ7mIbRKZzX2AUsA7UtNnHgO1Qe6uhV9dDnPXwzzQjOP-vy67ZUQwar3OsJnfjfnqOLutwwim1rpgn4YNVXdTBEzS7OnJikd-u1/s320/Cassowary-Tracks-1.jpg" width="218" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Gorgeous tridactyl (three-toed) tracks of an adult southern cassowary on beach sands of Etty Bay, looking much like the tracks of a non-avian theropod from the fossil record.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjkFqcGFsKMnsbgC74ictQwkoTeHcxKsmuZalwQb3eNAl3PW7uU6OKq6l-ECyP3e2Zhl62-QIR8hzQ7Jy50smJ_ZLCVOk3z-e1ENE343YcE3uVmH0hnCBlyfMZ6Epn8yr9ndsBx82jBXaf/s1600/Cassowary-Track-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjkFqcGFsKMnsbgC74ictQwkoTeHcxKsmuZalwQb3eNAl3PW7uU6OKq6l-ECyP3e2Zhl62-QIR8hzQ7Jy50smJ_ZLCVOk3z-e1ENE343YcE3uVmH0hnCBlyfMZ6Epn8yr9ndsBx82jBXaf/s320/Cassowary-Track-2.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Close-up of a cassowary track, showing all three toes, claw marks, and skin impressions. The smallest of the three toes is digit II, the middle one with the “killing claw” is digit III, and the remaining one on the outside is digit IV. This one is from the cassowary’s left foot.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thus it was very satisfying for me (in a contrarian sort of way) to see cassowaries also leaving so many of their traces in intertidal environments, too. This seeming anomaly provided for a nice point of discussion with the students later, when Steve and I later lectured (on the beach, of course) about coastal geology and the interactions of animals from nearby forest ecosystems with coastal environments. I also asked them, “Where did we see tracks like these just two days ago?”, and we were very happy to hear them all say, “Lark Quarry!” In other words, they easily made the connection between these modern avian dinosaur tracks and Cretaceous non-avian dinosaur tracks, both of which they were able to view directly in Queensland, Australia only days apart from one another.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;">From there on, we only had a few stops along the way back to Townsville, and the trip was officially over that night as we drove into the city. I bade everyone farewell, and wished them luck for the last two weeks of the program, with Steve in charge. The next day, I left for Melbourne and Museum Victoria for a few days of research.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">With the end of this trip, though, let us hope that its sights, sounds, and other sensations of the Cretaceous and other times of Queensland, Australia will continue in our imaginations for our collective lifetimes. After all, this is why we do study-abroad programs: to broaden ourselves. Cheers, mates!</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3lIDINZK21VKVKErxnoHzOqNi5d8i1qg19HfpI00-3uA2_0EYoIxzXsViuZjM8tDBS1Zf9xlhCZsbOSr8S1wKnxtsEn2bCRdAs-WguYG-8l5kfeFtOljq2YV288mUqC-yywZSKdTgi8qn/s1600/Kronosaurus-Rules.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3lIDINZK21VKVKErxnoHzOqNi5d8i1qg19HfpI00-3uA2_0EYoIxzXsViuZjM8tDBS1Zf9xlhCZsbOSr8S1wKnxtsEn2bCRdAs-WguYG-8l5kfeFtOljq2YV288mUqC-yywZSKdTgi8qn/s320/Kronosaurus-Rules.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Many thanks to: Steve Henderson; Justine Garcia (our illustrious graduate teaching assistant); our willing students, Emily, Hank, Jenna, Iris, Jordan, Giacomo, James, Ally, Meredith; Paleontologist Barbie; and especially the Cretaceous fossils and modern fauna and flora of Australia, because we could not have done this trip without you.</i></span></div></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-14809908707761299432011-07-03T02:59:00.000-04:002011-07-03T02:59:51.137-04:00Teaching the Past, Cretaceous and Other Times<div style="line-height: 18px;"><!--StartFragment--> <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s a safe generalization to say that academic paleontologists devote much of their time and energy to educating non-paleontologists about the wonders of past lives. This lofty goal might be accomplished in an official capacity as a university professor or a museum researcher, or unofficially through public speaking, publishing popular-outreach books, or – to be totally modern, hip, and self-referential – writing a blog. In this instance, I am mixing official and unofficial duties by sharing a few of my experiences with teaching paleontology to undergraduate students at my university (</span><b><a href="http://www.emory.edu/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Emory</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">) during a study-abroad program in Queensland, Australia.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxY5xXM1buMehf9RD73UgllFWkQ8vYqs9w1MigRjgJYP4W3TI9itlK479ruVaAAfqJGdahNHEgz553e6taX3TSpUYCsY3gtNvvmvoYLtX0FSNIMm8XBvjBtgY7oZ1qHzqGkejicgSSwjD/s1600/Paleo-Students-in-Oz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxY5xXM1buMehf9RD73UgllFWkQ8vYqs9w1MigRjgJYP4W3TI9itlK479ruVaAAfqJGdahNHEgz553e6taX3TSpUYCsY3gtNvvmvoYLtX0FSNIMm8XBvjBtgY7oZ1qHzqGkejicgSSwjD/s320/Paleo-Students-in-Oz.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A happy group of American university students, which is as they should be, because they are in Queensland, Australia learning about its paleontology. Little do they know their state of fossil-induced bliss is about to be interrupted by a lurking Early Cretaceous pliosaur, </span></i><b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/04/kronosaurus-king-or-queen-of-queensland.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Kronosaurus</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, inexplicably occupying an aerial environment and in the present.</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (I’ve been trying to tell them all along that some things are worse than a failing grade.) Photo taken by me at the </span><b><a href="http://www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Museum of Tropical Queensland</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> in </span><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townsville"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Townsville</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i></i></div><i><a name='more'></a></i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This Emory study-abroad program has been around on-and-off since 2006, but this year’s is the first where I’ve had the opportunity to teach paleontology as its featured attraction. The two courses we are teaching concurrently in the program are </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">environmental geology</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">paleoecology</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, the latter course advertised under the rather swishy title, “Ecosystems through Time.” Because I am also a geologist and have taught environmental geology many times (not to be too much of a </span><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">tall poppy</span></a></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">about it), it has been both fun and challenging to retrofit that course to better emphasize all of the fantastic case studies in Australia pertinent to this subject. Think about it, but not for too long. Shoreline processes and </span><b><a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/yasi.shtml"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">cyclones</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> in an island-continent-nation that has most of its population living in big cities along the coast, soon to be affected more so by </span><b><a href="http://www.science.org.au/nova/082/082key.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">accelerated sea-level rise</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">? Check. </span><b><a href="http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Catastrophic flooding</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> that takes away precious lives and wipes out expensive property? Check. Earth resources that, once exploited through mining, </span><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_Australia"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">set off all sorts of environmental problems and controversies</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">? Check. Indigenous perspectives and how those views synch perfectly with modern ecological thinking, that is, </span><b><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/21/3118234.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">what affects the landscape also affects the Great Barrier Reef</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">? Check, check, and check.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIDBgZCYkOoHemBSSdoSDDbzU7W8Snnp1Jco8EG7Z6_WzQ21Ml4AFf7AQ1e3_TZVhMBgqLENsuB3HS_dRNxETgtKoEXNSrzBzRDERszKCLRhNSsOx7lFOTh5eqoqxXfZkKOlcrPF656yS/s1600/queensland_flood_great_barrier_reef_NASA_615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIDBgZCYkOoHemBSSdoSDDbzU7W8Snnp1Jco8EG7Z6_WzQ21Ml4AFf7AQ1e3_TZVhMBgqLENsuB3HS_dRNxETgtKoEXNSrzBzRDERszKCLRhNSsOx7lFOTh5eqoqxXfZkKOlcrPF656yS/s320/queensland_flood_great_barrier_reef_NASA_615.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A plume of sediment caused by flooding in Queensland in January 2011, on its way to the Great Barrier Reef, an example of how the terrestrial and marine environments are connected in Australia, and why environmental geology is a good means for exploring this concept.</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Photo from</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><b><a href="http://earthsky.org/earth/swollen-rivers-in-queensland-carry-heavy-sediments-to-australian-coast"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">EarthSky</span></a></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">.</span></b></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And as yet another example of why plate tectonics rules our lives (whether we like it or not), we talked about how a </span><b><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/chilean-ash-cloud/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Chilean volcanic eruption</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> and its andesitic ash cloud drifting across the Pacific Ocean </span><b><a href="http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/chile-ash-cloud-hits-tassie-nz-flights/story-e6frfq80-1226073731601"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">disrupted flights into and out of southern Australia</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> during the past several weeks, overlapping with the start of this program. So scratch what I said earlier about how “challenging” it has been to incorporate Australia examples, as it was all too easy. Australia is all about geology and how its affects people’s lives here.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But what about paleontology, you ask? Perhaps an attentive reader (that is, all of you) noticed I used the plural pronoun “we” when describing who is teaching the program, and I am fortunate to be accompanied by my friend and paleontological-geological-educational colleague, </span><b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ETl33K0LQ"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Stephen Henderson</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> in this program. The way we arranged the program is that I teach both classes (environmental geology in the morning, paleoecology in the afternoon) in a classroom setting the first two weeks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0z9gGGgxQ2V2UPd65IlrX86_zrsM2LPXTPtuJJYMjUvAaLBbolLMGuDtqjjQh26nJ5AsHhDnLXsvGw121FBS1FxGQk1UYv2z4c4MFa6kdKWq-Z3S4BtYEa2UQKBPtRey6ksNrY1Cgw3qF/s1600/Dino-Might.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0z9gGGgxQ2V2UPd65IlrX86_zrsM2LPXTPtuJJYMjUvAaLBbolLMGuDtqjjQh26nJ5AsHhDnLXsvGw121FBS1FxGQk1UYv2z4c4MFa6kdKWq-Z3S4BtYEa2UQKBPtRey6ksNrY1Cgw3qF/s320/Dino-Might.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This is not my colleague Steve Henderson, although it could be, depending on his mood. It’s actually a wonderfully rendered large theropod dinosaur, made so that it appears to be bursting out of the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Townsville, Queensland. As if a huge predatory dinosaur is not enough for some people to get a clue, there’s a sign warning everyone to stay out of the garden, too.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After Steve arrives in Australia (which he already did, two days ago), we will co-teach the third week on an Outback field trip with the students (more on that later). At the end of that five-day trip, I wave goodbye, and Steve teaches the last two weeks of the program. That’s five weeks total for the students, held together (like </span><b><a href="http://www.ducttapeguys.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">duct tape</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, only better) by our graduate teaching assistant, Justine Garcia, who is here for the entire duration of the program and lives on the </span><b><a href="http://www.jcu.edu.au/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">James Cook University</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> campus in Townsville</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Queensland with the students. So the students are getting paleontology for the full five weeks they are here in Australia. Best of all, they have an intensive exposure to this topic in the middle of the program, in which we give them both barrels, chock-a-block with paleontological musings and insights inspired by real fossils from Australia.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHLoS92nHUlt4QwDCRx6QAGBsVjjaBnQzwFmApnLs8ooPTUSQTDcZSuwjfj6ke4SGnza2hcZb6X9rdWNFYc89DK_vKKjI7FvToQt_KBG65QgP2pjRnHExOJuG-O9RYZYdBGNhN9au37UdD/s1600/Cretaceous-Fossils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHLoS92nHUlt4QwDCRx6QAGBsVjjaBnQzwFmApnLs8ooPTUSQTDcZSuwjfj6ke4SGnza2hcZb6X9rdWNFYc89DK_vKKjI7FvToQt_KBG65QgP2pjRnHExOJuG-O9RYZYdBGNhN9au37UdD/s320/Cretaceous-Fossils.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Wow, real Cretaceous fossils from Australia! These are what you hold up when </span><b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKA1UNAu-dc"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">someone questions what paleontologists know about the life of the ancient past</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Specimens in the </span><b><a href="http://www.hughenden.com/Document1.aspx?id=808"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Flinders Discovery Centre</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> of </span></i><i><b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Hughenden, Queensland</span></a></b></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, which my students will get to see tomorrow.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And oh what fossils Australia has! Just in the first two weeks of the program, we read and discussed articles about: the world-famous </span><b><a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vendian/ediacara.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ediacaran fossil assemblage</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> of South Australia; the evidence (thus far) for the early evolution of four-limbed vertebrates (otherwise known as </span><b><a href="http://www.devoniantimes.org/Order/trackways.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">tetrapods</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">) in Australia; the well-known dinosaurs, crayfish, and other biota of the </span><b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/on-frozen-ground-down-under.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">formerly polar environments of Victoria, Australia</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">; the world-famous </span><b><a href="http://www.riversleigh.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Riversleigh fossil assemblage</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> from western Queensland; and the newly discovered Pleistocene </span><b><a href="http://uow.academia.edu/MaximeAubert/Papers/449188/A_Diverse_Pleistocene_Marsupial_Trackway_Assemblage_From_the_Victorian_Volcanic_Plains_Australia"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">megafauna tracksite</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> from western Victoria, recording the movements of the largest marsupials that ever lived.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyFXb4V3UbazjbMV6-dHhXmp1O2mTn2W7FD_HY7DtbzquiFeoFKiNn04AaqsXQSRPK2PSsBTDBQAmTBPjouh2w1NgMnUz2nkotzbHapGLjEelP-op33BdfE9C6fIdmJD3MTcf8Ej3Ho2fr/s1600/Megafauna-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyFXb4V3UbazjbMV6-dHhXmp1O2mTn2W7FD_HY7DtbzquiFeoFKiNn04AaqsXQSRPK2PSsBTDBQAmTBPjouh2w1NgMnUz2nkotzbHapGLjEelP-op33BdfE9C6fIdmJD3MTcf8Ej3Ho2fr/s320/Megafauna-Tracks.jpg" width="239" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Megafaunal tracks from the Volcanic Plains of western Victoria, made by the largest marsupials known – </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="ttp://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/discoverycentre/dinosaur-walk/meet-the-skeletons/diprotodon/">diprotodontids</a></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> – during the </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/ple.html">Pleistocene Epoch</a></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. These and other mammal tracks were described and interpreted in a recent paper titled “A Diverse Pleistocene Marsupial Trackway Assemblage from the Victorian Volcanic Plains, Australia” by Stephen Carey and many others (2011), </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Quaternary Science Reviews</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, v. 30, p. 591-610. And my students learned about this just this past week while we were in Australia.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This next week, our field trip into the outback will then focus on the Cretaceous of Queensland, with fossils of both the terrestrial and marine realms of that time. Loyal readers can now live vicariously through our students, as they learn about the </span><b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-v.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">past lives of the area around Winton</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, the Cretaceous </span><b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-of-lark-quarry.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Lark Quarry tracksite</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, the </span><b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/clancy-matilda-and-banjo-australian.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">newly documented (and totally cool) Cretaceous dinosaurs</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> of this area; the Cretaceous marine invertebrates (ammonites, belmnites, and bivalves, oh my!) and </span><b><a href="http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Dinosaurs+and+Ancient+Life+of+Queensland/Dinosaurs/Giant+marine+reptiles"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">marine reptiles</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and turtles, oh my!) of the former inland sea that covered this part of Australia about 100 million years ago.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So I feel very privileged to share that educational experience for the first time with our students this next week. It’s not all about the discoveries we make as paleontologists – you know, the ones that result in </span><b><a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/the-frustrating-legacy-of-plasterosaurus/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">headlines</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, invitations to </span><b><a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/147281/january-14-2008/neil-shubin"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">talk shows</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, and dancing with Hollywood stars (OK I made up that last one, but it could happen). Instead, it’s about those inward discoveries others can make with us paleontologists as they learn about what preceded us on and in the earth’s land, sea, and sky. Welcome to the Cretaceous of Australia, my students, and may you love it as much as I do.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnnQzspnUFj_lL_gvObef2JTyJR4GDAPXOISdp2RrPRSnCoz-pCg183mBb4Ony7R_MS52UwCTi0ln4Afg78c8paXKTA1SEtnHVj6K1ayhxc5wVilXs3jCFySoyTZIYKjf5s8Wqwx786qXH/s1600/Hypsi%2526Me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnnQzspnUFj_lL_gvObef2JTyJR4GDAPXOISdp2RrPRSnCoz-pCg183mBb4Ony7R_MS52UwCTi0ln4Afg78c8paXKTA1SEtnHVj6K1ayhxc5wVilXs3jCFySoyTZIYKjf5s8Wqwx786qXH/s1600/Hypsi%2526Me.jpg" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">One of my favorite dinosaur recreations, which is of an unspecific </span><b><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/ozfossil/ageofreptiles/fauna/hypsilophodonts.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">hypsilophodontid</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> dinosaur, a common inhabitant of the formerly polar Cretaceous environments of Victoria, Australia. Display in the Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville, Queensland, and me (wearing </span><b><a href="http://www.trollart.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ray Troll</span></a></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> t-shirt, of course) for scale. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><!--EndFragment--> </div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-26997149691710905622011-06-12T11:33:00.000-04:002011-06-12T11:33:19.669-04:00The Dinosaur Tracks of Western Australia May Go Extinct<div style="line-height: 18px;"><style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">You really have to want to visit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broome,_Western_Australia"><b>Broome</b></a> and nearby environs in the <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_region_of_Western_Australia">Kimberly region of Western Australia</a></b>, because it’s a long ways from nearly everywhere else in the world. Even of the Australians I’ve met, relatively few have been there, despite Broome’s beautiful beaches, <a href="http://www.broomecamelsafaris.com.au/"><b>camel rides</b></a> on those beaches, a wonderful <a href="http://www.broomemovies.com.au/"><b>open-air theater</b></a> (the oldest In Australia), <a href="http://www.creativespirits.info/ozwest/broome/pearling.html"><b>pearling history</b></a>, longtime connections to Asian culture, small-town feel, and charming locals. Oh, and its <a href="http://home.alphalink.com.au/%7Edannj/waprints.htm"><b>dinosaur tracks</b></a>, which of course was one of the reasons why I was motivated to go there with my wife <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b>Ruth</b></a> in 2009. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCLVY5vj8FtYuZLcRu1GrqQYlQURqbWfduOYkfM8s9SEOSf95frhHRjYRovHRl2oWOOawSSrboNHM623wFmR1B9TRyxUjGfoH1PHIiIERqzaD5H8afoJIz6TKGH3RFZi0sadw2wWdrNzoK/s1600/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCLVY5vj8FtYuZLcRu1GrqQYlQURqbWfduOYkfM8s9SEOSf95frhHRjYRovHRl2oWOOawSSrboNHM623wFmR1B9TRyxUjGfoH1PHIiIERqzaD5H8afoJIz6TKGH3RFZi0sadw2wWdrNzoK/s320/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-3.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Anyone up for some “ichnotourism”? At low tide near Broome (Western Australia), you can see some of the biggest dinosaur tracks in the world, made by <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/sauropoda.html"><b>sauropods</b></a> about 130 million years ago. Or, you could <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.284.html"><b>put a gas-processing plant on top of them and build a port</b></a>, which will generate absolutely no ichnotourism, stuff up the local environments, and if anything drive people away from the area. Hmm, tough choice: (A) short-term profits benefiting a few people and causing lots of collateral damage, vs. (B) preserving a world-famous natural resource, coastal environments, and cultural heritage that will continue to give back tourism dollars to the local community in perpetuity. Not to bias you, but I’m going with (B). (BTW, lovely wife Ruth for scale.)</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">It was May 2009 when we decided to go to Broome for a week-long vacation after field work had been completed on the Victoria coast. We had been looking for trace fossils in the Cretaceous rocks east and west of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne"><b>Melbourne, Victoria</b></a> and had done a final field check for a paper I had just written, reporting the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8144000/8144199.stm"><b>oldest known dinosaur burrows</b></a> interpreted from the fossil record. As mentioned earlier, there were many touristic incentives for us to go to Broome, but a major factor in our decision to visit was its dinosaur tracks, which can be easily viewed by the public.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Broome had been on my list of places to visit in Australia ever since I had seen a talk in 2002 by Australian dinosaur ichnologist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaur-Tracks-Tony-Thulborn/dp/0412328909"><b>Tony Thulborn</b></a>. Thulborn’s talk was at the <a href="http://www.ipc3.org/"><b>International Palaeontological Congress</b></a> meeting, held in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney"><b>Sydney</b></a> that year, a meeting that gave me a great reason for the first of many visits to Australia. His presentation had the deliberately provocative title, “<i>Giant Tracks in the Broome Sandstone (Lower Cretaceous) of Western Australia</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">The summary (abstract) of his talk also promised to provide evidence that these dinosaur tracks were the largest known, which by default made them the largest tracks made by any animals in the history of the earth. It was quite a claim, but he backed it up with photographs and careful measurements, the latter indicating tracks that were nearly 2 meters (6.6 ft) wide! At the end of his talk, he then justifiably bragged, “Mine’s the biggest!” (He assured us he was only talking about the tracks.)</div><div class="MsoNormal">I made a point of seeking out Dr. Thulborn afterwards to discuss his results, partially as an ichno-groupie, but also wanting to introduce myself as someone who was interested in coming back to Australia, perhaps to study trace fossils with him or someone else there. (The studying trace fossils part actually happened, but with other people, <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071019123615.htm"><b>and it turned out just fine</b></a>.) We had a nice, too-short chat about the tracks and fossil tracks in general, shook hands, and I haven't seen him since. Oh well.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even more unfortunate, the research on the tracks seemed to halt after 2002, which I understood through the paleontological grapevine (or “<a href="http://www.australiatravelsearch.com.au/trc/slang.html"><b>bush telegraph</b></a>”) was related to a large number of complicated reasons, summarized simply as “life.” A reality is that not everything in science gets done, and sometimes that includes really important, high-profile discoveries that involve the “D” word. No, not <a href="http://www.tenaciousd.com/main.html"><b>that “D”</b></a> – I’m talking about dinosaurs.</div><div class="MsoNormal">In 2009, seven years after meeting Dr. Thulborn, I still remembered his talk and its photos of the spectacular dinosaur tracks near Broome, and knew I still wanted to go there. So I suggested to my faithful field companion, Ruth, that we might consider a trip to Broome after finishing field work in Victoria that year. As mentioned earlier, Broome had plenty of couple-oriented activities other than looking at more Cretaceous rocks. But I must admit that I would not have argued so persuasively about traveling across two continents and an ocean – Melbourne to Broome, then Broome to the eastern U.S. afterwards – if it had not been for the dinosaur tracks there. There really aren’t many places in Australia where you can see such tracks, and in an easily accessible (and free) public place. In contrast, <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>Lark Quarry</b></a>, the world-class tracksite near <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winton,_Queensland"><b>Winton</b></a> in Queensland, charges admission (although it’s worth every penny), and Victoria has very few dinosaur tracks. (Well, OK, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/walking-in-their-footsteps-on-victorias-dinosaur-trail-20110610-1fx4j.html"><b>scratch that last statement</b></a>. And you should buy these guys beers next time you see them.) </div><div class="MsoNormal">Naturally, we went and had a great time in Broome for the week we were there, with one of the highlights our seeing the dinosaur tracks there. The tracks are just west of town and along the coast, so we hired a rental car for the day and drove to a parking lot next to the best-known public site for the tracks, <a href="http://www.whereis.com/wa/minyirr/gantheaume+point+rd"><b>Minyirr-Gantheaume Point</b></a>. You can’t just there go whenever you feel like it, though, but you need to read local tide charts ahead of time, as the tracks could be under meters of water when you arrive. And I do mean meters, because Broome and that area of Western Australia has <b><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2002/05/01/2683462.htm">some of the highest tide ranges of anywhere in the world</a>, </b>close to 10 m (or 33 feet, for you metric-phobic Yanks out there). So we had timed our visit for both low tide and sunset, which also afforded low-angle light that helped to accentuate the tracks.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4wEIJRO3drIrqIOOOgjA6qDI6fOPN58cv7RHnx77hy2Brkmr5csmkRwU0oDdymmsChc1fdnvBTerOF_AOAuB5Eg6DvNasx6pPEGCzFmCd5VNfF-V-cGhQS168rSHBZVxmhcICTs4k0y2/s1600/Broome-Sandstone-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4wEIJRO3drIrqIOOOgjA6qDI6fOPN58cv7RHnx77hy2Brkmr5csmkRwU0oDdymmsChc1fdnvBTerOF_AOAuB5Eg6DvNasx6pPEGCzFmCd5VNfF-V-cGhQS168rSHBZVxmhcICTs4k0y2/s320/Broome-Sandstone-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Beautiful exposures of the Lower Cretaceous Broome Sandstone at Minyirr-Gantheaume Point, just west of Broome, Western Australia. Notice how the rocks above are red and white, whereas the rocks below look a little green around the gills? That’s the part submerged with every flood tide, meaning you’ll need snorkeling gear if you want to see dinosaur tracks then.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Minyirr-Gantheaume Point has a nicely done information kiosk just above the rocky marine platform containing the dinosaur tracks, with attractive signs telling visitors about both the tracks and their connections to the indigenous people of the area, the <a href="http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=3435"><b>Rubibi</b></a>. You see, tracks both modern and fossil, as well as their representation as iconography,<b> <a href="http://www.aboriginal-dreamtime.net2go.info/aboriginal_symbols.htm">comprise a key part of the spirituality and heritage</a></b> of indigenous people in Australia, thus playing an integral role in the <a href="http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/introduction.shtml"><b>longest continuous human culture on earth</b></a>. In this instance, the tracks reflect part of a <a href="http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/religion.shtml"><b>Dreamtime story</b></a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songlines"><b>songline</b></a>, in which a Lawmaker named Marella (“Emu Man”) left three-toed tracks along his route. This reference to <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>three-toed tracks</b></a> is no doubt linked to those of theropod-dinosaur tracks in the area, but also may have been influenced by <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Emu_tracks_on_salt_lake.JPG"><b>modern emu tracks</b></a>, which closely resemble the theropod tracks in size and form. These sorts of connections between ancient legends of indigenous people and fossils are also common with in <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7923.html"><b>North America</b></a>, but had at least 30,000 years longer to develop in Australia.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Several actual-sized molds of a typical three-toed theropod track are set in concrete at the kiosk, and part of the display states how at least nine types of dinosaur tracks have been discovered from the area. This area along the coast, much of it bearing dinosaur tracks, is also called the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Goolarabooloo-and-Lurujarri-Heritage-Trail/116735645006633"><b>Lurujarri Heritage Trail</b></a>, and is about 80 km (50 mi) long, reaching from just south of Broome to the north as part of an incomparably scenic area of Western Australia, sometimes simply called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_%28Western_Australia%29"><b>Kimberley</b></a>. Not coincidentally, this trail has thousands of dinosaur tracks throughout much of it, which has led some paleontologists (including Thulborn) to state that it might be one of the richest sources for dinosaur tracks in the world. Supposedly at least 16 types of dinosaur tracks (<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/trace-fossil-by-any-other-name.html"><b>ichnospecies</b></a>) have been identified from this assemblage, but they haven't been studied well enough to say exactly what dinosaurs made all of these. Astonishingly, <b><a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/dinosaurs-in-australia/">only six dinosaur bones of any age</a> </b>have been found in all of Western Australia, so their presence fills in a considerable gap in the fossil record of dinosaurs in this part of the world, while also demonstrating yet again <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html"><b>why dinosaur tracks matter</b></a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVCyFHLdPLC5xwKFqy9kABVcAFLx1TLWPFQagepTy0OyKPzFWjaik9WiQISGFZYY-TUZqWWdr1i62fJ845HVxTQANusep31gc4EJj_tAISZg0f4MWOtwNswjUYQq4Zsx6-1m8HU3CGW_MR/s1600/Fake-Tracks-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVCyFHLdPLC5xwKFqy9kABVcAFLx1TLWPFQagepTy0OyKPzFWjaik9WiQISGFZYY-TUZqWWdr1i62fJ845HVxTQANusep31gc4EJj_tAISZg0f4MWOtwNswjUYQq4Zsx6-1m8HU3CGW_MR/s320/Fake-Tracks-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-lZgGtTzdjMydJSR-ikkYVtRGSB1-qARMXiL2LZNpUBu0lLh7fElbadfbd2PvxakHwqOydKrJqgh5Pw_akANhbaZPCxO5846C1Ta0mduy8yk66ySOxmgT1hJQdtNjcYDOKh0dOUMXBWLw/s1600/Fake-Tracks-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFSoMf0Dwqip5EcDeAXbHbSqCswIRsQYydKovR6tzolyzt6U3f6jjxz8ko84-_WcyEqfDegvq0Bl_bjMlUMgCt1LiFqgHJ_TaoMWQN-kW9rhHYMJOlsq6SLRrB_8BiDvAtUrMp8x3wWOA/s1600/Fake-Tracks-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFSoMf0Dwqip5EcDeAXbHbSqCswIRsQYydKovR6tzolyzt6U3f6jjxz8ko84-_WcyEqfDegvq0Bl_bjMlUMgCt1LiFqgHJ_TaoMWQN-kW9rhHYMJOlsq6SLRrB_8BiDvAtUrMp8x3wWOA/s320/Fake-Tracks-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Dinosaur “tracks” that are actually modern human traces, where the cast of a theropod dinosaur track was used to make artificial ones in concrete. I’m assuming these are based on a real track from the Broome area, but alas, further information was lacking. Shoe size: 8 1/2 (mens).</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, we weren’t just satisfied with an information kiosk and faux tracks, so we descended onto the rocky shoreline to look for the real things. We had read that the best ones are visible in the lowest part of the intertidal range, giving us a starting point in our search, but we also looked at what might be exposed in cross sections of the strata along the way. It was a very nice task, as the variegated sandstone beds were seemingly illuminated from within by the setting sun, making for lovely scenery.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgeoKkHspcZljs9leQR9BFmSyjaMW_c2JpHWlew7Onp711xbdQEtzDYTiW7s3jkYa1drH6dupuTB9HAsN-UKlbkMN5_I8-_alrIN_fR1b43was16OrHawrwGi7Iy6KDTAFM1pprbQhAqu6/s1600/Broome-Sandstone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgeoKkHspcZljs9leQR9BFmSyjaMW_c2JpHWlew7Onp711xbdQEtzDYTiW7s3jkYa1drH6dupuTB9HAsN-UKlbkMN5_I8-_alrIN_fR1b43was16OrHawrwGi7Iy6KDTAFM1pprbQhAqu6/s320/Broome-Sandstone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Outcrop of the Lower Cretaceous Broome Sandstone, looking good near sunset along Minyirr-Gantheaume Point near Broome.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Sure enough, we found places where the normally flattish layers of sandstone looked like they had been punched downward and warped into unusual forms. These were likely dinosaur tracks in cross-section, very similar to ones I had seen in Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks of the western U.S. Sometimes such odd structures, when recognized as coming from dinosaurs, are nicknamed “<a href="http://www.terraunbound.com/Nature/Summer-into-Fall-2006/1878728_N7mAB/3/101368728_ooyy2#101368728_ooyy2"><b>brontosaur bulges</b></a>.” The hypothesis for these features is that they were formed by compression of soft sandy layers by the feet of multi-ton dinosaurs, such as <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/sauropoda.html"><b>sauropods</b></a>, that through their great weight deformed sediment well below where their feet actually touched the original surface.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRXx-n5cntmfMtYjbXJjRInq2AtwHKPmdgd5krJd6zCjuLC9asDF3tKJNkdY2897oKaaTsh14Vq8rC9eOT1NQmvmu2hz67txKGhFfqA2AlrVdGbUrqyx_YxadZ2eLlie8C7lHsyvQT0c0/s1600/Oz-Bronto-Bulges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRXx-n5cntmfMtYjbXJjRInq2AtwHKPmdgd5krJd6zCjuLC9asDF3tKJNkdY2897oKaaTsh14Vq8rC9eOT1NQmvmu2hz67txKGhFfqA2AlrVdGbUrqyx_YxadZ2eLlie8C7lHsyvQT0c0/s320/Oz-Bronto-Bulges.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>So-called “brontosaur bulges” seen in cross-section, probably caused by sauropod dinosaurs when they stepped on soft sand about 130 million years ago, but they also could have been from large ornithopods, stegosaurs, or other weighty dinosaurs.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Further down we went, until at the water’s edge we spotted the large, three-toed tracks. Their narrow toes, sharp clawmarks, and narrower widths compared to lengths meant they were <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>probably theropod tracks</b></a>. The theropod tracks, most of which were 25-30 cm long, show this area had relatively large predatory dinosaurs in this area of Australia during the Early Cretaceous. Using a little formula for figuring out the approximate sizes of the trackmakers – 4.0 X footprint length = hip height – these theropods had hip heights of about 1.0-1.2 m (3.3-4 ft), which made them much larger than, say, <a href="http://www.velociraptors.info/"><b><i>Velociraptor</i></b></a>, but smaller than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allosaurus"><b><i>Allosaurus</i></b></a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5gb66nzqK7GKzmn45Z1OklkFQCGF5szG3cn0cS0_dtfnK6fMGrwVTtobWMo9mkmuHs-Dykjt86V_4HBjLyS4iD3BVKL8C-sBFtonv6imTjtlk5N4tD72_S462hm-Xke1m64RYKWB_seVw/s1600/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5gb66nzqK7GKzmn45Z1OklkFQCGF5szG3cn0cS0_dtfnK6fMGrwVTtobWMo9mkmuHs-Dykjt86V_4HBjLyS4iD3BVKL8C-sBFtonv6imTjtlk5N4tD72_S462hm-Xke1m64RYKWB_seVw/s320/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-1.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Theropod tracks at low tide, preserved in the Broome Sandstone. Looks like at least one trackway is there, with the theropod heading toward Ruth, probably because she's modeling the latest in paleontological footwear.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5N9HZ9TcGjHpqmqICKHxWosiGV2oUIJDBSfNHP8BQJ2eTuNvESyPs17gT6VQrO5DHk9UrYfwk-t_EdMsNKwehR_L7BTm0zJbjTfPMpwFnmc5sNtxb2LzCWPWTyzVqU553T8w1AVcnUMT/s1600/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5N9HZ9TcGjHpqmqICKHxWosiGV2oUIJDBSfNHP8BQJ2eTuNvESyPs17gT6VQrO5DHk9UrYfwk-t_EdMsNKwehR_L7BTm0zJbjTfPMpwFnmc5sNtxb2LzCWPWTyzVqU553T8w1AVcnUMT/s320/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>A theropod track at low tide in the Broome Sandstone, with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097937/"><b>my left foot</b></a> (25 cm long) next to it for scale. You know, there’s something about seeing the real thing that’s so much better than those phony ones by the car park.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyvj8lh1iGhCpQXCYK4vso7eDtyM6KHx6yynGYeEB0F-zoS1ATl2R-H-UV9i9zfbAEDrc382bzN1udK11YZMw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i> A pan of an area bearing some theropod tracks at Minyirr-Gantheaume Point and a brief paleontological explanation by Yours Truly.</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal">More tracks were just to the north along the shoreline, but not of theropods. These were more akin to those Dr. Thulborn had mentioned in his talk seven years previously. These huge depressions were very likely sauropod tracks, some of them about a meter wide. Although these didn’t show any good definition of toes (thus they were probably <a href="http://paleo.cc/paluxy/ovrdino.htm"><b>undertracks</b></a>), their overall size and shape were very similar to those of undoubted sauropod tracks I had seen in Late Jurassic rocks of Utah and Colorado. In some places, these depressions aligned, indicating apparent trackways, and a few showed a double–register where the rear foot (pes) overlapped the front foot (manus) as these sauropods walked slowly through this area about 130 million years ago.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJHpq3E6GgBFT175XCLGI3bD15ZmNijhxBBPwetBoU7HTv4kEGQ3vkmfkZu3kJG7ZalgFu-wL6pLIYZinJ_xgKZK7xYvIBcjn9QJNpJghJ3plUaqfKqPc7qRajJiiRcgz5SrN_RoghoW-D/s1600/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJHpq3E6GgBFT175XCLGI3bD15ZmNijhxBBPwetBoU7HTv4kEGQ3vkmfkZu3kJG7ZalgFu-wL6pLIYZinJ_xgKZK7xYvIBcjn9QJNpJghJ3plUaqfKqPc7qRajJiiRcgz5SrN_RoghoW-D/s320/Broome-Dinosaur-Tracks-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Double-register or indirect register (right), where the rear foot of a sauropod stepped onto the track made by the preceding front foot of the same side. Yes, that's another probable sauropod track just to the left. Wow, sure are a lot of dinosaur tracks in this area. Reckon it and the shoreline north of Broome deserve <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/"><b>National Heritage</b></a> status?</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzEPGTHjjnNX37T1fbAC-0AbM8wF3zAGoGHqNoKF88tj24ZKjwYkPuXeq1YGPvi30nLyYSumBgr-EkFEvPLzQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>This is your lucky day: yet another video explanation of the dinosaur tracks at Broome, but about the sauropod tracks. Sorry for it not having a cheery (or cheeky) soundtrack, too, but at least you get to see a brief cameo appearance by Ruth.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">OK, that’s the nice, warm, fuzzy part: privileged American tourists travel far to see dinosaur tracks in Western Australia, have a good time, go home, and share their adventure with friends, students, sworn mortal enemies, and indifferent strangers. Then why the inflammatory and gloomy headline to this story?<br />
<br />
Well it turns out that a liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) processing plant, accompanied by a port and other major development, is being planned for <a href="http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/kimberley/james-price-point-threatened-by-fossil-fuel-industry"><b>James Price Point</b></a>, about 60 km (35 mi) north of Broome and part of the 80-km long coastline holding the dinosaur tracks. The plant would be the joint effort of a number of energy companies, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/science/earth/27nigeria.html"><b>Shell</b></a> and <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=one-year-after-bp-oil-spill-millions-of-barrels-oil-missing"><b>BP</b></a>. (Gee, what's the worst that could happen?) Anyway, the plan has recently received a lot of attention from environmental and indigenous-rights activists (see links at the end of this post), and seems that most people are not very happy about it. Also, <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.284.html"><b>according to Tony Thulborn</b></a> (remember him?) in a long, detailed online comment to a recent news story in <i>Nature</i>, this is probably the worst place possible to put the plant because of how it will adversely affect (that’s lawyer-speak for “destroy”) the dinosaur tracks in that area.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But this isn’t just a matter of direct destruction of the tracks, which will certainly happen in the immediate vicinity of the plant. Scientifically invaluable trace fossils north and south of the plant also could be buried under thick layers of sand, meaning that paleontologists won’t be able to study them. You mean, the people behind the gas-processing plant are actually going to hire trucks to carry in heaps of sand and dump them onto the dinosaur tracks, just to tick off those crazy scientists and environmentalists? (Cue <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_EqK-a8adnQrXd9wiSFM2Ch9ylDkfL57GtSl3C-EQSf9TDzkBNq3HFMqPcTZoklqCDBxXDtrU37IzHy7BwpAN141p1HjSmsK7pitjvHNjdMNN8wSry4mMM5Bq95UzHijidSfY_ILkp5I/s1600-h/mr-burns_wallpaper_.gif"><b>Mr. Burns</b></a> laughing diabolically in the background.)</div><div class="MsoNormal">No, it’s a matter of shoreline dynamics at play, and how we humans can alter these factors once we change a shoreline, however little or big. The port will host large tankers, which in turn will require <a href="http://www.csc.noaa.gov/beachnourishment/html/geo/shorelin.htm"><b>breakwaters, groins</b></a>, and other modifications to the shoreline. How the sand will be moved by <a href="http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/geomorph/visualizations/longshore.html"><b>longshore drift</b></a>, tides, or storms then comprise a big question mark. Although, on the plus side, more sand in some places along the shore might hide the tracks and thus better preserve them. But there’s no way to know which ones will win the “longshore lottery,” so to speak.</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what can you do to help make sure these 130 million-year-old tracks are around a few more years so that scientists can study them, tourists can see them, and an important part of indigenous cultural history is kept alive? Write to the following bloke and tell him (politely, using the word “please” as much as possible) that you would like this area to have National Heritage status. Then it will be less vulnerable to development, and more likely to change in a slower and more geologically appropriate way.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>The Honourable Tony Burke, MP</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>Minister for the Environment</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>PO Box 6022</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>House of Representatives</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>Parliament House</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>Canberra ACT 2600</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>E-mail: <a href="mailto:Tony.burke.mp@aph.gov.au">Tony.burke.mp@aph.gov.au</a></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;">The decision about whether this area will get National Heritage status will be made by June 30, so do your best to make your voice heard before then. As one of the signs said at Minyirr-Gantheaume Point: “Please look after our country. If you do, this country will look after you.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlfTbj13uef6wmB6Wr0uAxsW7NGMW7iBMXxt_gpZM2Mr2KBT2lGoqckSyOpGawVn3DQQJB11twYHyr443AhWzYlzZMWyf6lfw4d2DAFhvi8zKaUoKFrhFRMjB-N7I4IFu9owueidYmfJz/s1600/Cable-Beach-Sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlfTbj13uef6wmB6Wr0uAxsW7NGMW7iBMXxt_gpZM2Mr2KBT2lGoqckSyOpGawVn3DQQJB11twYHyr443AhWzYlzZMWyf6lfw4d2DAFhvi8zKaUoKFrhFRMjB-N7I4IFu9owueidYmfJz/s320/Cable-Beach-Sunset.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><i>Sunset on Cable Beach near Broome, Western Australia. Is the sun setting on the dinosaur tracks of Western Australia, too? Yes, but let's hope it does literally, and not metaphorically.</i></div><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_PsayZKRjvM" width="480"></iframe><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><i>And today's appropriate song for ending this post is </i>Return to Country<i>, by <a href="http://www.kerriannecox.com/"><b>Kerrianne Cox</b></a>, who is from Western Australia and working with other activists to oppose the LNG plant at James Price Point. The reverie interrupting the song and slide show doesn't quite work for me, although I agree with the sentiment, especially the exquisite Cretaceous rocks in that part of Australia.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><b>Pertinent Links</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0mm;"><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/dinosaurs/meet_the_dinos/ozdino2.htm">Summary by the ABC of dinosaur tracks in Australia, but with emphasis on the Western Australia ones.</a><br />
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<a href="http://pindanpost.com/2011/04/30/rare-dinosur-footprints-to-be-destroyed/">Dinosaur footprints threatened by natural gas project </a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dinosaur-footprints-threatened">Scientific American article (republished from Nature)</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.savethekimberley.com/wp/2011/05/16/the-dinosaur-footprints-of-the-kimberley-coast-a-call-to-protect-our-heritage-and-stop-the-james-price-point-gas-hub/">Save The Kimberly</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/8840878/gas-hub-would-destroy-dinosaur-prints/">Gas hub 'would destroy dinosaur prints</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theworld.org/2011/05/dinosaurs-broome-kiPRmberley-australia/">PRI story, “Dinosaurs Walked Here,”</a> including audio interview (MP3) with Dr. Steve Salibsury, paleontologist at University of Queensland:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://pindanpost.com/2011/04/30/rare-dinosur-footprints-to-be-destroyed/">Pindanpost </a>(blog) with lots of links about the story</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://pindanpost.com/2011/04/30/rare-dinosur-footprints-to-be-destroyed/"><br />
</a></div></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-61236192169277394892011-04-29T10:31:00.000-04:002011-04-29T10:31:10.760-04:00Kronosaurus: The King (or Queen) of the Queensland Sea<div style="line-height: 18px;"><style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Life was good during the Early Cretaceous – about 110 million years ago – in what would some day become Queensland, Australia. That is, life was good for whatever was making <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>tucker</b></a> out of whatever else was alive at that time. In that sense, then, when it came to the Cretaceous seaway that covered much of inland Australia then, few animals enjoyed life more than the giant marine reptile <i>Kronosaurus queenlandicus</i>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivxtWiGT1cfGFa8Wt1iFmpxAfYdg6olreSsbhM59iwvmuc-8Q7VQW8E4YAtOA-x301-WELzZYxB2Z791FWElvcP6_7n6RnWZYW4GbD4b5H6het8TGpRNvV0TQGF-jWGgZA0AViDk5bkhaF/s1600/Kronosaurus-Art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivxtWiGT1cfGFa8Wt1iFmpxAfYdg6olreSsbhM59iwvmuc-8Q7VQW8E4YAtOA-x301-WELzZYxB2Z791FWElvcP6_7n6RnWZYW4GbD4b5H6het8TGpRNvV0TQGF-jWGgZA0AViDk5bkhaF/s320/Kronosaurus-Art.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Fancy a dive in the Cretaceous sea of Queensland? You’d have a lot more to worry about than running into a <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/box-jellyfish/"><b>box jellyfish</b></a>, <a href="http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=403"><b>blue-winged octopus</b></a>, or <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/great-white-shark/"><b>great white shark</b></a>, mate, like a bloody huge </i>Kronosaurus<i>. Artwork is on a tapestry (batik?) in <a href="http://www.kronosauruskorner.com.au/"><b>Kronosaurus Korner</b></a>, Richmond, Queensland, and the presumed artist is Paul Stumkat, who’s also the curator and fossil preparator there. (When you do paleontology in central Queensland, you have to wear a lot of hats.) </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Last July 2010, while on a paleontological drive-about (not to be confused with a <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>walkabout</b></a>) in central Queensland with my wife <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b>Ruth</b></a>, we ended up in the small town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Queensland"><b>Richmond</b></a>. Our stopping in Richmond was not random, as I had visited there in 2007 and was thoroughly impressed with the alliteratively (and illiteratively) named fossil museum there, <a href="http://www.kronosauruskorner.com.au/"><b>Kronosaurus Korner</b></a>. So we were visiting to see this facility and its paleontological displays, including the remains of the enormous Cretaceous predator that inspired the museum’s name.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">And just who, er, I mean, what was <i>Kronosaurus</i>? It is classified as a <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/pliosaur.html"><b>pliosaur</b></a>, and pliosaurs were an evolutionarily related group of marine reptiles that lived during the latter part of the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/mesozoic.html"><b>Mesozoic Era</b></a>, from about 200 to 90 million years ago. Although pliosaurs chronologically overlapped with dinosaurs, they were separated by habitats, as dinosaurs were mere land-dwellers and pliosaurs probably never willingly left the ocean. Pliosaurs shared a common ancestor with another group of marine reptiles – <a href="http://www.plesiosaur.com/"><b>plesiosaurs</b></a> – but differed from those by having large skulls relative to their total body lengths and short necks. Both groups, though, had flippered limbs that were well adapted for swimming.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why have a large skull? Normally this trait has nothing to do with holding a bigger brain, but rather for supporting the ability to bite through anything that might be in your environment. <i>Kronosaurus</i> was a great example of a big-time biter, having dozens of 25-cm (10-in) long pointy teeth and a skull about ¼ of its body length. How long was that? Its adult body lengths are estimated to have been about 8-10 m (26-33 ft), although that has been the subject of controversy, as explained later.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomTVucbQEBsAAmH0BTXGNhUnzG4R17qGipXZ5cF7jfKEA2yHxioXSfloa_Qc0CXsrbrjrn8fBZu1FacHs_h_iSaLM9aGWeQ_gkKMzZ6_3xoO-FK2neQlpCABISZNlgxZ4B5d_CJrgYoIv/s1600/Kronosaurus%252BCroc-Skull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomTVucbQEBsAAmH0BTXGNhUnzG4R17qGipXZ5cF7jfKEA2yHxioXSfloa_Qc0CXsrbrjrn8fBZu1FacHs_h_iSaLM9aGWeQ_gkKMzZ6_3xoO-FK2neQlpCABISZNlgxZ4B5d_CJrgYoIv/s320/Kronosaurus%252BCroc-Skull.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Here’s a small piece of a </i>Kronosaurus<i> skull (above) compared to the full-sized skull of a much-feared modern aquatic reptile of Australia, the estuarine crocodile (</i>Crocodylus porosus<i>), also known as “salties” for their occasional sea-faring ways. I don’t know about you, but I would rather take my chances with a “salty” instead of a “Krony.” Display at Kronosaurus Korner, Richmond, Queensland.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">As can be surmised from its species name, <i>Kronosaurus queenlandicus</i> hails from Queensland. The type specimen was found in 1899 near the town of <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b>Hughenden</b></a>, consisting of just a lower jawbone (mandible) with a few teeth. Paleontologist Heber Longman named it in 1901, although at first he thought it was an ichthyosaur. Like many scientists, though, he later corrected this mistake. (We scientists are funny about that: it’s almost as if science has <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/science-is-self-correcting-lessons-from-the-arsenic-controversy/"><b>self-correction</b></a> built in as part of its process.) In the 1920s, station owner Ralph Thomas found the most famous specimen of <i>Kronosaurus</i> on his ranch (Army Downs) north of Richmond. He told a fossil-hunting team from Harvard University about it, and they decided to collect the specimen so it could be studied.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Only thing was, this specimen was really big (we’re talking <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus">“Tyrannosaurus big”</a></b>), and its bones were still encased in sandstone, which meant that taking it out and transporting it would not be easy. So it was broken into 86 pieces, with some of fragmentation accomplished by dynamite, strategically placed by a field assistant nicknamed “The Maniac” (<a href="http://www.aaodl.com/.../AAOD%20Journal%20Issue%203%20example%20article.pdf"><b>no, I am not making that up</b></a>). In 1932, all 4-5 tonnes of rock containing the bones were shipped back to the U.S., and the bones have stayed there ever since.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, this sort of Yankee paleo-imperialism still rankles with people I talked with in Queensland, with which I agree, considering how taking a fossil too away from its place of origin <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/keeping-track-of-fossil-tracks.html"><b>can reduce our understanding of it</b></a>. Fortunately for Australians who don’t feel like traveling to the eastern U.S. to see their pliosaur, more specimens have been found since, and these have stayed in Australia, including several at Kronosaurus Korner (appropriate, that).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJhdd6Kaf4gZvTFMTKR4_swulTMdpfiZ5kIHyrstRe2L1psmPOBH-uT91UGF9Mvfqsl0Y8tnz80D2387oaYOMysoJuw_09g2bNY9oYrT6t9dAwemZYzh0EXa8KOj0wreLvJG1xQ29w3pa/s1600/Partial-Kronosaurus-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJhdd6Kaf4gZvTFMTKR4_swulTMdpfiZ5kIHyrstRe2L1psmPOBH-uT91UGF9Mvfqsl0Y8tnz80D2387oaYOMysoJuw_09g2bNY9oYrT6t9dAwemZYzh0EXa8KOj0wreLvJG1xQ29w3pa/s320/Partial-Kronosaurus-1.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A partial skeleton of </i>Kronosaurus<i> showing the lower outline of its skull, preceding part of a front limb and a few of its vertebrae, namely the neck (cervical) and back (dorsal). Specimen on display at Kronosaurus Korner, Richmond, Queensland.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Moving the specimen to the U.S. did not mean it would be seen by the public in all of its pointy-toothy glory any time soon, though. Extraction of the skeleton took 27 years, and it was not revealed to the public at the <a href="http://www.mcz.harvard.edu/"><b>Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology</b></a> until 1959. The detailed story of this ordeal, as well as the genius of its preparation and mounting by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_999162439">James Jensen, Sr.</a><a href="http://www.dinosaurjim.com/"><b> (“Dinosaur Jim”)</b></a> is told by his son, James Jensen, Jr. <a href="http://dinosaurjim.com/2.4___Kronosaurus_Queenslandicus.pdf"><b>here</b></a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZzb9D6fX5pgCQN7RZLI82TP1Z0Y9OKR_XIGMrjr01PopAUQAjvKCA6dP3lkrq45Hty0iPaMfiN7oLWE6L2fpJ627MHJEDwR5rubtQpmnV7uPkj6RlGvdjyi0Zx45x17UqP5W6M6vk5Hx/s1600/Kronosaurus-Harvard-Lady-in-Red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="76" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZzb9D6fX5pgCQN7RZLI82TP1Z0Y9OKR_XIGMrjr01PopAUQAjvKCA6dP3lkrq45Hty0iPaMfiN7oLWE6L2fpJ627MHJEDwR5rubtQpmnV7uPkj6RlGvdjyi0Zx45x17UqP5W6M6vk5Hx/s320/Kronosaurus-Harvard-Lady-in-Red.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>A classic photo of the classic specimen of </i>Kronosaurus, <i>originally from Queensland, Australia, but now on display at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard University), with the mysterious <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejxFeS47OZ8"><b>Lady in Red</b></a> for scale. Little does she know that this specimen is wearing the fossil equivalent of <a href="http://www.magicinsoles.com/"><b>lifts</b></a>. Wish I could credit the photographer, but I understand it's originally from a postcard, and the digital image comes from always-excellent <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/pliosaur.html"><b>Oceans of Kansas</b></a> web site.</i></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Tragically, I have not seen this specimen of <i>Kronsaurus</i>, which happens to be much closer to my home (Atlanta, Georgia USA) than central Queensland. The skeleton, displayed beautifully in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusetts), is only about a two-hour flight from Atlanta, so perhaps I should make a trip to see it sometime. (Mental note: Start going to major natural-history museums in the eastern U.S.)</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The odd thing is, the original skeleton was nowhere near as complete as the mounted version might imply. Evidently, too many vertebrae were added to its back, making it about 13 meters (42 feet) long, and enough plaster was added to the mount that it gained the facetious nickname of “<a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Kronosaurus-queenslandicus"><b>Plasterosaurus</b></a>.” So now paleontologists think that <i>Kronosaurus</i> might have been “only” 8-10 meters (26-33 feet) long. But hey, what are a few meters among friends when you’re a Cretaceous pliosaur?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpBVwiSTuHGzfRRMHohqxZBovRr_lG81aCFf3qA2T4YUzZekd4WSdMn0Qo8gAwRi1tUInKk9iYdcOmW1BlXzh8-O5tr8CvfpYKBL0CF5a53bbmhnAdPV9GvgVjYOmmRKFvpZsvM1ckg2t/s1600/Partial-Kronosaurus-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpBVwiSTuHGzfRRMHohqxZBovRr_lG81aCFf3qA2T4YUzZekd4WSdMn0Qo8gAwRi1tUInKk9iYdcOmW1BlXzh8-O5tr8CvfpYKBL0CF5a53bbmhnAdPV9GvgVjYOmmRKFvpZsvM1ckg2t/s320/Partial-Kronosaurus-2.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Another partial skeleton of Kronosaurus giving more of a sense of its total length: partial skull in front extending back to its tail (caudal) vertebrae, with a few paddled limbs thrown in for good measure. My lovely wife Ruth is serving as a scale in the back, fulfilling the cliché about geologists (and paleontologists) that <a href="http://www.interplanetsarah.com/topten.html"><b>their only photos of people are as scale</b></a>. Incidentally, she’s 1.8 m (5.8 ft) tall.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Is <i>Kronosaurus</i> found only in Australia? One fossil says “no.” A geologically older species of <i>Kronosaurus</i> – <a href="http://lapaleontologiaencolombia.blogspot.com/2010/10/kronosaurus-boyacensis.html"><b><i>Kronosaurus boyacensis</i></b></a><i> – </i>was discovered in 1992 in Cretaceous rocks of northern Columbia, a place far away from both Queensland and Massachusetts. Nevertheless, when you’re a large marine reptile during a time of very high sea level (which the Cretaceous had), you and your relatives could get around. So they did.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">OK, I know what you’re thinking. (No, not <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYZs7VJaAlQ"><b>that</b></a>, although you’re close.) You’re wondering, “But wait: aren’t you an <a href="http://www.allwords.com/word-ichnologist.html"><b>ichnologist</b></a>? What are you doing talking about some big marine reptile and its body fossils?” Well, here’s Example #1,243 why trace fossils kick butt yet again (and I never get tired of reminding everyone of that fact). For a long time, paleontologists didn’t know what <i>Kronosaurus</i> ate, but trace fossils helped to provide some answers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">At first, large shelled <a href="http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/"><b>cephalopods</b></a> – <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/prehistoric/ammonites/"><b>ammonites</b></a> and <a href="http://www.tonmo.com/science/fossils/nautiloids.php"><b>nautiloids</b></a> – were proposed as the most likely candidates for <i>Kronosaurus</i> fodder. This hypothesis made sense because of: (1) the co-occurrence of many large nautiloid and ammonite fossils in the same Cretaceous deposits holding the remains of <i>Kronosaurus</i>; and (2) its massive size and banana-sized teeth implied that these were used for crunching hard-shelled or hard-boned animals, of which nautiloids and ammonites certainly qualified.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIEIFchCVrOvC8zZ4kkwGk0__UP6vntbEWy4bMO5aXQbgO6KhQvmjO35CkYkb0qkvakA7p_w-VWFgyRaWRgQbQOz6uDgjIRVD1zTiWGj5WZAh5viSR7-qCbEfDQY3KVI6WSRGCdbuhUTb1/s1600/Cretaceous-Nautiloid-Oz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIEIFchCVrOvC8zZ4kkwGk0__UP6vntbEWy4bMO5aXQbgO6KhQvmjO35CkYkb0qkvakA7p_w-VWFgyRaWRgQbQOz6uDgjIRVD1zTiWGj5WZAh5viSR7-qCbEfDQY3KVI6WSRGCdbuhUTb1/s320/Cretaceous-Nautiloid-Oz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipRAs8z5hki34A-wu1kX-ZZ3phV3FqrImIoLuIAr5-e36M49jILRorLgDJ-jo0Q4arq8HDWmMyg5UCYXX_43DAAavZU4jdHWvVVQsk_HnVJ0sVM6Q9ffwt6H9PkKrY-K7GLOJGjFgKCjzP/s1600/Cretaceous-Ammonite-Oz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipRAs8z5hki34A-wu1kX-ZZ3phV3FqrImIoLuIAr5-e36M49jILRorLgDJ-jo0Q4arq8HDWmMyg5UCYXX_43DAAavZU4jdHWvVVQsk_HnVJ0sVM6Q9ffwt6H9PkKrY-K7GLOJGjFgKCjzP/s320/Cretaceous-Ammonite-Oz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Mmmm…Cretaceous calamari [drooling sounds]. Otherwise known as nautiloids (above) and ammonites (below) to marine biologists, paleontologists, or anyone else who loves cephalopods. Specimens on display at Kronosaurus Korner.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">But there are two problems with that hypothesis. Thus far, no nautiloids or ammonites have been found as stomach contents in <i>Kronosaurus</i>, and no shells of either animal have been found with toothmarks matching the dental records of <i>Kronosaurus</i>. The first of those two facts is excusable, considering how few specimens of this enormous pliosaur have been found, let along ones with their gut regions intact. The second fact, though, is tougher to explain as an absence of evidence. Cephalopods in general (including squid) are very abundant as body fossils in the Cretaceous marine deposits of Queensland. So you would think someone would have found one or more examples that had been punctured by a <i>Kronosaurus</i>. So far, not yet.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Did any other Cretaceous reptiles munch on these molluscans? Yes, but not in Australia, and not by <i>Kronosaurus</i>. This behavior has been documented through trace fossils in Cretaceous marine deposits of North America for paleoecologically analogous marine reptiles, the awesome <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/about-mo.html"><b>mosasaurs</b></a>. These toothmarks show up as circular punch-marks on ammonite shells, which also line up in a way that they correspond with the tooth row of a mosasaur.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNvqNygmtcbcAcbVZVlLU2m1MxZL2bTV4fuI3mp809VYfwhW2iIXdHVFUB-3HUGy2yx7HBStgZNNc4CyqdZmVMFknF2JtKtWjwKqHAZgmLGc-1HurxlmrT-XQdv96h9i0iRP_06hiTkr-/s1600/Mosaur-Pwning-Nautiloid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNvqNygmtcbcAcbVZVlLU2m1MxZL2bTV4fuI3mp809VYfwhW2iIXdHVFUB-3HUGy2yx7HBStgZNNc4CyqdZmVMFknF2JtKtWjwKqHAZgmLGc-1HurxlmrT-XQdv96h9i0iRP_06hiTkr-/s320/Mosaur-Pwning-Nautiloid.jpg" width="255" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>These holes in an ammonite shell were either made by small gastropods (limpets) or are toothmarks from a mosasaur. I don't have to tell you which hypothesis is sexier, but science tends to go for "brainy." Which, of course, is the sexiest. Regardless, I'm going with the biting hypothesis. So these</i><i> marks in a Late Cretaceous nautiloid shell from the U.S. are credited to a mosasaur teaching its young to kill. In this scenario, the big ones (AT) are from the adult and the small ones (JT) are from the juvenile. Figure from: Kauffman, E. (2004), Mosasaur predation on Upper Cretaceous nautiloids and ammonites from the United States Pacific Coast, </i>Palaios<i>, v. 19, p. 96-100.</i></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">However, one prominent ichnologist – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Seilacher"><b>Dolf Seilacher</b></a> – disagreed with this hypothesis and argued that these traces also may have been scars made by <a href="http://www.mesa.edu.au/friends/seashores/limpets.html"><b>limpets</b></a>, which are gastropods that like to attach to hard substrates, like shells. This set off a bit of a scientific tussle, as the “pro-biters” took on Seilacher and other “pro-attachers” who agreed with his hypothesis. No one was disputing that these ammonites had a bunch of big holes and some animal caused them, but the explanations for these features were so radically different from one another, it was worth a good argument.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The last I’ve heard, though, is that the “pro-biters” have regained some favor, as they described a few ammonite specimens showing fracture patterns consistent with biting by an animal with massive and powerful jaws. One paleontologist (Erle Kauffman) even interpreted repeated biting as <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/3515798"><b>possible evidence of an adult mosasaur teaching its you</b><b>ng how to kill ammonites.</b></a> How cool is that? It’s ichno-cool.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Speaking of ichno-cool, trace fossils provide a clue that <i>Kronosaurus</i> may have been at least biting (if not eating) other large marine reptiles swimming in the same Cretaceous seaway. The skull of an Australian elasmosaur (a type of plesiosaur), <i>Woolungasaurus glendowerensis</i>, has some marks on its skull consistent with crushing by large teeth. Could it have been from <i>Kronosaurus</i>? Maybe, but a few more specimens showing more clear evidence would be nice. Of course, that hasn’t stopped some paleo-artists from depicting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kronosaurus_hunt1DB.jpg"><b><i>Kronosaurus</i> victimizing <i>Woolungasaurus</i></b></a><i>. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHz_uG_Ya4VE72WBURlAysH8lcTQt_-VNY6SO3UDoKbqNklTZaS7OBARBzFmc9iQwBw9fgrLVMEIVpD_wk3HxEjoCiSnEp7xOY1MmOfpM-Y16Mftpab_yILpvqELS7FH038WUmkVhTLLE1/s1600/Elasmosaur%2526Toothmarks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHz_uG_Ya4VE72WBURlAysH8lcTQt_-VNY6SO3UDoKbqNklTZaS7OBARBzFmc9iQwBw9fgrLVMEIVpD_wk3HxEjoCiSnEp7xOY1MmOfpM-Y16Mftpab_yILpvqELS7FH038WUmkVhTLLE1/s320/Elasmosaur%2526Toothmarks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Skull of the Early Cretaceous elasmosaur </i>Woolungasaurus glendowerensis<i> that had the misfortune of putting its head inside the head of another animal with really big teeth (like a </i>Kronosaurus<i>); look at the puncture mark (arrow). Specimen on display in the <a href="http://www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au/"><b>Museum of Tropical Queensland</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, as far as I can find from my (admittedly non-exhaustive) literature reviews, this idea of “<i>Kronosaurus</i> skull-crushing fury” has not been tested rigorously yet, and certainly not as much as the “mosasaur chomping ammonite” hypothesis. One trace fossil that would really help would be a massive <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/coprolite.html"><b>coprolite</b></a>. Size alone would tie it to <i>Kronosaurus</i>, and the contents would tell us directly just what went through its gut (or at least the gut of one such animal). Other coprolites attributed to marine reptiles have been recognized from the same Cretaceous deposits (some of which were on display at Kronosaurus Korner), so I hold out hope that someone, some day, will find an enormous pile of fossil sea-dung.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">So if <i>Kronosaurus</i> were around today, what would it eat? It probably would go for large fish – maybe even sharks – and take a bite out of the soft parts of an occasional sea turtle or marine mammals. I can’t help but think that the pack-hunting <a href="http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/KillerWhale.htm"><b>orcas</b></a> would turn the tables and make short work of one, though. Nonetheless, I have some photographic evidence suggesting other potential prey, especially if a <i>Kronosaurus</i> came up onto land:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfZ-5bfS4KskparUb_tPtiQk6CHqYYr6EQeYNlSIuFh5lIthrP3vlC4KQry7DC7cdAqbKD_3OYDk0RvXRELVfCwmSpUZMbv4WTUkOg9l-wix7y1Mgqh2xzc8SgJy6ebKJo5yN8I0F9B2D/s1600/Kronosaurus-Eating-Truck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfZ-5bfS4KskparUb_tPtiQk6CHqYYr6EQeYNlSIuFh5lIthrP3vlC4KQry7DC7cdAqbKD_3OYDk0RvXRELVfCwmSpUZMbv4WTUkOg9l-wix7y1Mgqh2xzc8SgJy6ebKJo5yN8I0F9B2D/s320/Kronosaurus-Eating-Truck.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>Bloody hell! Don’t drive right into its mouth, mate! And here you thought veering around ‘roos and staying awake were the worst hazards of driving a lorry in the Queensland outback.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2F5D9oKZ7QIaWHHIj00-vLeyreytO2UBqgf7Q9trpvinFguDRTaxekqFWdIBTDcphh8RUbp9ame7sSQ-w_axCqIXZB7rAv5ez9YE5QYPuG9ZkUV91AtlwY2fJljFCvulL725YYjV7ZiV/s1600/Kronosaurus-Bin-Laden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2F5D9oKZ7QIaWHHIj00-vLeyreytO2UBqgf7Q9trpvinFguDRTaxekqFWdIBTDcphh8RUbp9ame7sSQ-w_axCqIXZB7rAv5ez9YE5QYPuG9ZkUV91AtlwY2fJljFCvulL725YYjV7ZiV/s320/Kronosaurus-Bin-Laden.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Too much plastic in the world’s oceans? Here’s one solution: bring back </i>Kronosaurus<i> to get rid of your rubbish!</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, all of this goes to show us that, despite our knowing about its presence in the Cretaceous seas of Australia for more than a hundred years, we still have a lot more to learn about this magnificent marine reptile. May <i>Kronosaurus queenlandicus</i> stay alive in our paleontological thoughts, and my best ichno-wishes that trace fossils will somehow tell us more about how it lived.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>I just can’t get enough of this beautiful, inspirational song – </i>From Little Things, Big Things Grow<i>, by <a href="http://www.kevcarmody.com.au/index.html"><b>Kev Carmody</b></a> – and was delighted to know that two of my favorite Australian singers - <a href="http://www.sarastorer.com.au/news.html"><b>Sara Storer</b></a> and <a href="http://www.archieroach.com.au/Archie_Roach/Welcome.html"><b>Archie Roach</b></a> - had covered it. It’s not about </i>Kronosaurus<i>, but about peaceful change, which pretty much cover paleontology and a lot else in life.</i></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><i><br />
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</div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-68451507104861835722011-03-30T06:58:00.000-04:002011-03-30T06:58:55.707-04:00Keeping Track of Fossil Tracks<div style="line-height: 18px;"> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The fossil thieves drove their sport ute into the Western Australia outback in the middle of the night, confident that no one would see them. Just to make sure, though, they turned off their headlights the last kilometer before their destination, using moonlight to keep their tires on the unsealed road. Once at the site, they used torches (flashlights) to search the ground, and quickly found what they were seeking. They pulled out a portable rock saw from of the back of the vehicle and cut through the 120-million-year old sandstone, the abrasive sound masked by nearby waves crashing during high tide. The sandstone bed was thick, but split evenly along its bedding plane so the thieves were able to use a lever bar to pry up each square. These blocks were heaved onto the truck bed; blankets were used to cushion them below and cover them above. The perpetrators got into the truck and sped away from the site, well before the first rays of the morning sun revealed the newly made and oddly square holes in the rock. They had just taken some of the few stegosaur tracks known from the geologic record, and they had stolen these from aboriginal tribal land. It was both a crime against the state and a grave insult to the people who regarded these tracks as part of their heritage.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfxSEG4E48Lu04SP-vK8dyRY94jmdq_73G6K6RXxZCE7AwsIM4n2ag_2FaA7Ob0gT4xTnOsXZdwUrmtHrJZz9QmhTWDAB3MWgpJTYZHkNmJoVX_VN0VB7zgY7Dtk209AdIdmV0MtrMFm5/s1600/WA-DinosaurTrack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfxSEG4E48Lu04SP-vK8dyRY94jmdq_73G6K6RXxZCE7AwsIM4n2ag_2FaA7Ob0gT4xTnOsXZdwUrmtHrJZz9QmhTWDAB3MWgpJTYZHkNmJoVX_VN0VB7zgY7Dtk209AdIdmV0MtrMFm5/s320/WA-DinosaurTrack.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Nice dinosaur track you got there. <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShameIfSomethingHappened"><b>It’d be a shame if something happened to it.</b></a> Track is from a large theropod dinosaur, preserved in Early Cretaceous sandstone of Western Australia. Please don’t take it, legally or otherwise.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The preceding scenario is partially fictionalized, but based on an incident that actually happened in Western Australia in 1996. Paleontologists had been negotiating with indigenous elders to study the tracks, which had been considered as part of their <a href="http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jmresources/dreaming/stories.html"><b>Dreamtime stories</b></a>; hence this was a sacred site for thousands of years before Europeans and others arrived in that area. The stegosaur tracks were recognized by the paleontologists in 1991, and were similarly regarded as “sacred objects” by these scientists in their own way, but for their scientific value.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So what was the big deal about these tracks, and in a paleontological sense? Stegosaurs were at that time unknown from Australia, with not a scrap of bone indicating their former presence on that continent, despite their abundance in Mesozoic rocks of North America, Asia, and Africa. Even now, 15 years after the tracks were stolen, no one has yet identified a stegosaur body fossil from anywhere in Australia. Even more significant, stegosaur tracks are apparently much more rare in the geologic record worldwide than their skeletal parts. A few have been reported from Europe (<a href="http://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app47/app47-561.pdf"><b>Poland</b></a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1502-3931.2009.00190.x/full"><b>the U.K., and Portugal</b></a>), and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00928.x/full"><b>Africa</b></a>, but only two <a href="http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=21339689"><b>from North America</b></a>. This situation – the opposite for most trace fossils, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html"><b>which normally outnumber body fossils</b></a> – also means that the Australian stegosaur tracks would have contributed to a better understanding of how stegosaurs walked or otherwise behaved in this part of the world during the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/mesozoic.html"><b>Mesozoic Era</b></a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGLTMayVMW0nQD8b5h2kpwb5ghGx-_odqUAuhW1VQFB8o3N2Uynu_zxQ39Rf8bh7NwLX0T0Xl8TI_jLHoiAhNE2xICFD5BYGq1LCmrGwiD9R9r4PuPxcAWQxe8nq6ZZIQT7uTN6Vyv69XR/s1600/Stegosaurus-CMNH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGLTMayVMW0nQD8b5h2kpwb5ghGx-_odqUAuhW1VQFB8o3N2Uynu_zxQ39Rf8bh7NwLX0T0Xl8TI_jLHoiAhNE2xICFD5BYGq1LCmrGwiD9R9r4PuPxcAWQxe8nq6ZZIQT7uTN6Vyv69XR/s320/Stegosaurus-CMNH.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Trying to find stegosaur tracks? You’re better off looking for their bones, especially in North America. But you may have your work cut out for you (pun intended) in Australia. Specimen is of </i>Stegosaurus stenops<i> and is in the <a href="http://www.carnegiemnh.org/"><b>Carnegie Museum of Natural History</b></a>.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The Australian paleontologists, once they recognized what they probably had, agreed to limit their time studying the tracks. Of course, they also would not collect these tracks for a museum because of their spiritual importance. Besides, any extraction of them would damage the rock that had held these tracks for millions of years and, in the eyes of the elders, would change their Dreamtime.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Once permission was gained to study the tracks, though, word somehow got out about them, and a terrible thing happened. Professional fossil collectors, looking to sell the tracks to a buyer, went to the site and cut out the tracks with a rock saw. Amazingly, one of these tracks was <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/recovery-of-stolen-dinosaur-footprint.htm"><b>eventually recovered and a suspect arrested</b></a>. Nonetheless, no one knows what happened to all of the tracks, although they presumably ended up in private hands of a wealthy fossil collector. What is known, though, is that the trust between the indigenous people and the paleontologists was violated, perhaps irreparably. Worst of all for science, unless miraculously recovered, the stegosaur tracks will never be described or interpreted. (As an aside, I hope that the people who did this will get a visit from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wondjina"><b>Wandjina</b></a> some day.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCr3rVsqdsAQpv6Zl6AAacu1Spidm6vbWiPsBexlZQBZYP6bpuUreW2tWyeCYafVKmB_rad-4wXEVwjtacC7cAV9ghhHP4TTul8t0Pm7EXNWgm9ZF6Y_4SL09KInWhERGpZEWs7TZw40w/s1600/Hallelujah%252527s%252BMale%252BCompanion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCr3rVsqdsAQpv6Zl6AAacu1Spidm6vbWiPsBexlZQBZYP6bpuUreW2tWyeCYafVKmB_rad-4wXEVwjtacC7cAV9ghhHP4TTul8t0Pm7EXNWgm9ZF6Y_4SL09KInWhERGpZEWs7TZw40w/s1600/Hallelujah%252527s%252BMale%252BCompanion.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>G’Day! Heard you stole some sacred objects from our Dreamtime. Bad move, mate. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGjB_1lzbOw"><b>Who’s your daddy</b></a>? (Artwork by<b> Ruth Schowalter (a.k.a. <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/">Hallelujah Truth</a></b>.)</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Nonetheless, this incident also relates to a thought I’ve wrestled with in recent years. (No, not about the premature cancellation of the TV series <a href="http://www.henson.com/fantasy_scifi.php?content=farscape"><b>Farscape</b></a>: everyone knows that was wrong.) However heretical it might seem for an <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/fossil-collectors-and-academic.html"><b>academic paleontologist</b></a> to say, I sometimes disagree with the sentiment that all fossil specimens belong in a museum. In my opinion – which, like most opinions, is actually never humble – some <a href="http://www.trilobites.info/trace.htm"><b>trace fossils</b>,</a> such as dinosaur tracks<b> </b>and other vertebrate tracks, are better left where they were found. Why? <i>Because our knowledge about them will not always be enhanced by taking them away from their places of origin.</i> This is especially the case if we know these trace fossils were <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7923.html"><b>recognized by local indigenous people</b></a> and became part of their cultural heritage.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">For example, while once on a field trip organized by academic paleontologists, we visited a site that used to have fossil vertebrate tracks. Notice I said, “used to have.” As we walked up to the former location of the tracks, I was shocked to find out they had been collected by other academic paleontologists, instead of being left in the context of their original ancient environments. Even more vexing, the tracks had been lying next to Native American petroglyphs that depicted tracks looking very similar to the fossil ones (maybe coincidental, but probably not). The petroglyphs had been made by indigenous people living in that same area more than a thousand years beforehand. Thus the separation of the fossil vertebrate tracks from the petroglyphs resulted a greater loss of context, but this time cultural.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I expressed my dismay to the field-trip leader by asking, “What are they [the tracks] doing at [name of prestigious institution]?” The bemused and condescending response was, “That’s where they belong!” (You know, like the <a href="http://indianajones.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx"><b>Indiana Jones</b></a> line, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nN-KME0Tqw"><b>“It belongs in a museum!”</b></a>) This was followed by some semi-serious joking about how they wanted to collect the petroglyphs too, but archaeologists studying the site insisted against it. (And they would have gotten away with it too, <b><a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouMeddlingKids">if it weren’t for those meddling kids</a>, </b>er, I mean, archaeologists.) All of this was legal, done with proper permits, through well-known institutions, and was carried out by credentialed individuals through their respective (and respected) institutions. Yet I found it unsettling.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHCzKtUG5TkOrVleKRFwfZ_yoLfzBsAoM69KbHKUMj6kRRbU-TW_Ecx7rogsPWmd8e3LwP044pJK6o9oVffjXfzicT3qAcWJRyY7rgJMAHJrykvgLiVEuqOUj9q0kQbhqxfUIeQyiVOdE/s1600/Petroglyph-BirdTrack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHCzKtUG5TkOrVleKRFwfZ_yoLfzBsAoM69KbHKUMj6kRRbU-TW_Ecx7rogsPWmd8e3LwP044pJK6o9oVffjXfzicT3qAcWJRyY7rgJMAHJrykvgLiVEuqOUj9q0kQbhqxfUIeQyiVOdE/s320/Petroglyph-BirdTrack.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Native American depiction of a three-toed track in the western U.S., pecked into a Mesozoic sandstone. Was it representing the nearby track of a theropod dinosaur, or of a modern bird? Probably of a bird, because of the little dot at the bottom, representing a backward-facing thumb (hallux). But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to compare them directly with theropod dinosaur tracks in the same area?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMwr1Up26ma2sEpL7PVFMD7JN0mx3CgZcZ5WVBN8pGpaFcBVl6UM1TdV7SzMXdb9ShkFtSrQ5SaFX8BydEAaGGhHJCpy8K2rhbmeN6BJ56anw2DAmPUIsFosNIQZ39ICPpBWE0L5uBOfBt/s1600/Fossil-TheropodTrack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMwr1Up26ma2sEpL7PVFMD7JN0mx3CgZcZ5WVBN8pGpaFcBVl6UM1TdV7SzMXdb9ShkFtSrQ5SaFX8BydEAaGGhHJCpy8K2rhbmeN6BJ56anw2DAmPUIsFosNIQZ39ICPpBWE0L5uBOfBt/s320/Fossil-TheropodTrack.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Guess what: you can! This Middle Jurassic theropod dinosaur track is at the <a href="http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/field_offices/Worland/Tracksite/science.html"><b>Red Gulch Dinosaur tracksite</b></a> in Wyoming (USA), and only a few hundred meters away from Native American petroglyphs. By the way, it, hundreds of other dinosaur tracks, and the Native American petroglyphs are under U.S. federal protection. So don’t even think about it.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Yes, I know how the collection of fossil specimens by a museum helps to preserve these in perpetuity, and make them available to researchers for future generations. Plus I totally understand paleontologists taking body fossils away from a field site so these can be carefully extracted in a lab and made ready for detailed study. But I wonder whether it is worth taking away trace fossils related to the heritage of living people. We now know that fossils, including fossil tracks, <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/MayorPlacenames.pdf"><b>probably inspired many spiritually oriented stories in indigenous cultures</b></a>. In such instances where such connections can be demonstrated, perhaps it’s better to leave fossils – especially trace fossils, which often need no further preparation to be studied – where they lie.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">What’s the alternative to collecting for scientists who want to make these specimens available for others to study: you know, that <a href="http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_16"><b>peer-review thing</b></a> we scientists claim we like so much? One word: <a href="http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/201012025681/3D-Laser-Scanner-Images-Dinosaur-Footprints.html"><b>lasers</b></a>. That is, laser scanning is now providing a way to make three-dimensional computer-generated images of fossil tracks that can be studied, shared, and archived like real tracks. The tracks can still be kept in the field, with their localities kept confidential so only qualified researchers should gain access to them. But laser scans will also insure that if the tracks weather, are damaged, or stolen, paleontologists still have a means to evaluate the information they hold for generations to come.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsTCpPm8xqpGhYzX2-hwuB8U94nOjYOrsc1D_-e6HZPeRIyj3dOZx_EBMqXZbcOjr9wGo3cs57XwzhMxN3GxhWfgGtsppZC1bVVn3ZlOKljlDSONXaemWa191bFnzXfA4LrrpoWErhSZru/s1600/LAS-Dinosaur1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsTCpPm8xqpGhYzX2-hwuB8U94nOjYOrsc1D_-e6HZPeRIyj3dOZx_EBMqXZbcOjr9wGo3cs57XwzhMxN3GxhWfgGtsppZC1bVVn3ZlOKljlDSONXaemWa191bFnzXfA4LrrpoWErhSZru/s320/LAS-Dinosaur1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>It’s not <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7bYNAHXxw"><b>sharks with laser beams on their heads</b></a>, but it’s pretty close from a media-hype perspective: dinosaur tracks and lasers, in which the lasers are used to scan and make images of the tracks. Image from Photonics, Inc., based on a study led by </i><i>Marco Avanzini of geology department the Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali (Italy).</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">For paleontologists who do not have ready access to laser scanners (let me check – nope, no lasers here), old-fashioned <a href="http://drscavanaugh.org/dino/how_to_make_casts_of_real_dino.htm"><b>molding and casting</b></a> can also be a way to create a reasonable replica of a fossil track. Of course, experienced people should be the ones to apply this technique to avoid damaging the tracks, but it also does not always have to be done by professional paleontologists. Replicas of fossil tracks can be made by non-professional paleontologists and sold as substitutes for the real thing, while still being appreciated for their beauty and scientific worth.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDmt5zWgFRUIvtmTAP0udVp3G_uG3i6keRiS_ygBB9-eqQ3OEFBsVhKo6wdbHHV0JVYO5i0hCxeGQpLm7qpzttvbHtJHPiDG96oPlQVHaNsrTrFI2ARTRZtuANNqh61vdwdZ5gGzkztQuP/s1600/Theropod-Track-Replica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDmt5zWgFRUIvtmTAP0udVp3G_uG3i6keRiS_ygBB9-eqQ3OEFBsVhKo6wdbHHV0JVYO5i0hCxeGQpLm7qpzttvbHtJHPiDG96oPlQVHaNsrTrFI2ARTRZtuANNqh61vdwdZ5gGzkztQuP/s320/Theropod-Track-Replica.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Is it real? Yes, it’s real. Oh, you mean, is it a real dinosaur track? No, but it’s a real replica of a theropod dinosaur track, which was probably from the Early Jurassic of North America. After all, I’m not studying it, just admiring it. And as a colored resin cast, I can hang it on a wall and not worry about it crashing to the ground and destroying a vestige of the geologic past. Gorgeous photo by Ty Butler of <a href="http://www.tylight.com/"><b>Tylight</b></a>™.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Regardless of whether fossil dinosaur tracks in Western Australia are stolen, or fossil tracks elsewhere are legally (and well intentionally) collected, science can still be done on future finds of fossil tracks by seeking other ways of knowing them. These ways can still result in our knowing what animals made them and why, while also being aware that the beliefs of living descendants of indigenous people can be respected without unnecessary intrusion. This is what our current Western culture calls a “win-win scenario,” but I like to think it of it as honoring one another during our short time together here on this 4.6 billion-year-old earth. To quote the late American writer <a href="http://www.vonnegut.com/"><b>Kurt Vonnegut</b></a>:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Times; line-height: 150%;">"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - "G*d damn it, you've got to be kind."</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times; line-height: 150%;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XZ-hbpWlXNQ" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 150%;">One of my favorite Australian bands, <a href="http://www.yothuyindi.com/"><b>Yothu Yindi</b></a>, with a short introduction by the lead singer - </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mandawuy Yunupingu -</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 150%;"> about our relationship to the earth. And if you don’t like my preaching, that’s fine. There are lots of blogs out there about funny cats that really need reading.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-44459050660190808822011-03-07T07:26:00.000-05:002011-03-07T07:26:28.622-05:00Fossil Collectors and Academic Paleontologists: Grudge Match, Love Fest, or a Little of Both?<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 18px;"><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">In July of 2010, while in the small outback-Queensland (Australia) town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulia,_Queensland"><b>Boulia</b></a> – mentioned in a <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/02/of-min-min-lights-and-ichthyosaurs.html"><b>previous entr</b><b>y</b></a> – I was reminded through one simple question about a huge cultural and communicative gap dividing many people otherwise connected through their mutual love of fossils. The question, posed to me by <b>Dick Suter</b>, an extraordinary fossil collector who lives in Boulia, was: “Do you have a Ph.D.?” I have heard this question before in both the U.S. and Australia, and it is almost never asked out of curiosity, but to pick a fight. This time was no different, as I sensed his inquiry was tinged with antagonism. I braced myself, and said, “Yes.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnojbDeeJ51bfiO6sTtUN2RGP4EGQSV1P7a61zwSNq2Km5UHbFkzbx4o83TUTG87dkEugu5cFy8LD3iX3GVKkTrR06TTuDrgqSbKwB_zMnGG8boYNV4VDSbzEiVQBgW0M5L1p_cixteIx/s1600/Suter-PhD-Post-Hole-Digger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnojbDeeJ51bfiO6sTtUN2RGP4EGQSV1P7a61zwSNq2Km5UHbFkzbx4o83TUTG87dkEugu5cFy8LD3iX3GVKkTrR06TTuDrgqSbKwB_zMnGG8boYNV4VDSbzEiVQBgW0M5L1p_cixteIx/s320/Suter-PhD-Post-Hole-Digger.jpg" width="244" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Here I am, having a cordial conversation with fossil collector Dick Suter (right) of Boulia (Queensland, Australia) at the <a href="http://www.boulia.qld.gov.au/tourism/StonehouseMuseum.shtml"><b>Stone House Museum</b></a>. He was a great guy and had lots of paleontological experiences to share during our visit with him, for which we were grateful. Just don’t tell him you’re a paleontologist and have a Ph.D. Photo by <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b>Ruth Schowalter</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sure enough, he launched into a tirade about academic paleontologists, which is not worth repeating here. After all, I've heard variations on this theme in the U.S. from a few fossil collectors who felt likewise about people of my ilk. So instead I will emphasize that he was otherwise a very nice bloke who took much of his time to personally show my wife Ruth and me what fossils he had collected in the past few years, and which ones he was extracting from Cretaceous rocks in his own <b><a href="http://www.hsc.stonybrook.edu/SOM/fossil_lab/laboratory.cfm">“fossil prep lab.”</a></b> He also told us some stories of his discoveries, which were considerable, colorful, and memorable. What is most impressive about Mr. Suter – 74 years young - is that he works as a volunteer. As far as I know, he does not sell or trade fossils, so he is not trying to profit from all of his hard work. I’ll also bet he bought all of his equipment for his fossil-prep lab by using his own money. Further complicating matters (by making you like him more, that is), he does the right thing by contacting academic paleontologists about his potentially important finds.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Cretaceous marine reptiles are Mr. Suter’s forte – <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ichthyosauria.html"><b>ichthyosaurs</b></a>, <a href="http://www.plesiosaur.com/"><b>plesiosaurs</b></a>, and <a href="http://www.scistp.org/lifehistory/geology.php"><b>sea turtles</b></a> – but he is particularly good at finding ichthyosaurs. A few he had on display at the Stone House Museum were stunning specimens, including one of the few in this part of the world (that I knew of) with evidence for <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1698021/"><b>live birth in ichthyosaurs</b></a>. Wish I could say more about it, but I don’t know if these fossils are being described by academic paleontologists, and do not want to compromise any peer-reviewed study of them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Which introduces one of the challenges of fossil collectors (most without Ph.D.’s) and academics paleontologists (consisting of university professors and museum professionals, most of whom have Ph.D.’s) working together. How to reconcile the idealistic rules of paleontological inquiry with the realistic concerns of people on the ground (literally) who are out there finding many of the fossils that need to be studied?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">In truth, the success stories of fossil collectors and academics working together are actually more common than the not-so-successful ones. There are some fantastic examples – most recently,<b> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01dinosaur.html">here</a></b> – of where fossil collectors and other non-academic folks have been invaluable for finding, recovering, contacting academic paleontologists, and actively participating in the study of important discoveries. Indeed, Australia has some of the finest examples of this, especially in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-land-of-koolasuchus.html"><b>Victoria</b></a> and <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/australian-age-of-dinosaurs-is-now.html"><b>Queensland</b></a>, where people without Ph.D.’s and formal educational training in paleontology have found numerous scientifically significant Cretaceous fossils.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">On a more personal level, I have examples to share of where trace fossils were first found by fossil collectors (not me), which later led to some real science happening. Here you go, mates:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4e0FelXztEBPkf-pHnDqYM8jUttlhAYEeHpUGQJBpUu7-vi1kobuhY6aHN3E_vetCxeSxK6V_kbRuo09qnEjg-85mbFilEOCZqvAgsjVnDv6GmDaYW_i6F5OkbYUb2Jg-VLvUrSWlMY8/s1600/Temnospondyl-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4e0FelXztEBPkf-pHnDqYM8jUttlhAYEeHpUGQJBpUu7-vi1kobuhY6aHN3E_vetCxeSxK6V_kbRuo09qnEjg-85mbFilEOCZqvAgsjVnDv6GmDaYW_i6F5OkbYUb2Jg-VLvUrSWlMY8/s320/Temnospondyl-Tracks.jpg" width="284" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Fossil amphibian (<a href="http://tolweb.org/Temnospondyli"><b>temnospondyl</b></a>) tracks from 310 million years ago, found by amateur fossil collectors of the <b><a href="http://www.alabamapaleo.org/Alabama_Paleontological_Society.html">Alabama Paleontological Society</a>,</b> in Alabama (USA). Specimens described in a peer-reviewed publication by <a href="http://kudzu.astr.ua.edu/apsmono1/paper06_APS_MONO_1_Martin_Pyenson.pdf"><b>Martin and Pyenson (2005)</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ON_KprulXmxe6FDzFrPFZsRMB47bKRG09__BCnYpL_ZZdaW2YANM_4nQSyPCVnfs-YAZGNu_m0yHzr1AVjJaAAu5j_HPwvCYpwKqKYbIHBCm7ZJayziE0zfPeGitgZgbwtHUokvY_Z7g/s1600/Oldhamia-No-More.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ON_KprulXmxe6FDzFrPFZsRMB47bKRG09__BCnYpL_ZZdaW2YANM_4nQSyPCVnfs-YAZGNu_m0yHzr1AVjJaAAu5j_HPwvCYpwKqKYbIHBCm7ZJayziE0zfPeGitgZgbwtHUokvY_Z7g/s320/Oldhamia-No-More.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/179126/Ediacara-fauna">Ediacaran</a></i></b><i> fossils initially identified as trace fossils, later shown to be body fossils, from 550-million-year old rocks in North Carolina (USA), found by an amateur fossil collector. Specimen described in a peer-reviewed publication by <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBP-4Y70CBJ-6&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1667548134&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=37835a8c010e501b824a06250f6283da&searchtype=a"><b>Tacker, Martin, Weaver, and Lawver (2010)</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i></span> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfubjBk2y9ibmUpO50aiwbJ-ZMogT06xoGp5-Xxqk8pBNzavu4jsY6R4EQ71O_PdHIhJgklORuZFerEwGWkw4-p4Uqe9YUAowFOo72TtgIyWt2b8phUfmmxZ_E4g2VewOva_yL42y3Vjes/s1600/Undichna-Fossil-Butte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfubjBk2y9ibmUpO50aiwbJ-ZMogT06xoGp5-Xxqk8pBNzavu4jsY6R4EQ71O_PdHIhJgklORuZFerEwGWkw4-p4Uqe9YUAowFOo72TtgIyWt2b8phUfmmxZ_E4g2VewOva_yL42y3Vjes/s320/Undichna-Fossil-Butte.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Fossil fish trail in Eocene-age (50 million-year-old) rocks, made by the bottom-feeding fish </i>Notogoneus osculus<i>, and found by a professional fossil collector in Wyoming (USA), but donated to the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/"><b>U.S. National Park Service</b></a> at <a href="http://www.nps.gov/fobu/index.htm"><b>Fossil Butte National Monument</b></a>. Specimen described in a peer-reviewed publication by <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010420"><b>Martin, Vasquez-Prokopec, and Page (2010)</b></a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">What also happens, though, is that such “good news” stories are sometimes ignored in favor of tabloid-like fare that emphasizes personal conflict over science, a siren-like call of sensationalism that can even slither into <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071031/full/450018a.html"><b>respected science journals</b></a>. This reporting of strife (whilst also ignoring cooperation) has a long history, harkening back to the days of the late 19<sup>th</sup> century with American paleontologists <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/australian-age-of-dinosaurs-is-now.html"><b>Edwin Cope and Othniel Marsh</b></a>. Nevertheless, media bias aside, I know for sure that some fossil collectors are regarded with venomous disdain by a few academic paleontologists, and the feeling is reciprocated on the part of a few fossil collectors. What’s up with that – <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPMmC0UAnj0">can’t we all just get along</a>?</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Speaking as an insider privy to some rather heated conversations on this topic, I can say that part of the contempt for fossil collectors coming from academic paleontologists stems from their adherence to an ethical stance, and one I also support, incidentally. Scientifically important fossils should not become mere economic commodities that end up in private hands, akin to, say, Barbie dolls. (As the proud owner of a <a href="http://www.museumofplay.org/blog/play-stuff/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/paleontologist1.jpg"><b>Paleontologist Barbie</b></a> doll, though, I can understand the zeal of some collectors.) In fact, the <a href="https://www.vertpaleo.org/source/MemberApp/index.cfm"><b>Society of Vertebrate Paleontology</b></a> has an ethical pledge taken by all of its members to not be involved in the sale of vertebrate fossils for non-scientific and non-archival purposes. For proper study – so that results can be repeated and tested (you know, what scientists are supposed to do) – fossils typically need to be held in perpetuity by an academic or otherwise accredited institution. Or, as fictional archaeologist <a href="http://indianajones.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx"><b>Indiana Jones</b></a> once famously said, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrq0w2m1Zh4"><b>“It belongs in a museum!”</b></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">As mentioned earlier, this tension between fossil collectors and academic paleontologists is nothing new, having been around for about 200 years and going back to the early 19<sup>th</sup> century of Europe. For example, <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html"><b>Mary Anning</b></a> (1799-1847) of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_Regis"><b>Lyme Regis</b></a> in the U.K., discovered beautiful specimens of Jurassic ichthyosaurs in her local environs, much like Dick Suter finds Cretaceous ichthyosaurs in Australia today. Sadly, Anning received little credit for her discoveries at the time, while wealthy collectors and academic paleontologists profited handsomely from her finds. Only belatedly has she received her due for her contributions to paleontology, with several biographies (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Y8dmHQAACAAJ&dq=mary+anning&hl=en&ei=dLZyTavvHc-htwei_731Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCTgK"><b>here</b></a> and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ocUAAAAACAAJ&dq=mary+anning&hl=en&ei=trZyTdfFGc6_tgf7rKj_Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwADgU"><b>here</b></a>, for example), historical accounts (<a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=2945256"><b>here</b></a> and<b><a href="http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1662/0002-7685%282006%2968%5B153:MASMTS%5D2.0.CO%3B2"> here</a></b>), and even a commercially successful novel (<a href="http://www.tchevalier.com/remarkablecreatures/index.html"><b><i>Remarkable Creatures</i></b></a>, 2010, by <a href="http://www.tchevalier.com/"><b>Tracy Chevalier</b></a>) that tell of her astonishing life. Granted, Anning was also ignored because of British chauvinism and class-based snobbery: she was poor, female, unmarried, and uneducated, a socially lethal combination in the U.K. at the time. Was she aware of this lack of respect and recognition? Oh, yes. She <a href="http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/Mary_Anning"><b>once wrote</b></a>, "The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone."</span><style>
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Along those lines, last year I had a rather unpleasant encounter with a fossil collector in the U.S. who felt the same way as Anning, only this person’s distrust was accented by aggressive hostility. I was with two other academic paleontologists (yes, they had Ph.D.’s too), and we were shown a “<a href="http://www.pterosaur.net/"><b>pterosaur</b></a> beak mark” in a rock this person had collected. It was an extraordinary claim, thus requiring extraordinary evidence. Yet all three of us recognized the fossil as the external mold of a clam (also known as a “bivalve” to those Ph.D. types). Did I wish it were a trace fossil of a pterosaur feeding? Not just yes, but hell yes! But we couldn’t just wish it were so.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTgdJRdjPX41FPbr_F6fJEgDFUME24QLlt9yZWD6nY14T6HTmY1nU-lMx9M1xYhnOSVKyzW_qkNtmMwpkQN6-SFIQ4bThOHS0x8PPv3AxxGOqS0YLK4UAKbJdQFmNOkMLj1BuZk6P_W3E/s1600/Eight-Legged-Otter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTgdJRdjPX41FPbr_F6fJEgDFUME24QLlt9yZWD6nY14T6HTmY1nU-lMx9M1xYhnOSVKyzW_qkNtmMwpkQN6-SFIQ4bThOHS0x8PPv3AxxGOqS0YLK4UAKbJdQFmNOkMLj1BuZk6P_W3E/s320/Eight-Legged-Otter.jpg" width="204" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Look, a trackway made by an 8-legged river otter in <b><a href="http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm">Yellowstone National Park</a> </b>in the U.S<b>.</b>! Isn’t that amazing? It must be an extremely rare genetic mutation that caused this phenomenon. What? You think those tracks were made by two normal otters, each with four legs, and one was following the other? Why should I listen to you, when I obviously have so much more experience tracking animals than you with your fancy-pants Ph.D.?! Face it: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2F4VcBmeo"><b>You can’t handle the truth!</b></a></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So one of us spoke, and not unkindly. All three of us academic paleontologists teach undergraduate non-science majors at our respective schools. Accordingly, we have learned through years of classroom experience how to correct misconceptions as part of educating, as well as let people down in a way that does not crush their hopes and dreams. (Well, except when we assign final grades.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">But the collector, instead of listening to an explanation of why his/her find was a bivalve impression, reddened, quivered briefly, and exploded. This collector berated us for our over-education, which had obviously blinded us to any other possible explanations for what was in front of us; accused one of us of spreading vicious rumors about this collector on the Internet (needless to say, but I have to say it anyway, my colleague had not done such a thing); then smugly asserted how his/her considerable field experience was worth far more than our paltry <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Tower"><b>ivory-tower</b></a> opinions, especially because none of us had ever visited his/her field site.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gee, which fossil collector you think I’m more likely to work with in the future: Mr. Suter, who had a few bad things to say about academic paleontologists (some of which may actually been justified, and none of which was personally directed at me); or <a href="http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Tom_Riddle"><b>He/She Who Shall Not be Named</b></a>? First guess doesn’t count.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">But here’s what interesting about this collector’s braggadocio and verbal bullying (in a <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/may-you-live-in-interesting-times.html"><b>Chinese curse sort of way</b></a>): he/she actually had a point about our never having been to his/her site. And this is an advantage that fossil collectors will always have over academic paleontologists, which the latter do not like to admit: the collectors see heaps more rocks and fossils than we do, and sometimes all year round. We academics, on the other hand, are limited to seeing natural outcrops of rocks for a few months a year (if we’re really lucky), or not at all. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">For example, while I spend my time doing the following:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Writing these blog entries (admittedly, this is more fun than most work);</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Teaching classes at my university;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Grading assignments, exams, and papers from those classes;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Reading and answering student e-mails;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Meeting with students for advising and counseling;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Writing recommendation letters for these same students (not to mention former students); and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Attending departmental meetings, committee meetings, college-faculty meetings, and, of course, other meetings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">What do you think amateur paleontologists are doing in the meantime? That’s right: they’re in the field, looking for (and finding) fossils, which they often bring back to their own fossil-preparation facilities to extract them, and thus learn even more about what they have discovered. So who do you think has more direct, hands-on experience with the nitty-gritty-dirty of paleontology, them or me? (Was that a rhetorical question?)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriSD-PKVa80qzRz9l3-H7lDakA6lqXVzq0GsdIKuXv9fmya1Mt5KEIur4frkKD0u14tFzOq2H0337vXuGs9AdL-fkvirVD9U27IPcyIOe4bp8vyrczSBWii6W-vSkPDISnLyg7H5ucslu/s1600/Doing-Field-Work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriSD-PKVa80qzRz9l3-H7lDakA6lqXVzq0GsdIKuXv9fmya1Mt5KEIur4frkKD0u14tFzOq2H0337vXuGs9AdL-fkvirVD9U27IPcyIOe4bp8vyrczSBWii6W-vSkPDISnLyg7H5ucslu/s320/Doing-Field-Work.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A rare photo of me in the field, <b>walking</b> along the coast of Victoria, Australia, looking at <b>Cretaceous</b> rocks, which was <b>great</b>! (Hmmm, that would make a great name for a <a href="http://www.greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/"><b>blog</b></a>.) A less-rare photo of my daily life would show me in front of a laptop computer in a cluttered office, on a university campus in an urban setting, underlain by metamorphic and igneous bedrock, and more than a two-hour drive from any trace fossils. In other words, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSVTOMkJdqs"><b>tragedy</b></a>. Photo by Tom Rich (who has a Ph.D., and is an academic paleontologist - poor bloke).</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The point here is not to play some game in relativism, as in “Aren’t we both amazingly accomplished and clever in our own special ways, while also having our jerky moments with one another?” Instead, it is to provide a peek into how the different approaches of fossil collectors and academic paleontologists with relation to their beloved subjects – fossils – and their respective cultures can sometimes lead to misunderstandings, miscommunications, and mistrust, thus missing out on the mysteries.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So next time at <b>The Great Cretaceous Walk</b>, we’ll talk about something that really matters – <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/paleo/fossils/trace.html"><b>trace fossils</b></a> – and how these fossils fit into some of the continuing cooperation, conflict, or other ways fossil collectors and academic paleontologists relate to one another, somehow resulting in science and other ways of learning along the way.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-61924490276731228252011-02-24T10:49:00.001-05:002011-02-26T08:23:42.690-05:00Dreaming of Dinosaur Dreaming<div style="line-height: 18px;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><style>
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</style> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"></span><span style="font-family: Times;">Humans like to celebrate anniversaries during their lifetimes in fives and tens, which I like to think is a direct reflection of a much longer evolutionary heritage. For instance, why fives and tens, and not, say, threes or sevens? Look at your hands and feet, count your fingers and toes, and see what totals you get for each appendage (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume"><b><i>yakuza</i></b></a> excluded). These numbers are a result of our having descended from <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/synapsids/synapsida.html"><b>synapsids</b></a> (“mammal-like reptiles”) that likewise had five digits on each end of four limbs. In fact, all mammals are synapsids, and the last common ancestor synapsids shared with dinosaurs and other egg-laying reptiles <a href="http://tolweb.org/Amniota/14990"><b>was more than 300 million years ago</b></a>. Humans and most other mammals don’t lay eggs (albeit, some placental mammals like to <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lady-gaga-hatches-egg-grammy-99189"><b>hatch from eggs</b></a>), but a few still do – <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/monotreme.html"><b>monotremes</b></a>, such as platypuses and echindnas – thus demonstrating a lingering trait of this reptilian ancestry.</span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;">So it was this week that I was reminded of a five-year anniversary, the evolutionary history of mammals, and our long-lost connection to dinosaurs, thoughts that all coincided as they were triggered by remembering the <a href="http://dinosaurdreaming.monash.edu//"><b>Dinosaur Dreaming dig site</b></a> in Victoria, Australia.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYs-d-7hrDWb4Vi1LzgcWA37fJOgYI5X0AXlHhgQMibhOKYuxkZWB8XZxxP32T858-2WUo9m_Iak_do6PtcKb3NtMxpVqDtiYcj43PNn7zAt88xmLOxPrtsE-BCewWGIzN0TZ4uxHJLA5N/s1600/Serving-Sentences-At-Flat-Rocks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYs-d-7hrDWb4Vi1LzgcWA37fJOgYI5X0AXlHhgQMibhOKYuxkZWB8XZxxP32T858-2WUo9m_Iak_do6PtcKb3NtMxpVqDtiYcj43PNn7zAt88xmLOxPrtsE-BCewWGIzN0TZ4uxHJLA5N/s320/Serving-Sentences-At-Flat-Rocks.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span><i><span style="font-family: Times;">No, these people are not incarcerated and carrying out their sentences by cracking rocks all day in the summer sun. They actually are: volunteers at the annual <b><a href="http://www.dinodreaming.blogspot.com/">Dinosaur Dreaming</a> </b>dig site in coastal Victoria, Australia; looking for fossils of Cretaceous dinosaurs, mammals, turtles, and other animals; and very much enjoy doing this. Really.</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Times;"><a name='more'></a></span></i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In early February of 2006 (yes, five years ago), I traveled to Melbourne, Australia for a four-month sabbatical from my teaching position at <a href="http://www.emory.edu/"><b>Emory University</b></a>, the first (and perhaps last) I had been granted. Before leaving, my stated goal was to work on a science-education project with <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/rich/index.html"><b>Patricia (“Pat”) Vickers-Rich</b></a>, a paleontologist and professor at <a href="http://www.monash.edu.au/"><b>Monash University</b></a>, as well as the director of the <a href="http://sciencecentre.monash.edu/"><b>Monash Science Education Centre</b></a>. (Let’s just say Pat wears a lot of hats, all of which look quite stylish and are completely appropriate for each given occasion.)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Within the first week of my residency at Monash, Pat’s husband – paleontologist <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-research/sciences/staff/thomas-h-rich/"><b>Tom Rich</b></a> of the <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/"><b>Museum of Victoria</b></a> (mentioned in earlier entries of <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/return-to-dinosaur-cove.html"><b>The Great Cretaceous Walk</b></a>) – invited me to visit the Dinosaur Dreaming site with him for the final weekend of the 2006 dig season. The site, which is only about a two-hour drive from Melbourne, had been investigated and excavated for Mesozoic vertebrate fossils since 1994, but for only a month once every year, typically in February, toward the end of the Australian summer. I was thrilled to be invited to this paleontologically significant place, and I enthusiastically accepted Tom’s generous offer.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoNdGWSG4Ok43qV-to9XWTsBXODJEGxozXrUBM4TOcBC3GVVzKFTPejT3pOMjNzDkThvlKBsRPXoZEmdUBOxNPviQDWiagA_cM3b3Ub9fBOrN7yd5dWQmEtypMEKhuClw6KnWzkRQp0I_3/s1600/Braking-For-Dinosaurs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoNdGWSG4Ok43qV-to9XWTsBXODJEGxozXrUBM4TOcBC3GVVzKFTPejT3pOMjNzDkThvlKBsRPXoZEmdUBOxNPviQDWiagA_cM3b3Ub9fBOrN7yd5dWQmEtypMEKhuClw6KnWzkRQp0I_3/s320/Braking-For-Dinosaurs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span><i><span style="font-family: Times;">Tom Rich’s bumper sticker was only telling part of the story: he does indeed brake for dinosaurs, but he comes to a full stop, gets out of the car, and stays a few days for Cretaceous mammals.</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;">I remember that day very clearly, and probably will for the 10<sup>th</sup>, 15<sup>th</sup>, 20<sup>th</sup>, and 25<sup>th</sup><b> </b></span>anniversaries (No guarantees after that last one, though.) During the otherwise uneventful drive to <span style="font-family: Times;"><a href="http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/inverloch/"><b>Inverloch, Victoria</b></a>, I excitedly talked with Tom about the paleontology that had been done in this area, and occasionally took in the rolling green hills and gorgeous blue skies of the Victoria countryside. Once we caught our first brief look of the tan-brown cliffs of the coast, I smiled: it was my first sighting of the Cretaceous rocks of Australia. Little did I know then how many of those rocks I would see in the next five years (<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/not-so-rotten-day-at-rotten-point-part.html"><b>especially in 2010</b></a>), and how much I would scrutinize and beseech them to reveal their ichnological secrets. But that’s the problem with predicting the future: you just don’t know it until it happens, and even when it is happening, you still might not connect it to the past.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_010_YhJX9v5gLBYGjSzLEY_NDs8ptPrghblNuy6TgbkiP8Hlqf5Cntyoc4jc6SZCOFrUUg5IA4ZEbh_6aEQ79FbFnsQ6dupnLV0UGz7kMKq1uwagKEevV5VmrJOoM2Tq_R6SEPd0u4fv/s1600/Flat-Rocks-2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_010_YhJX9v5gLBYGjSzLEY_NDs8ptPrghblNuy6TgbkiP8Hlqf5Cntyoc4jc6SZCOFrUUg5IA4ZEbh_6aEQ79FbFnsQ6dupnLV0UGz7kMKq1uwagKEevV5VmrJOoM2Tq_R6SEPd0u4fv/s320/Flat-Rocks-2006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span><i>My first up-close view of the tasty Cretaceous outcrops at Flat Rocks, near Inverloch, Victoria. The people are part of the dig crew in February 2006, and they were pumping seawater out of the man-made depression going into the bone-bearing layer of rock, a daily ritual during the dig season. For those of you from the southeastern U.S., note the lack of <a href="http://www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/atlanta.html"><b>kudzu</b></a> and other vegetation covering the rocks, a distinct advantage in prospecting for trace fossils. But then you have to deal with the tides. Oh well. <a href="http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/Gilda-Radner/1/index.html"><b>If it isn't one thing, it's another. It's always something.</b></a></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The Dinosaur Dreaming dig site is also referred to as <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/05/flat-out-on-flat-rocks.html"><b>Flat Rocks</b></a>, an informal name applied by people to this small area of the coast. Unimaginatively (or appropriately), it was given that name because of the broad, flat platform, formed by beds of Cretaceous sandstones and conglomerates that dip gently to the east and are planed off by marine erosion. Oh, did I mention this dig site is drowned by high tides twice every 24 hours? The bone-bearing bed that attracts so much attention from the volunteers happens to be in the intertidal zone on the marine platform, so dig crews can only break up the hard rock to look for bones during low tides. This odd circumstance certainly goes against the stereotype of dinosaur dig sites taking place in dusty deserts, but the crews that work here do not concern themselves with conditions elsewhere, and have dealt with their situation admirably.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilDvPPrRPWcylmaAcrhRQ8BwLNftJeKxxQZELQp5paOCBhcPSRYOBO0dbxJn0jMPFPIFwBIqIeJKOeWKCgVkNAgCAPyRjar8E7EpBc_bybBSDvxVhQNb14e3NYKd0b3pxrxOuzPbLs2qOP/s1600/Pumping-Out-The-Bone-Bed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilDvPPrRPWcylmaAcrhRQ8BwLNftJeKxxQZELQp5paOCBhcPSRYOBO0dbxJn0jMPFPIFwBIqIeJKOeWKCgVkNAgCAPyRjar8E7EpBc_bybBSDvxVhQNb14e3NYKd0b3pxrxOuzPbLs2qOP/s320/Pumping-Out-The-Bone-Bed.jpg" width="306" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>If you want to get more bones from the Dinosaur Dreaming bone bed, you either have to drain it after each high tide, or hand out snorkel masks to everyone. They opt for the former, and I don’t blame them.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjsMfj5UxhnwlWvl62C_wWfl1MzZnwCKpilx80d_0mdh8G48DWdNsylQcMtRmWnwWxvQcS6m8-5pR7Dzgu1lr131eDM0HokNHn2zKPgZyERjkpExqyttuwerUm5l7YJ5_-9a9DhL3urA0p/s1600/Tom-Rich-Dinosaur-Dreaming-Bone-Bed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjsMfj5UxhnwlWvl62C_wWfl1MzZnwCKpilx80d_0mdh8G48DWdNsylQcMtRmWnwWxvQcS6m8-5pR7Dzgu1lr131eDM0HokNHn2zKPgZyERjkpExqyttuwerUm5l7YJ5_-9a9DhL3urA0p/s320/Tom-Rich-Dinosaur-Dreaming-Bone-Bed.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i><i>The bone bed extends up above the shore at Flat Rocks and is in the main cliff-face, marked by Tom Rich's foot here, but unfortunately is not as productive as the part that's underwater much of the time. Go figure. And no, I have nothing to say about Tom's fashion choices in headgear, although I personally would have gone with a teal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffiyeh"><b>keffiyeh</b></a>, rather than basic red.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Because of these high tides, and to make maximum use of the time when volunteers are at the site, they haul back heaps of rocks to a rental house, which serves as “home” for most crew members, even if only for a week or two. What do they do then – drink slabs of beer and tell tales of what bones they found? If only. Instead, they sit down to break up the rock into sugar-cube sizes, looking for small, fractured bits of dinosaur bones or teeth, or the rare (but much celebrated) mammal jaw. Regardless of whether it belongs to a dinosaur, mammal, or other vertebrate, a “bone of the day” is often declared, though, and at the time I visited, this was announced on a bulletin board outside the house.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoADW2RqLyTA3_NoKkUh0ZKuGazzfIMg73YySEs5t-XmAlDAY_XSjaZW-ZR6KcNA3Bp9BZih_OQjcVJTajiVFeoUnoAqfyYgOP-d51Sm07lqkMfWhl6N_1KfgXerGGWFm9doWshKfGRScS/s1600/Breaking-Rocks-Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoADW2RqLyTA3_NoKkUh0ZKuGazzfIMg73YySEs5t-XmAlDAY_XSjaZW-ZR6KcNA3Bp9BZih_OQjcVJTajiVFeoUnoAqfyYgOP-d51Sm07lqkMfWhl6N_1KfgXerGGWFm9doWshKfGRScS/s320/Breaking-Rocks-Blues.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Why was everyone feeling the Dinosaur Dreaming blues? Is it because of the several hundred kilograms of rocks that need to be fractured into tiny bits while searching for elusive fossils?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDgTYDsUFGWpMUfjKwKNcWveRRMPcWABAomRn49JQ7tuf93-bcw_1HqD8Fy64khs14c7FMr9-ROcKaZ-7AVNIffz1YxwBC6r978aeB7In-r2kBJ1g5KC_QEc8BmvYCdba0fwsgd85rc6KS/s1600/Feb-25-2006-Bulletin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDgTYDsUFGWpMUfjKwKNcWveRRMPcWABAomRn49JQ7tuf93-bcw_1HqD8Fy64khs14c7FMr9-ROcKaZ-7AVNIffz1YxwBC6r978aeB7In-r2kBJ1g5KC_QEc8BmvYCdba0fwsgd85rc6KS/s320/Feb-25-2006-Bulletin.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i><i>The news you need to know each day for the Dinosaur Dreaming dig site. As you can see, the “bone of the day” on February 25, 2006 was a turtle skull. Not surprising, as the site manager was (and still is) Lesley Kool, and she loves turtles. (Incidentally, she is the inspiration for the name of <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-land-of-koolasuchus.html"><b>Koolasuchus</b></a> – the youngest known temnospondyl amphibian in the geologic record, coming from the Cretaceous of Australia.) My favorite notice on the bulletin board? The notice about the PARTY.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">After a beautiful little mammal mandible was found from the Dinosaur Dreaming site in 1997, followed by more mammal jaws and teeth in ensuing years, people associated with the site began joking that the locality should be nicknamed “Mammal Dreaming.” Tom Rich, originally a paleo-mammalogist in his interests and training, thus fulfilled his long-held dream of studying Cretaceous mammals in Victoria.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGChT-X0Nc4X2-5n7OHLxLfKDbJA81ErcmDSSqcclFW-CV3RNpddfeuDQqyMF3hcW2B3mnuJotb8VE1XhyDeNG2GqE34Ln6X7cEKHSb13qmkmT67Hr6z8RHYWeaWHTXPhYPOvSKxjP6ynZ/s1600/Mammal-Popcorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGChT-X0Nc4X2-5n7OHLxLfKDbJA81ErcmDSSqcclFW-CV3RNpddfeuDQqyMF3hcW2B3mnuJotb8VE1XhyDeNG2GqE34Ln6X7cEKHSb13qmkmT67Hr6z8RHYWeaWHTXPhYPOvSKxjP6ynZ/s320/Mammal-Popcorn.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Logo for the Dinosaur Dreaming t-shirt in 2007, showing a typical Australian irrelevance for what were arguably the most scientifically important fossils to come out of Flat Rocks. But, you have to admit, it’s pretty darned funny, right up there with the recent depiction of a <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1539156929">"<b>Thunder Thighs" sauropod (</b></a></i><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110223071203.htm"><b>Brontomerus<i>) punting a </i>Utahraptor</b></a><i>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">These finds were indeed rather important, including jaw bones and teeth of the oldest known <b><a href="http://dinosaurdreaming.monash.edu/inverloc/jaw/press.html">placental mammals</a> </b>(<i>Ausktribosphenos nyktos</i>, <i>Bishops whitmorei</i>) and<b> <a href="http://digimorph.org/specimens/Teinolophos_trusleri/216575/">monotreme mammals </a>(</b><i>Teinolophos trusleri</i>) in Australia, but they are exceedingly tiny (mere millimeters long), requiring much processing of rock, sharp eyesight, and the right search images. In short, this dig site requires some commuting, draining, breaking, squinting, sweating, swearing, and lots of other active verbs that only overlap in a few ways (mostly the swearing) with, say, most dinosaur dig sites in the western U.S.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Going back to February 2006, I must confess that I was awestruck at the opportunity to visit Dinosaur Dreaming and meet the people involved with it: a <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanboy"><b>fanboy</b></a>, you might say, one who had read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Darkness-Life-Past-Thomas/dp/0253337739"><b><i>Dinosaurs of Darkness</i></b></a> from cover to cover and knew all of the names of the people associated with the Victoria dinosaur prospecting and digs over the years (including the legendary <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/return-to-dinosaur-cove.html"><b>Dinosaur Cove</b></a>). Indeed, I had to ask someone there to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WXVaChA3Q0"><b>pinch me to make sure I wasn’t dreaming</b></a>. (Which actually did not go over as well as I expected.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I had a few agenda items in mind that fine February weekend, all of them ichnological. For example, were there any fossil invertebrate burrows preserved in the sandstones and conglomerates? If so, these could be used for discerning the original sedimentary environments entombing the bones. Were there any tracks of the same animals whose bones had been washed into a stream 115 million years ago, such as those of dinosaurs, birds, or mammals, showing that they also lived in the area where parts of their dead bodies rested? How did any trace fossils I might find relate to the original environments of this place, when it was <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snogging"><b>snogging</b></a> with Antarctica and located at about 75° latitude south?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">What happened that weekend in a paleontological- and ichnological-discovery sense has already been covered in previous entries (<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/05/luck-preparation-and-opportunity-part.html"><b>here</b></a>, for example), and I won’t say, “and the rest was history” (because that would be a cliché, which I avoid like the plague). There are other memories showing why it was an extraordinary weekend, some comical, others magical, such as when:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times;">• </span>One of the long-time volunteers – Mary Walters, who I had just met – and I sped along a dark road in the Victoria countryside searching with the car’s headlights for my field boots, accidentally left on the top of Tom Rich’s Land Rover and unnoticed by him as he drove off. During our madcap excursion, we found one boot and two socks: the other boot was never found. (It was OK, though, as Gerry Kool gave me a pair of “Blunnies” (<a href="http://www.blundstone.com/"><b>Blundstones</b></a>) the next day to wear. And I still have them.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">• During my first day of scouting for trace fossils, I couldn’t help but notice a small snake, surely venomous (this was Australia, mate) that wriggled desperately on a sandy area of the beach, trapped at the base of the cliff. I had no idea how it got there, but it needed to go somewhere else. I managed to coerce it into my field hat, carried it to a vegetated drainage several tens of meters away, and released it. Intrigued by this ominous experience, I walked back to the spot where it had been flailing. Just above there was a fossil invertebrate burrow, the first I had found at the site. Thanks, snake.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">• Mike Cleeland, longtime volunteer and an extraordinary fossil finder, sang at the “closing ceremony” for the 2006 dig season that certainly fit with the theme of Dinosaur Dreaming: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow"><b><i>To Dream the Impossible Dream</i></b></a>. (I only wish he had done <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way_%28song%29"><b><i>My Way</i></b></a>, but somehow blending the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeFiXnEBvBg"><b>Frank Sinatra</b></a> and <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIXg9KUiy00">Sid Vicious</a> </b>versions). This song was preceded by the sudden appearance of a mother <a href="http://www.australianfauna.com/brushtailpossum.php"><b>brush-tailed possum</b></a>, carrying her babies on her back as she walked along the top of a wooden fence, as a dog barked energetically at them in the adjoining yard: placental and marsupials meeting in the present, with fossils of their relatives locked inside nearby Cretaceous rocks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">• Awards that followed Mike’s entertainment, some of which employed numerous inside jokes that no doubt multiplied exponentially during the dig. The camaraderie was palpable and warm. I could see how this event happens every year: it’s not really so much about the science, but the people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhap_Bim0ClarLT6XKFrzEBj_B2Ymg4wzL5IJHCpVFc94cicTtrb0IgOyF_oTxdYBlmQvdvQBI-gon934XpkAy2KwcKglhi_PfLyTlICUHpac0IPap34WZhu2OY8DF2x4NjGdm-04S3EgrG/s1600/Awards-Night-Dinosaur-Dreaming-2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVtqlfV3tJnPeh8DH8p2TG4oKyAnarXTTWKgnpo-ojdtV0z1fYSHhc7stBJv75r4NKyddyACo_NdxLJ4kz178KvLLGn_79mBINNVzQFae41ib5drey4H88WgefDxQe40aQkYbfGnfJgvPL/s320/Awards-Night-Dinosaur-Dreaming-2006.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i></span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The close of the 2006 Dinosaur Dreaming dig, celebrated with awards, stories, thanks, music, and adult beverages. From right to left: Wendy White, Lesley Kool, John Wilkins, a wayward <a href="http://australian-animals.net/dingo.htm"><b>dingo</b></a> (cleverly disguised as David Pickering, even down to the beer in his paw/hand), Mary Walters, and Tom Rich. Note the <a href="http://www.photobomb.net/"><b>photo bomb</b> </a>in the lower left, done by a <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/cane-toad/"><b>cane toad</b></a>: cheeky buggers.</i></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Five years ago, this was a start of a new chapter that introduced me to a group of colleagues and friends in a place far away from where I sit now in Georgia, USA. So when I see pictures of Flat Rocks and the antics (and oh yes, fossils) of the <a href="http://www.dinodreaming.blogspot.com/"><b>2011 Dinosaur Dreaming dig</b></a>, including people I not only know but am quite fond of (in a burly, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateship"><b>mateship</b></a> sort of way), I smile and remember that time five years ago, and imagine years of science and friendship extending well into the future, bound together by the remains of Cretaceous lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx-fkcSHF6JKpazhkS6LIVFZ3tLugB_lUP5KfEh9ftUdQPMmODzmFOTmxRXoqoCrI7py9FgojpO2up6x1hvpYQoWYTeBwjqqGokk2ERnvpNUHO4bo8bEfk2BI95WnL-_bVDosncc0qb6kg/s1600/Dinosaur-Dreaming-2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx-fkcSHF6JKpazhkS6LIVFZ3tLugB_lUP5KfEh9ftUdQPMmODzmFOTmxRXoqoCrI7py9FgojpO2up6x1hvpYQoWYTeBwjqqGokk2ERnvpNUHO4bo8bEfk2BI95WnL-_bVDosncc0qb6kg/s320/Dinosaur-Dreaming-2006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>One of the first sights of my visit to Flat Rocks in February 2006, the banner for </i>Dinosaur Dreaming<i>. It's still going up at the same spot every February, hopefully for as long as the bones reveal themselves. Want to volunteer for future digs? <a href="http://dinosaurdreaming.monash.edu//volunteer.html"><b>Just let them know</b></a>. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-55596067201959889982011-02-16T06:03:00.000-05:002011-02-16T06:03:24.231-05:00Of Min Min Lights and Ichthyosaurs<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">As loyal readers know from previous entries, following <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/10/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-i.html"><b>field work in Victoria</b></a>, my wife Ruth and I went on a paleontologically themed “drive-about” (as opposed to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkabout_%28film%29"><b>walkabout</b></a>) in western Queensland last July 2010. We started in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-ii.html"><b>Townsville</b></a>, and went west from there (after all, going east would have put us in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Sea"><b>Coral Sea</b></a>). We then paused for a fun day and night in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b>Hughenden</b></a>, followed by three glorious days and nights in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-v.html"><b>Winton</b></a>. Where to go next for a married couple in pursuit of more knowledge about fossils and their role in inspiring the human imagination in Australia? Well, how about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulia,_Queensland"><b>Boulia</b></a>?</div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjbyHneTmAtjcXUh2nI02wZ7o1i2Qtv9xJ8URAhSraXT3gkqW314cWLaVO4tTvnr_c2ACc6mn_iMNRZruSAxCHeysRdm9NPl59pcYYN0c488Y2r_Lk7hGzZx4QwX_iDJc6tAettDTKEkg/s1600/Ichthyosaur-Mural-Boulia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjbyHneTmAtjcXUh2nI02wZ7o1i2Qtv9xJ8URAhSraXT3gkqW314cWLaVO4tTvnr_c2ACc6mn_iMNRZruSAxCHeysRdm9NPl59pcYYN0c488Y2r_Lk7hGzZx4QwX_iDJc6tAettDTKEkg/s320/Ichthyosaur-Mural-Boulia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>An artistic recreation of Cretaceous ichthyosaurs frolicking like dolphins at the Stone House Museum in Boulia, Queensland (Australia), thus providing a good example of how <a href="http://www.all-about-reptiles.com/convergent-evolution.html"><b>convergent evolution</b></a> influences art: mural by Rona Thoragood (1997). For more about intersections between paleontology and art in outback Queensland, check out Ruth Schowalter’s (<a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b>Hallelujah Truth’s</b></a>) musings <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/2010/12/reverb10-traveling-as-spiritual-art.html"><b>here</b></a> and <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/2010/12/reverb10-everything-is-ok-reenvisioning.html"><b>here</b></a>.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">We knew almost nothing about Boulia before visiting it, other than brief descriptions in tourist brochures we had picked up in Townsville, Hughenden, and Winton. But in every one of these was a blurb about the <a href="http://www.boulia.qld.gov.au/tourism/StonehouseMuseum.shtml"><b>Stone House Museum</b></a> and “Dinosaur” Dick Suter, an amateur fossil collector who had put together an educational display of Cretaceous fossils from around those parts. Knowing the area around Boulia was in the middle of the former Cretaceous seaway, we figured that the museum would have plenty of items to slake our continuing thirst for learning about Australian life from 100 million years past. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">After bidding a sad goodbye to Winton, it was about a four-hour drive on one-lane roads for much of the way to Boulia. On entering town, we noted that, though small, it was bigger than most outback-Queensland towns we had seen, some of which have names on a map solely because of a single pub hotel just off the road. Boulia likewise had a pub hotel, which ably met our budgetary and adult-refreshment needs. A petrol station, only a short walk from the hotel, had meals and snacks, and our sitting down for supper on its open-air porch provided an all-too brief tourist-eye view of the relaxed pace of life in Boulia.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">But before that, we went to Boulia’s year-round and non-paleontological claim to fame: a place devoted to telling tales about the legendary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Min_light"><b>Min Min Lights</b></a>, fittingly called the <a href="http://www.boulia.qld.gov.au/tourism/MinMinEncounterShow.shtml"><b>Min Min Light Encounter Centre</b></a>. Sara Collins – in charge of promoting tourism in Boulia – was there at the center and served as an all-around lovely person for welcoming newcomers, Yanks included. She successfully persuaded us to go experience their display, and we were not disappointed, as it involved entertaining animatronics, sound effects, storytelling, a rotating room (really), and of course, lots of lighting effects. It was what would happen if <a href="http://www.muppetcentral.com/"><b>The Muppets</b></a> ever worked with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/bio"><b>Steven Spielberg</b></a>. (Which, actually, <a href="http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Muppets_Celebrate_Jim_Henson"><b>they did</b></a>, but they really need to get together more often.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">What are the Min Min Lights? They are disembodied, moving, and multi-colored lights, either real or imagined, that appear in the night sky in this part of the outback. Interestingly, the story of the Min Min Lights reminded me of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights"><b>Marfa Lights</b></a>, reported near the small town of Marfa in west Texas (USA) since the 1950s. The best scientific explanation for such recurring phenomena throughout the world is that they represent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_%28mirage%29"><b>Fata Morgana</b></a> (which, incidentally, would also be a great name for a rock band, a <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/all-james-bond-villains-list-of-all-james-bond-enemies/all-enemies-and-supervillains"><b>James Bond villain</b></a>, or both). A Fata Morgana is a mirage caused by atmospheric distortions and reflections of light that form at the interfaces between air masses with different temperatures. Or something like that: I'm a paleontologist, <b><a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/I%27m_a_doctor,_not_a...">not a physicist</a></b>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SpMhZr3W57tnL8yV1SUBhXAhIhA3HHQz91SAGlTpBnXQhxM-0ML_kwK8HswXd5-avj2U5Org50g0ffarEj7YyCm6_qd7ihBdMuSeY7iclxzqEto56GXuWfoC24vvnUafhdn9wRIN9Qts/s1600/Min-Min-Or-Sport-Ute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SpMhZr3W57tnL8yV1SUBhXAhIhA3HHQz91SAGlTpBnXQhxM-0ML_kwK8HswXd5-avj2U5Org50g0ffarEj7YyCm6_qd7ihBdMuSeY7iclxzqEto56GXuWfoC24vvnUafhdn9wRIN9Qts/s320/Min-Min-Or-Sport-Ute.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Entering Boulia, Queensland at dusk, a ghostly windmill looms in the distance, and wait – what’s that? It’s either the Min Min Lights, or the headlights of a “sport ute:” whichever you prefer to believe.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and went straight to the Stone House Museum at its opening time. And there outside it was “Dinosaur” Dick Suter himself: 74 years old, but filled with the proverbial vim and vigor. Because we were his first visitors for the day, he devoted a good amount of time to educating us about the fossils there before other tourists drifted in later that morning. Most of the fossils were in a one-room building behind the eponymous Stone House (which dealt more with human stuff, thus did not hold my interest for very long). This little house had an eye-catching sign for any paleontologically inclined folks:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lo0MlHvavcyusPmqT-8MZmmGz-nd27HCK3o__ouRgVl8d-H22eleIz7sZJb_TrFv-qVjeuiFu7SBlUrOcT4yXmD2QQI-anoMvoaW2K4Y1edfVyuwMtxTAhaUIQ7JOiUtauKF5VnomLAF/s1600/Marine-Fossils-Sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lo0MlHvavcyusPmqT-8MZmmGz-nd27HCK3o__ouRgVl8d-H22eleIz7sZJb_TrFv-qVjeuiFu7SBlUrOcT4yXmD2QQI-anoMvoaW2K4Y1edfVyuwMtxTAhaUIQ7JOiUtauKF5VnomLAF/s320/Marine-Fossils-Sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>It’s a sign! But it’s not the Min Min Lights. Instead, it’s a straightforward and entirely truthful advertisement about the Cretaceous marine-reptile fossils within the small house on the grounds of the Stone House Museum. Oh, and there’s lots more than “just” marine reptile fossils, too!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">This area of the world is well known for its Cretaceous marine reptiles, so I was not surprised to see that these were most prominently mentioned. Dick Suter has previously told people that none of these animals were dinosaurs, so his nickname of “’Dinosaur’ Dick” is a bit of a misnomer in that respect. It really should be “’<a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/motani/ichthyo/"><b>Ichthyosaur</b></a>’ Dick,” despite its lack of alliteration, or “’Ichthyosaur-<b><a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Ples-roam.html">Elasmosaur</a>’</b> Dick,” or “’Ichthyosaur-Elasmosaur-<b><a href="http://chelonianresearch.wordpress.com/">Chelonian</a>’</b> Dick,” or…OK, I’ll stop. The point is, he finds lots of fossils in the area around Boulia, none of which are dinosaurs.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">What did he have? Yes, bones of the aforementioned ichthyosaurs, elasmosaurs, and chelonians (the last also called "turtles" to most people) were indeed there, as well as fossil fish (including some beautifully preserved <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKDtUzRIG6I"><b>fish heads</b></a>), ammonites, and a wide variety of invertebrate fossils other than ammonites. As an ichnologist, though, I was pleased to see two types of trace fossils there: <a href="http://eas.unl.edu/%7Erschmeisser/gastroliths.html"><b>gastroliths</b></a> (pictured twice before in this blog – <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-eat-rock-gastroliths-stomach-stones.html"><b>here</b></a> and <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/02/diving-down-under-in-cretaceous-sea.html"><b>here</b></a>) and a supposed turtle <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/coprolite.html"><b>coprolite</b></a>. Coprolites, which are fossil feces (yes, they fossilize, but please do not experiment with this at home), are always tricky trace fossils to correctly distinguish from, say, a mass of rock that just happens to look like a pile of excrement. But the one he had on display probably was a coprolite, based on its form, content, and association with probable poopmakers, er, I mean, tracemakers. I just wish the contents could be examined in more detail to test this suppository theory further.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtViEpHDFFWgxZffEatkjOaq-tRsFkvRZgDdJqO339GxuY0ZwN6wwR6WhUMwZYg1AjAUSid4aIAidm6tSOiv2nemN0FdJjMWjLtygLTDpwtiaaiYotnvyOcMmURUTRAjZ1T-h92I1wzl69/s1600/Cretaceous-Turtle-Coprolite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtViEpHDFFWgxZffEatkjOaq-tRsFkvRZgDdJqO339GxuY0ZwN6wwR6WhUMwZYg1AjAUSid4aIAidm6tSOiv2nemN0FdJjMWjLtygLTDpwtiaaiYotnvyOcMmURUTRAjZ1T-h92I1wzl69/s320/Cretaceous-Turtle-Coprolite.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>A coprolite identified as belonging to a Cretaceous turtle at the Stone House Museum in Boulia, Queensland, in which the rock was broken open to reveal a part and counterpart of the coprolite. Note what looks like either shell or bone fragments in a compacted, slightly rounded mass, which constitutes not-bad evidence supporting this object as a coprolite. But where exactly was it collected? Which geologic formation is it from? Is the specimen archived with a museum number and other information about its discovery? And how do we know it came out of a turtle bum?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglCF86z9IjjrC-J12W-0KFYnns2Hkr2_lCg6VX-suAHc9vEFhdVLZfH8qzJcBQ2X8zF8fT_WAd2tZ7LFvxxwb3QVU6qC3rmjCEY-nZzCkpNlO1atpa-I2ug37NBD3OXBgUWqI0-jkesRKv/s1600/Cretaceous-Sea-Turtles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglCF86z9IjjrC-J12W-0KFYnns2Hkr2_lCg6VX-suAHc9vEFhdVLZfH8qzJcBQ2X8zF8fT_WAd2tZ7LFvxxwb3QVU6qC3rmjCEY-nZzCkpNlO1atpa-I2ug37NBD3OXBgUWqI0-jkesRKv/s320/Cretaceous-Sea-Turtles.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Some possible tracemakers for coprolites in the same Early Cretaceous deposits: sea turtles, identified as </i>Notochelone costata<i>. How would we be able to make a good, testable hypothesis that would link these turtles with supposed turtle coprolites? Think about it, but not too much, because it’s actually not that complicated.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Other than the trace fossils (and oh yeah, the marine reptiles, ammonites, and other body fossils), Ruth and I were most impressed with the colorful paleo-art adorning the interior walls of the house. These murals were painted by Rona Thoragood in 1997, and they were lovely. I particularly liked the following one because of its color, composition, and attempt to show the major players in the original ecosystems from the Cretaceous Period.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDexib7E3kB4L6n_UaYt7O-cTzOTcXClucwimQ2u2bdUc10cWYKM3WQTXDGIDwb4arp4ipkPEf4mQ_cQRd6PqaC6ev_47JvemSx8hxnG8z_uZJGw4Bn21CwFZi-65UmA6IaME8go6QkxFc/s1600/Boulia-Cretaceous-Sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDexib7E3kB4L6n_UaYt7O-cTzOTcXClucwimQ2u2bdUc10cWYKM3WQTXDGIDwb4arp4ipkPEf4mQ_cQRd6PqaC6ev_47JvemSx8hxnG8z_uZJGw4Bn21CwFZi-65UmA6IaME8go6QkxFc/s320/Boulia-Cretaceous-Sea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Artist’s depiction of the Early Cretaceous seaway that covered much of what is now called Queensland, Australia about 100 million years ago. Shown in the ocean are: <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria.html"><b>pterosaurs</b></a> flying overhead; a large, long-necked <a href="http://www.plesiosaur.com/"><b>plesiosaur</b></a> (center), a short-necked plesiosaur - perhaps a <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/pliosaur.html"><b>pliosaur</b></a> (right); ammonites (below center); teleost (bony) fish; a colorful coral reef; and a sea turtle swimming over the reef, evoking comparisons to the Great Barrier Reef. Note to creationists: the wall air-conditioning unit in the middle of the mural was not extant during the Cretaceous.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">After our visit, we left Boulia and the former Cretaceous seaway for our next destination, the considerably larger town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Isa"><b>Mt. Isa</b></a>. As we departed, we were left with lasting memories of the bountiful and beautiful fossils of this land, as well as the beguiling Min Min Lights that still illuminate our imaginations. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Wait, did you think I was saying goodbye? That the <b>Great Cretaceous Walk</b> is going to stop walking? As if. In next week’s entry, I will sort out a few lingering thoughts provoked by our visit to Boulia that concern the somewhat uneasy relationships between academic paleontologists (people like me) and amateur paleontologists (people like Dick Suter, who greatly outnumber the academics).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">But for now, I’ll leave you with Australian country-music performers <a href="http://www.sarastorer.com.au/news.html"><b>Sara Storer</b></a> and <a href="http://www.johnwilliamson.com.au/Default2.htm"><b>John Williamson</b></a>, singing <i>Raining on the Plains</i>, which much of the Queensland outback experienced in a big way with the recent passage of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_Tropical_Cyclone_Yasi"><b>Cyclone Yasi</b></a>. (And please do note the all-too-important appearance of upraised and soon-to-be-emptied beer glasses at 0:54 and 1:45.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HFVOLbruUOM" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-71378124091338707882011-02-09T06:43:00.000-05:002011-02-09T06:43:23.333-05:00Diving Down Under in the Cretaceous Sea<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_Tropical_Cyclone_Yasi">Cyclone Yasi</a> </b>- the massive tropical storm that hit Queensland, Australia last week – was a Category 5 hurricane, with winds well in excess of 250 km/hr (> 150 mph) at one point. Once it reached that place where the land meets the sea, it smashed a large area from Cairns to Townsville, its eye passing over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Beach,_Queensland"><b>Mission Beach</b></a>, then <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tully,_Queensland"><b>Tully</b></a>, places I have visited twice with study-abroad students from <a href="http://www.emory.edu/"><b>Emory University</b></a>. The cyclone continued inland, bringing high winds and heaps of rain to communities inland that normally stay dry: <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b>Hughenden</b></a>, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-iv.html"><b>Winton</b></a>, Richmond, Boulia, and Mt. Isa. As expected, entire beaches vanished, coastal forests were torn apart, and property damage was excessive. Fortunately, though, very few people were injured, a direct result of excellent emergency preparedness by the Australian people and government.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnig-_F3ehaXN5IC3FL9xIo4g2Q-yOZ6KPsZnp_ZmhwaK5jVQM3yGfNMy0cJAicrCnxejvqVmVRe5wYNXcIycc2_uaVBA_RJAFpF_xm9JaZ8Zl8q3oQOwZBTxmjoCQxTmAVOj0QcASyzhX/s1600/Yasi_2011_track.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnig-_F3ehaXN5IC3FL9xIo4g2Q-yOZ6KPsZnp_ZmhwaK5jVQM3yGfNMy0cJAicrCnxejvqVmVRe5wYNXcIycc2_uaVBA_RJAFpF_xm9JaZ8Zl8q3oQOwZBTxmjoCQxTmAVOj0QcASyzhX/s320/Yasi_2011_track.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGRy2RPXQFdHnCyeyJyEEykvi0Ytvq62vWgGzK4ajnfDeOQK3spytbGkh9Fi9V5JihXIi25qfKMpo-mZU0W6xvy0oVfdagm3P5rczsc5VhphyA4NA0IpTXcXOk9btj9anq_4l8cdtjhtgi/s1600/CretaceousQueensland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGRy2RPXQFdHnCyeyJyEEykvi0Ytvq62vWgGzK4ajnfDeOQK3spytbGkh9Fi9V5JihXIi25qfKMpo-mZU0W6xvy0oVfdagm3P5rczsc5VhphyA4NA0IpTXcXOk9btj9anq_4l8cdtjhtgi/s320/CretaceousQueensland.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>The path of Cyclone Yasi (top), compared to a paleogeographic map of Cretaceous Queensland (bottom). Sometimes the sea comes back to visit, however briefly and horrifically. Cyclone track map is from Wikipedia Commons, and paleogeographic map was in the<b> <a href="http://www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au/">Museum of Tropical Queensland</a></b>, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-ii.html"><b>Townsville</b></a>, Australia, a place that was hit hard by Yasi just last week.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i><a name='more'></a></i>So how does Cyclone Yasi relate to the Cretaceous of Queensland? These storms help to remind us that the direct influence of the modern sea on the former site of a Cretaceous seaway is only a hurricane away. Thus the shells, bones, and trace fossils of lives 100 million years past are soaked anew with marine-spawned waters, an elemental circle that has repeated many times, long after ammonites and plesiosaurs cruised through the open waters that covered what we now call Queensland.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So let’s go back to that seaway for several moments.<b> <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-eat-rock-gastroliths-stomach-stones.html">In a previous entry</a></b>,<b> </b>I introduced my gentle readers to some of the trace fossils of that Cretaceous sea, <b>gastroliths</b>, otherwise known as “stomach stones.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">For Mesozoic vertebrates, gastroliths are normally apparent as localized accumulations of rounded gravel, pebbles, or cobbles in the skeletons of dinosaurs and marine reptiles. However, in Mesozoic vertebrates that lived on land exclusively - like dinosaurs – the existence of gastroliths has been a subject of remarkable controversy. At least one paleontologist has even derisively referred to gastroliths as “<a href="http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.science.dinosaurs.general/month=20091201"><b>gastromyths</b></a>,” which I, as the founder of <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html"><b>The Church of Ichnology</b></a>, would consider sacrilege if applied to real ones.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3N351QTR6kA-wi8mvh62VhfMaqOHGYsQDyPYN6VgW05sPXk1gBPTy_kw0lA8XgJWzdGM7omKwpB1xJaI4rSSVHV-rRlqHvAG8ijUY4mOQC5oLmfs1wajwFyreRUor506rmirynbxaQO-V/s1600/Elasmosaur-Gastroliths-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3N351QTR6kA-wi8mvh62VhfMaqOHGYsQDyPYN6VgW05sPXk1gBPTy_kw0lA8XgJWzdGM7omKwpB1xJaI4rSSVHV-rRlqHvAG8ijUY4mOQC5oLmfs1wajwFyreRUor506rmirynbxaQO-V/s320/Elasmosaur-Gastroliths-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>“Those aren’t trace fossils – they’re just a bunch of rocks!” Blasphemy! I cast thee out of the Church of Ichnology! No more beer for you! Photo is of gastroliths recovered from a Cretaceous <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Ples-roam.html"><b>elasmosaur</b></a> by “Dinosaur Dick” Suter and are on display in Boulia, Queensland, Australia.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Other paleontologists have even started to question long-supposed gastroliths in<b> <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2197205/">sauropod dinosaurs</a>; </b>nevertheless,<b> </b>these trace fossils are now getting recognized more often in <a href="http://app.pan.pl/article/item/app53-351.html"><b>ornithopods</b></a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourinhanosaurus"><b>theropods</b></a>. Their presence in theropods, though, is unsurprising, considering how many of their living relatives (<a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/463w3pgewpml0qcl/"><b>birds</b></a>) also use gastroliths.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So why all of the disagreement about gastroliths in the fossil record? It has to do with distinguishing localized collections of rounded rocks that might have accumulated in a skeleton well after an animal died, versus those that were in its body before it died. Sure, skepticism is warranted when the sedimentary strata surrounding fossil skeletons also contain lots of rounded rocks that look just like the ones found inside a skeleton. But other explanations tend to whither on the vine when these stones occur only in the abdominal region of a skeleton. For example, fossil marine reptiles – like plesiosaurs – are oftentimes encased in fine-grained sedimentary rock – like shale or sandstone – with nary a pebble in sight. This means that an accumulation of pebbles inside a vertebrate animal is probably not an accident.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6yUWUkA7DyztuO48vnjQ3d369no0sBp4kHdBF2JZRaHErRJHuE2zC26qtuJDEZ7q-65iVvMzhLb1x12DEqZG-_eXDIB_a0kN9vk4ku52MvLkLD6PCRCOx3aR0x2_-H62_uemy9B6i4zE/s1600/Elasmosaur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6yUWUkA7DyztuO48vnjQ3d369no0sBp4kHdBF2JZRaHErRJHuE2zC26qtuJDEZ7q-65iVvMzhLb1x12DEqZG-_eXDIB_a0kN9vk4ku52MvLkLD6PCRCOx3aR0x2_-H62_uemy9B6i4zE/s320/Elasmosaur.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Recreation of the Cretaceous <a href="http://www.plesiosaur.com/"><b>plesiosaur</b></a> (more specifically,<b> </b>elasmosaur) </i>Woolungasaurus glendowerensis<i>, swimming through the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Townsville, Australia.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-mTYfIegVBAP_Xe2i5Ug-ONMVWk-Y3O_suj9qsAimXXaAZKphtLh8ZdUPaQwxP_CjBfp_NCHS0_l8tvAWD7sFg3YKhbAWLbDy6h2uD7kKzmEWYhUV2H6p5I6hmMjfF8cw7Jdk4yNm4Yw0/s1600/Elasmosaur-gastroliths-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-mTYfIegVBAP_Xe2i5Ug-ONMVWk-Y3O_suj9qsAimXXaAZKphtLh8ZdUPaQwxP_CjBfp_NCHS0_l8tvAWD7sFg3YKhbAWLbDy6h2uD7kKzmEWYhUV2H6p5I6hmMjfF8cw7Jdk4yNm4Yw0/s320/Elasmosaur-gastroliths-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>When you find a cluster of stones that look like these, they’re inside the rib cage of a Mesozoic marine reptile, </i>and<i> you don’t see any other such stones in the rock surrounding the skeleton, it’s probably OK to identify these as gastroliths. But why are they there? Read on. (Gastroliths at <a href="http://www.kronosauruskorner.com.au/"><b>Kronosaurus Korner</b></a>, Richmond, Queensland, Australia.)</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Aside from debating which dinosaurs had gastroliths or not, everyone seems to agree that these rocks assisted in digestion in these animals. When enfolded in a muscular gizzard, a bunch of silica-rich stones would have helped to mechanically grind down tough-to-digest food, rather than relying just on stomach acids or enzymes. But the presence of concentrated masses of rounded rocks in non-dinosaurian vertebrates, such as Mesozoic marine reptiles, caused a little bit of pause in paleontologists before they also identified these as gastroliths. The hesitation felt by paleontologists was not so much about “what,” but more about “why,” as in “Why did marine reptiles swallow rocks?” Digestion was not considered as the sole reason, because these animals only ate seafood, most of which should not have required as much grinding as tough plants, insects, or other terrestrial foodstuff.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">As a result of one idea discarded, an alternative one proposed by paleontologists was that these rocks somehow contributed to buoyancy control. For example, everyone who has done <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuba_diving"><b>SCUBA diving</b></a> knows that weight belts need to be used in combination with a buoyancy compensator (BC) vest. This human-based analogy, however imperfect, helps us to think about how these reptiles – some of which were multi-tonne animals – moved vertically within a watery environment to find food, mate, give birth, go up to the surface to breathe, and otherwise conduct marine-reptile business. To float, they had to ingest air at the surface, and to sink, they had to exhale, all of which was aided by coordinated movements of the fins and tail.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So let’s just look at some large, modern, air-breathing marine vertebrates for an example of how this is done, and the mystery will be solved, right? In fact, whales would be perfect, right? Well, no. Turns out gastroliths are absent in <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/cetacea/cetacean.html"><b>cetaceans</b></a> (whales, dolphins, and porpoises); instead, these animals have other adaptations that allow them to easily move up and down in the water column, yet don’t require them to swallow anything other than food. Sea turtles are a bust, too: not one modern or fossil sea turtle had been found with gastroliths. Turned out the only modern marine vertebrates that have gastroliths are some <a href="http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/education/marine-mammal-information/pinnipeds/"><b>pinnipeds</b></a> (seals, sea lions and walruses) and <a href="http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/cnhc/csl.html"><b>crocodilians</b></a> (alligators and crocodiles). <span> </span>So because crocodilians are reptiles, let’s focus on those, and specifically we’ll take a look at estuarine crocodiles (<i>Crocodylus porous</i>) of Australia, which are affectionately known as “salties” because of their tolerance of marine salinity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIWjzBbmeEllMDG2ZdZ7QguQbBVSiGZtEpnn-zSMOCjVofuIzUNu_EiTNjeJnIPOvHXfcPSBX7yezBrT1YAU4zTFd4ufRvIDHplEn2gqj69S-4YlPTZYvQsskggd7z_784MJ10TiJNgQF/s1600/She%2527s-A-Beauty-Crocodile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIWjzBbmeEllMDG2ZdZ7QguQbBVSiGZtEpnn-zSMOCjVofuIzUNu_EiTNjeJnIPOvHXfcPSBX7yezBrT1YAU4zTFd4ufRvIDHplEn2gqj69S-4YlPTZYvQsskggd7z_784MJ10TiJNgQF/s320/She%2527s-A-Beauty-Crocodile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>An estuarine crocodile (“salty”) in a tank at the<b> <a href="http://www.reptilecentre.com.au/">Alice Springs Reptile Centre</a></b> (Northern Territory, Australia), showing excellent buoyancy control as it hangs out on the bottom, whilst readily evoking thoughts of large marine reptiles in the Cretaceous. For perfectly rational reasons, I did not check to see whether it had any gastroliths.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The “rocks must help with buoyancy control” idea, though, took a hit with a 2003 study<b> </b>that showed that<b> <a href="http://rparticle.web-p.cisti.nrc.ca/rparticle/AbstractTemplateServlet?calyLang=eng&journal=cjz&volume=81&year=2003&issue=8&msno=z03-122">gastroliths make up far too little weight</a> </b>compared to the body weight of a crocodilian (<i>Alligator mississippiensis</i>): only about 1-2%. This means they have little effect on a crocodile just moving up and down in the water. So this hypothesis got tweaked a bit: maybe these were used not so much as ballast for diving, but for stabilizing while swimming. Instead of weight belts, then, think of the tiny weights placed on tires to balance them on a car, which help the tires to rotate more evenly.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">OK, time for the thesis-antithesis-synthesis approach. How about, gastroliths were used for both buoyancy control (balance more than ballast) and helping to digest food. Maybe we may have a winner! (At least, for now. We scientists have this peculiar habit of changing our minds about hypotheses once we get new evidence.) Two Cretaceous elasmosaurs from Queensland, described in 2005, not only had gastroliths, <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1006_051006_plesiosaur.html"><b>they also unexpectedly contained stomach contents</b></a> (fossilized, of course), which included bits of clams, snails, crustaceans, and other invertebrates that lived on the ocean bottom. This evidence was a big surprise, because paleontologists had always assumed elasmosaurs only ate fish, and never thought of them as bottom feeders. You reckon some rocks in your stomach would help to grind down those hard-shelled critters and make them easier to digest? (Hopefully you said “yes,” otherwise stop reading this right now, and go back to watching <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48022691412"><b>CSI</b></a>.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So now we have a new hypothesis for gastroliths in marine reptiles, which is a variation on a previous one, but also combines another one given previously for these trace fossils. In summary, the more things change, the more they stay the same, unless they change, then they’re not exactly the same, especially if they only changed a little bit.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Famed Australian singer-songwriter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasey_Chambers"><b>Kasey Chambers</b></a> (and oh yeah, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Nicholson_%28singer%29"><b>Shane Nicholson</b></a>), perform </i>Rattlin’ Bones<i>, singing of “…smoke not rising, fuel not burning, the sun not shining, late-night sorrow scratching at a door”; and “dragging stones until buried beneath the ground, with dust and bones.” Lyrics that evoke Cyclone Yasi and gastroliths in Cretaceous plesiosaurs, respectively. Best wishes to all in Queensland affected by Yasi.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b>Further Reading on Gastroliths</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Cerda, I.A. 2008. Gastroliths in an ornithopod dinosaur. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, v. 53, p. 351-355.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Drehmer, C.J., and de Oliveira, L.R. 2003. Occurrence of gastroliths in South American sea lions (</i>Otaria byronia<i>) from southern Brazil. LAJAM, v. 2, 123-126.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Henderson, D.M. 2003. Effects of stomach stones on the buoyancy and equilibrium of a floating crocodilian: a computational analysis. Canadian Journal of Zoology, v. 81, p. 1346-1357.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>McHenry, C.R., Cook, A.G., and Wroe, S. 2005. Bottom-feeding plesiosaurs. Science, v. 310, p. 75.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Taylor, M.A. 1993. Stomach stones for feeding or buoyancy? The occurrence and function of gastroliths in marine tetrapods. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, v. 341, p. 163-175.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Wings, O. 2007. A review of gastrolith function with implications for fossil vertebrates and a revised classification. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, v. 52, p. 1–16.</i></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-78182311543882832192011-01-30T11:42:00.000-05:002011-01-30T11:42:26.462-05:00Why Eat a Rock? Gastroliths (‘Stomach Stones’) as Trace Fossils<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">During the past 30 years or so, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_fossil"><b>trace fossils</b></a> – such as <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070915092239.htm"><b>tracks</b></a>, <a href="http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2850/dinosaurs-burrows-suggest-adaptation-climate"><b>burrows</b></a>, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/3515797"><b>nests</b></a>, <a href="http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/201010155321/Fossilized-Feces-Show-Shark-Bite-Marks.html"><b>toothmarks</b></a>, <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v393/n6686/abs/393680a0.html"><b>coprolites</b></a> (fossil feces), and so on – have been steadily gaining more respect and recognition in paleontology. I would like to think this is a direct result of my dedicated “ichnoevangelism,” in which I have attempted to convert <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-great-unwashed.html"><b>The Great Unwashed</b></a> who fail to see the paleontological truth inherent to trace fossils, but the world of paleontology is much bigger than the <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html"><b>Church of Ichnology</b></a> (so far). Nonetheless, despite this overall increase in enlightenment, one type of trace fossil still causes some recalcitrant non-believers to turn gazes elsewhere and ignore their scientific worth. Those would be <a href="http://eas.unl.edu/%7Erschmeisser/gastroliths.html"><b>gastroliths</b></a>, otherwise known as “stomach stones.”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMa0d-nGhMGtkSHa_RbW30T4dckCDdouUSrI_e948yuY2qwr08RQC9HDmfbzrEhYoPukYnrqYOu8yYJhEouY8q4d8-KeUgqU1BqD6tETdFl_uIeu1tUiYVxnLX1DFe1uQW3EkhJOdfvag/s1600/Elasmosaur-gastroliths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMa0d-nGhMGtkSHa_RbW30T4dckCDdouUSrI_e948yuY2qwr08RQC9HDmfbzrEhYoPukYnrqYOu8yYJhEouY8q4d8-KeUgqU1BqD6tETdFl_uIeu1tUiYVxnLX1DFe1uQW3EkhJOdfvag/s320/Elasmosaur-gastroliths.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Gastroliths extracted from the interior of a Cretaceous <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Ples-roam.html"><b>elasmosaur</b></a> (a large, long-necked marine reptile) in central Queensland, Australia. Specimens are at the <a href="http://www.boulia.qld.gov.au/tourism/StonehouseMuseum.shtml"><b>Stonehouse Museum</b></a> and collected by “Dinosaur” Dick Suter in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulia,_Queensland"><b>Boulia</b></a>, Queensland. I know, they just look like a bunch of rocks, not trace fossils. Please read on, and prepare to learn.</i></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">I was reminded of this ichnological inequity while traveling in Queensland, Australia this past July (2010), noting three modest displays of these enigmatic trace fossils. One was in the tiny town of Boulia, another in the much bigger town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Isa"><b>Mt. Isa</b></a>, and the third in the tiny-but-still-bigger-than Boulia town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Queensland"><b>Richmond</b></a>. The gastroliths in Boulia and Richmond had been directly associated with the skeletal remains of elasmosaurs, marine reptiles that lived during the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/cretaceous/cretaceous.html"><b>Cretaceous Period</b></a> (about 100 million years ago) in this part of Australia. The gastroliths seen in Mt. Isa, though, were in the gut region of a <a href="http://austhrutime.com/dromornithidae.htm"><b>dromornithid</b></a> skeleton. Dromornithids were large flightless birds – distantly related to ducks and flamingoes – that lived during the latter part of the Cenozoic Era, from about 25 million to only about 40,000 years ago.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4WvgQQBakMUWgrPLNNT78qSqGxRzrWvt4NCmmiuEWFjnLyQsiEAZlR8A5rNAFHAQrETg2cqUFdNJl9pZ5XCX-oo7KAO0lhjpUcPnoZcs3IfPe_b5HnH0BAAMwra3LyWQskjPjPhMA5u7/s1600/Dromornithid-gastroliths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4WvgQQBakMUWgrPLNNT78qSqGxRzrWvt4NCmmiuEWFjnLyQsiEAZlR8A5rNAFHAQrETg2cqUFdNJl9pZ5XCX-oo7KAO0lhjpUcPnoZcs3IfPe_b5HnH0BAAMwra3LyWQskjPjPhMA5u7/s320/Dromornithid-gastroliths.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Gastroliths associated with the gut region of a fossil dromornithid. Specimens on display in the <a href="http://www.outbackatisa.com.au/Attractions/Riversleigh-Fossil-Centre.aspx"><b>Riversleigh Fossil Centre</b></a> in Mt. Isa, Queensland.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Outside of Australia, gastroliths have been found in <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/taxa/verts/archosaurs/gastroliths.php"><b>a few species of dinosaurs</b></a>, too. So why were these gastroliths present in Mesozoic marine reptiles, dinosaurs, and Cenozoic land birds?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Oh wait, sorry about that: I never explained the term “gastroliths,” other than to say they were “stomach stones.” That’s not very helpful, so I’ll back up and get more basic. Gastroliths are rounded rocks that, for whatever reason, end up in an animal’s digestive tract. Why would an animal swallow a rock? Two reasons come to mind: </div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span><span>(1)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Accidental ingestion, in which a rock that was too close to some food and went along for the ride. (This is how we get some of our beloved pets to take pills they otherwise would never find appetizing.) In dinosaurs and ancient birds, some paleontologists have also proposed that they (the rocks, not the paleontologists) might have been inadvertently consumed while carried in mouths during nest building.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span><span>(2)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Deliberate ingestion, in which an animal knowingly (instinctively) sees a delectable rock and swallows it, for reasons that will be further explained soon.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Determining which of these two scenarios happened with a fossil animal is a matter of numbers, as in, how many stones are preserved in the gut region of a fossil animal. Odds are that accidental ingestions should be unusual events, considering the low nutritional value of most rocks (not to mention their lack of fiber), as well as the potential for choking on them, which would negatively impact future reproductive success. As in, when you’re dead, you don’t get to pass on your genes, and choking uncontrollably probably isn’t sexy enough to attract many mates, either. (But if it works for you, hey, knock yourself out – literally.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">This means that gastroliths should be absent or rare in animals that did not intentionally eat them. Then again, a high concentration of rocks in a relatively small area within the main body cavity of a skeleton implies that these were repeatedly swallowed for good reason. This circumstance also implies that this seemingly odd behavior actually was not so strange and provided some adaptive advantage to that animal.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">OK, so what are the benefits of purposefully swallowing rounded rocks? To answer this, paleontologists turn to our good friend <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism"><b>uniformitarianism</b></a> (or its less syllabic synonym, <b>actualism</b>), in which modern animals teach us about gastroliths and how these animals use them. For example, we can easily observe chickens (<a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>chooks</b></a>), budgerigars (<b>budgies – </b>not to be confused with <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>budgie smugglers</b></a>) and other small birds seeking out grit, pebbles, and other small stones and swallowing these. Much larger flightless birds, like <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH8-45NJY1B-20&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F1994&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1623900698&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ec71edcff30c8261c8c13abd2d42f637&searchtype=a"><b>emus</b></a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2197205/"><b>ostriches</b></a>, do the same, and accordingly pick a wider size range of stones. This practice is linked to aiding digestion; the gastroliths lodge in the muscular <a href="http://www.backyardnature.net/birdguts.htm"><b>crop or gizzard</b></a> of a bird’s digestive tract and are then used to grind down any tough-to-digest food that passes through the same place.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Gg5gGXCVNr4" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>American crow (</i>Corvus brachyrhynchos<i>) picking out some pebbles and swallowing them, presumably to help it digest some food. Footage taken in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is in some country just north of most of the continental U.S. (Sorry, I’m American, hence my lack of geographical knowledge.)</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">As yet another example of how <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html"><b>modern birds are theropod dinosaurs</b></a>, several theropods from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourinhanosaurus"><b><i>Lourinhanosaurus</i></b></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudipteryx"><b><i>Caudipteryx</i></b></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nqwebasaurus"><b><i>Nqwebasaurus</i></b></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinornithomimus"><b><i>Sinornithomimus</i></b></a>, and others - have beautifully preserved masses of gastroliths in their gut regions. Strict carnivores tend not to need gastroliths, though, so their presence in these theropod dinosaurs points toward their probably having had a more varied diet as insectivores, omnivores, or even <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/108/1/232.full"><b>herbivores</b></a>.</div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBcMp_HNg_kvnP2lJSZeL08w9CpSu32JWcafhfR-pWJZTXB1xMO83ntURJxi8n8krnjLXhg5VEQRx0NqqaxJCvIXhep5cTXw-0hhHVXw2D7K9vRdpEy68aWdokf5qjLtN0tKWovcyzYrrH/s1600/Caudipteryx-with-gastroliths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBcMp_HNg_kvnP2lJSZeL08w9CpSu32JWcafhfR-pWJZTXB1xMO83ntURJxi8n8krnjLXhg5VEQRx0NqqaxJCvIXhep5cTXw-0hhHVXw2D7K9vRdpEy68aWdokf5qjLtN0tKWovcyzYrrH/s320/Caudipteryx-with-gastroliths.jpg" width="240" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhel2_AYus_Zzb6eNwSS-HWCBFnzl9WeCNOfFDxrumun6yle8h1ASyRWbyAsr5V4ckNsYLlthqB7nAArfdD1WkoiHe3zMr4dI2sGDkB5ayAqKrgKow9qk_Q95IhgKUR-XOHsGcb0I4btORF/s1600/Caudipteryx-gastroliths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhel2_AYus_Zzb6eNwSS-HWCBFnzl9WeCNOfFDxrumun6yle8h1ASyRWbyAsr5V4ckNsYLlthqB7nAArfdD1WkoiHe3zMr4dI2sGDkB5ayAqKrgKow9qk_Q95IhgKUR-XOHsGcb0I4btORF/s320/Caudipteryx-gastroliths.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Gastroliths in the gut region of the small theropod </i>Caudipteryx zoui, <i>with an overall view (top, arrow pointing to gastroliths) and a close-up of the gastroliths concentrated in its abdominal region (bottom). Replica (cast) on display in the <a href="http://www.carnegiemnh.org/"><b>Carnegie Museum of Natural History</b></a> in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Gastroliths have been interpreted in other types of dinosaurs, including a few <a href="http://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app53/app53-351.pdf"><b>ornithopods</b></a>, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=X5j2lqAZqwIC&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=gastroliths+sauropod&source=bl&ots=FB8aZnLgSa&sig=UcrqUXVGcxpqvsOSEXbp2HNWKpQ&hl=en&ei=lIRFTdK5HsfogQfc_sjAAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=gastroliths%20sauropod&f=false"><b>sauropods</b></a>, and <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psittacosaurus_gastroliths.jpg"><b>ceratopsians</b></a>, but are rare enough that they must not have been needed in most dinosaur species. Dinosaur paleontologists also acknowledge the possibility that larger carnivorous theropods might have secondarily ingested some gastroliths by eating a gastrolith-bearing animal. But as far as I know, this idea has not yet been convincingly supported as a genuine evidence-based hypothesis.<i> </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Animals also had to be discriminating about what rocks they gulped down. For example, what if a sauropod spotted a rounded cobble of limestone and thought (as much as a sauropod could think), “Wow, that’ll help grind my food!,” and gobbled it down. Well, limestone is composed of CaCO<sub>3</sub> (calcium carbonate), which is present either as the minerals calcite or aragonite. A simple test for these minerals, conducted in introductory geology labs worldwide, is to simply apply a drop or two of diluted acid to a rock suspected of being a limestone. If the rock fizzes like a <a href="http://www.winerackshop.com/sparkling.htm"><b>sparkling Shiraz</b></a>, then it’s definitely limestone: the acid is liberating the CO<sub>2</sub> in the CaCO<sub>3</sub>, and the bubbles you see are composed of that gas.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YUHNR4WR9Ew" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Chemical reaction caused by adding dilute hydrochloric acid (HCl) to calcite. Gee, I wonder how a limestone cobble – composed of calcite – might have fared after a few minutes in an acidic gastrointestinal tract?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So now imagine the acidity of a typical sauropod stomach, which might have had a <a href="http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ph-d_483.html"><b>pH</b></a> of < 3 (on a scale of 1 to 14, with 1 being the most acidic). What do you think would have happened if a limestone cobble slid down into such a gut environment? Yes, that’s right: the Mesozoic equivalent of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxjb2UJZ-5I"><b>Alka Seltzer</b></a>. Other than for self-medication (rather unlikely), I just can’t see how eating limestone would have benefited a sauropod or any other dinosaur, because the rock would have dissolved too quickly to be used in a gastric mill.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">And sure enough, most undoubted gastroliths are rocks composed of silica-rich minerals (<a href="http://geology.com/rocks/chert.shtml"><b>chert</b></a>, <a href="http://geology.com/rocks/quartzite.shtml"><b>quartzite</b></a>, quartz <a href="http://geology.com/rocks/sandstone.shtml"><b>sandstone</b></a>), which are more chemically stable than calcium-bearing minerals and resist chemical weathering from most acids. The bigger of such rocks also tend to be rounded: sharp corners would have had a tough time going down a gullet, or been painful enough to discourage doing something like that again, even on a dare. (“Come on, mate – bet you can’t swallow that big, spikey rock!”)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">What modern animals – other than birds – have gastroliths? Perhaps surprisingly, some crocodilians have gastroliths, which also help with digestion, but further serve as ballast for buoyancy control when swimming. In the wonderful world of invertebrates, <a href="http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/phpbb3/index.php"><b>freshwater crayfish</b></a> (also known generically as <a href="http://www.nativefish.asn.au/yabby.html"><b>yabbies</b></a> in Australia) have gastroliths, too. However, these are radically different in purpose compared to gastroliths in vertebrates, as they are secreted directly by crayfish and <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/20104576"><b>are related to maintaining a proper balance of calcium</b></a> in their bodies.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">What’s great about gastroliths as trace fossils is that we now know a lot more about them and their functions in some modern animals and dinosaurs because of intensive research on this topic in the past 10 years or so. Nevertheless, their scientific importance as trace fossils in marine reptiles from the Mesozoic Era – particularly in some Cretaceous plesiosaurs of Australia – is only just now being recognized. So that will be the subject of the next entry: their probable uses in big sea-faring reptiles 100 million years ago in Australia. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazHUzZ0j7Av4CI0lWwQkXyjFGy8pR8lc46vweTA7UNt0GSV5Jj0qYy9DfivPogZ0TYaZJlHvClZeU4UYR_1n-q8v9ZfmxnkOVmdhD5lAUjRk-mGjFF4A94WjULzeJ1pRbNSpYOhb6s0Xa/s1600/Elasmosaur-gastroliths-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazHUzZ0j7Av4CI0lWwQkXyjFGy8pR8lc46vweTA7UNt0GSV5Jj0qYy9DfivPogZ0TYaZJlHvClZeU4UYR_1n-q8v9ZfmxnkOVmdhD5lAUjRk-mGjFF4A94WjULzeJ1pRbNSpYOhb6s0Xa/s320/Elasmosaur-gastroliths-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i>More great examples of Cretaceous gastroliths at the alliteratively (albeit illiterally) named <a href="http://www.kronosauruskorner.com.au/"><b>Kronosaurus Korner</b></a> in Richmond, Queensland (Australia). Notice the chunk of an elasmosaur rib just above these, showing how they likely were inside the elasmosaur. I wonder why?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">In closing, as we reflect on the ichnological importance of gastroliths, I leave you with a song by Australia’s most famous balladeer, <a href="http://www.johnwilliamson.com.au/"><b>John Williamson</b></a>, dedicated to the most beloved of gastrolith-using large flightless birds in Australia, the emu (<i>Dromaius novaehollandiae</i>).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rx3P7t_0_NM" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Old Man Emu<i>, written and performed by John Williamson, along with a visual tour of some of Australia’s most iconic terrestrial animals. Now if only someone would do a version that included Mesozoic animals of Australia…</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-33605137937530799742011-01-19T23:03:00.005-05:002011-01-19T23:11:22.160-05:00A Trace Fossil by Any Other Name<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Seemingly everyone – but especially five-year-olds – can enthusiastically rattle off the genus or species name of their favorite dinosaur or other prehistoric animal. “<a href="http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Treasures/Tyrannosaurus/tyrannos.html?dinos"><b><i>Tyrannosaurus rex</i></b>!</a>” “<a href="http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/triceratops/"><b><i>Triceratops</i></b>!</a>” “<a href="http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Fossils/Specimens/dimetrodon.html"><b><i>Dimetrodon</i></b></a>!” But I will bet a six-pack of my favorite adult beverage that 99% of people – kids and adults alike - cannot name a single trace fossil in the same way. And even if they did, could you imagine anyone applying the same vigor and gusto reserved for body fossils as they shout out the names of trace fossils? “<i>Ophiomorpha nodosa</i>!” “<i>Eubrontes</i>! “<i>Celliforma</i>!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMwTnO8LdEEAuDv_A-zNWbCXpwpvyEjRwbI-W47mvmCC5g4XufaxzllGEbL2DttfcUxa_B5zVpruSsKysp-GMevTbGWH7UEPp0wJ5TV2bzEuHTu09u5TXyCIm4sXVSJT85R8Tt0W1Zq22/s1600/Thalassinoides.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMwTnO8LdEEAuDv_A-zNWbCXpwpvyEjRwbI-W47mvmCC5g4XufaxzllGEbL2DttfcUxa_B5zVpruSsKysp-GMevTbGWH7UEPp0wJ5TV2bzEuHTu09u5TXyCIm4sXVSJT85R8Tt0W1Zq22/s320/Thalassinoides.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Wow, look! It’s </i>Thalassinoides<i> in Early Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, Australia! I absolutely </i>love<i> that trace fossil! Wait, come back – where are you going? Was it something I said?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">You mean to say those words mean nothing to you? (And if they do, you’re either an <a href="http://www.allwords.com/word-ichnologist.html"><b>ichnologist</b></a>, or you cheated by using <b>“<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MunMCO3uNdA">The Google” on “The Internets</a>.”</b>) Well, just for contrast, think way back to when you read the genus or species names of the fossil animals just mentioned and the images those triggered.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">With the Late Cretaceous <i>Tyrannosaurus rex</i>, you probably thought of a 7-8 tonne, bipedal carnivorous <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html"><b>theropod</b></a> dinosaur, with a huge head filled with giant, recurved teeth, ridiculously puny arms holding only two claws on each hand, and perhaps performing a noble deed, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMzfrod7hcE"><b>like eating a lawyer off a toilet</b></a> (and thus doing its part to deter needless litigation).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Triceratops horridus</i>, also from the Late Cretaceous Period, is a heavy-set herbivorous quadrupedal <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ornithischia/ceratopsia.html"><b>ceratopsian</b></a> dinosaur with beak-like mouth, an enormous bony head shield, and three intimidating horns pointing forward from that head shield, a dinosaur that would never be confused with <i>Torosaurus</i> (<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-torosaurus-and-triceratops-one-2009-09-28"><b>oh wait, it is</b></a>).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Dimetrodon</i>, which had a bunch of species placed under that genus, is probably the most famous non-dinosaurian animal confused for a dinosaur. However, this sharp-toothed quadrupedal <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/synapsids/synapsida.html"><b>synapsid</b></a> reptile from the Permian Period, which preceded dinosaurs by about 35-40 million years, is always associated with its “sailback,” formed by long neural spines.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The point here is that people who know nearly nothing about paleontology – but have seen these names corresponding with certain images – later can’t help but associate the distinctive features of these fossils with their names. This generality confirms one of the main reasons why we name things in the first place: so we can remember them. The second big reason why we name things is to communicate about them. Names are a sort of shorthand we use to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. Hence biologists and paleontologists alike use genus and species names in <a href="http://101science.com/Taxonomy.htm"><b>taxonomy</b></a>, which is the science of classifying life.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So it makes sense that ichnologists have adopted a similar process of naming trace fossils, imaginatively called <b>ichnotaxonomy</b>. Think that’s outlandish? Wait, it gets better. They even use <b>ichnogenus</b> and <b>ichnospecies</b> names. Now, you might think that’s pretty cheeky of ichnologists, considering how trace fossils are not the actual or altered remains of ancient organisms, but of their behaviors. Nonetheless, the naming of trace fossils is supposed to serve exactly the same purpose as regular biological taxonomy, which is to remember trace fossils and communicate about them.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">For example, if someone cries out “<i>Ophiomorpha nodosa</i>!” during a moment of wild, unbridled passion, ichnologists are supposed to think of a 1-5 centimeter wide, knobby-walled, tubular structure with a branching geometry. (Or, at least we try really hard to think of that.) Likewise, during a cocktail party, someone may casually mention <i>Eubrontes</i> – not to be confused with <a href="http://www.brontefamily.org/"><b>the Bronte sisters</b></a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610"><b><i>Brontesaurus</i></b></a> – which should conjure up an image of a 35-40 cm long tri-radiate structure, with pinching-and-swelling along the length of each radiating part before these taper to claw-like points, either expressed as a natural cast or a depression on a sedimentary rock surface. The use of <i>Celliforma</i> in a song lyric (as in, “She tried to <i>Celliforma</i> love, but I ain’t buying none today”) no doubt should inspire an ichnologist to dream of 2-3 cm long ovoid chamber-like structures, rounded at one end and flattened on the other.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbcABV0N6dZcafdr1FN8EhbHCOyKwUO3PcJ5QKp-vTo-mRR8BtP8QUsCJgsS7f3K7uNdY_7r0QglwULVCInzPz6uH7cSnJ2jfySXN7o6y60uDHcOnNN1FQowI_8tZ8vPlno0I7ISex3o58/s1600/Ophiomorpha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbcABV0N6dZcafdr1FN8EhbHCOyKwUO3PcJ5QKp-vTo-mRR8BtP8QUsCJgsS7f3K7uNdY_7r0QglwULVCInzPz6uH7cSnJ2jfySXN7o6y60uDHcOnNN1FQowI_8tZ8vPlno0I7ISex3o58/s320/Ophiomorpha.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>The trace fossil </i>Ophiomorpha nodosa<i> from Pleistocene rocks of the Bahamas. These rocks are only about 125,000 years old though, so they’re barely considered as trace fossils, but they’ll do for this example.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Z0JuR5NTgJlgKS6zFN-IvPZjlGkbrER898hOQNq1mj2j6NPRCXJi9h-sKujPcAnGKPP4P8z-IQDunXHQPZyasnV8n3VuYLH_TDh1wJOO8mtWea4zQAkJuVZ_4TZKvDEEZ2fbQYEy3h9K/s1600/Eubrontes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Z0JuR5NTgJlgKS6zFN-IvPZjlGkbrER898hOQNq1mj2j6NPRCXJi9h-sKujPcAnGKPP4P8z-IQDunXHQPZyasnV8n3VuYLH_TDh1wJOO8mtWea4zQAkJuVZ_4TZKvDEEZ2fbQYEy3h9K/s320/Eubrontes.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> <i>The trace fossil </i>Eubrontes<i> (ichnospecies uncertain) from Early Jurassic rocks of the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts (USA) at the <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/museums/naturalhistory/"><b>Pratt Museum</b></a>, Amherst College.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFz3vKRvArofx7pSiPmxDd-Cfj-7FGuJ6GAwJcWqi6h98Fpp8tsubVouW1Bq0wLAbExEPax2FmCEThELhTPCM9qg8eKXO_aN4jmO4v1D0IMpToSkb_iByOhkIxwQRi38cr4Gz3VeXTLJ_J/s1600/Celliforma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFz3vKRvArofx7pSiPmxDd-Cfj-7FGuJ6GAwJcWqi6h98Fpp8tsubVouW1Bq0wLAbExEPax2FmCEThELhTPCM9qg8eKXO_aN4jmO4v1D0IMpToSkb_iByOhkIxwQRi38cr4Gz3VeXTLJ_J/s320/Celliforma.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> <i>Several specimens of the trace fossil </i>Celliforma germanica<i> from Late Cretaceous rocks of Patagonia, Argentina, on display in the <a href="http://www.mef.org.ar/"><b>Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio</b></a>, in Trelew, Argentina.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Notice what I didn’t do, which was to say these were “burrows,” “tracks,” or “nests” (respectively), because those would have been interpretations. I also didn’t say what animals made them because – you guessed it – that would have been an interpretation, too. Ichnogenus and ichnospecies are ideally descriptive, because in paleontology, good descriptions can last forever, but interpretations are always subject to change. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Not all ichnologists heed such conservatism, though, and sometimes ichnogenus and ichnospecies names are just plain dumb. Why yes indeed, I am talking about <i>Hondichnus</i>, an ichnogenus given that moniker because the person who named it thought this trace fossil resembled a motorcycle-track pattern. (Sorry, I refuse to link to the reference for this, but if you really must know, it can found through various search engines by using that name.) Not surprisingly, no one else has used that ichnogenus since its invention, hence demonstrating what the rest of the ichnological community thought of it. As a result, sometimes trace fossil names seem to die quiet, ignoble deaths, but once they’re in the literature, they can be resurrected.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So what does this all of this ichnotaxonomy talk have to do with entries from the last three weeks (<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-of-lark-quarry.html"><b>here</b></a>, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/case-of-mistaken-dinosaur.html"><b>here</b></a>, and <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>here</b></a>), which were about the Early Cretaceous dinosaur tracks of Lark Quarry in Queensland, Australia? In 1979, Australian paleontologists Tony Thulborn and Mary Wade identified the big, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>three-toed dinosaur tracks</b></a> at the site as the ichnogenus <i>Tyrannosauropus</i>, which as an ichnogenus had been named by another paleontologist in 1971. As can be discerned from such a name, this ichnogenus was allied with large theropod dinosaurs, such as tyrannosaurs. This meant that any subsequent identification of a three-toed fossil dinosaur track as “<i>Tyrannosauropus</i>” also implied that a large theropod made it. Furthermore, the repeated use of this name, especially when referring to the large tracks at Lark Quarry, meant people became less likely to think about any alternative hypotheses for their makers, such as dinosaurs other than large theropods.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Fortunately, science tends to encourage a little bit of questioning the status quo. But it still took about 30 years before two other paleontologists – Anthony Romilio and Stephen Salisbury from the <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/"><b>University of Queensland</b></a> – realized these three-toed tracks likely had been misidentified. Instead, these probably belong to the ichnogenus and ichnospecies <i>Amblydactylus gethingi</i>, not <i>Tyrannosauropus</i>. What’s significant about this is that <i>Amblydactylus gethingi</i> is a fossil track associated with large <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ornithischia/ornithopoda.html"><b>ornithopod</b></a> dinosaurs, an interpretation based on the overall form of the tracks and how closely these match known ornithopod feet of the same size.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Amblydactylus gethingi</i>, though, was originally defined from dinosaur tracks in Early Cretaceous rocks of Alberta, Canada, thus aptly showing how different species of ornithopod dinosaurs living in Australia and Canada at about the same time could have made very similar tracks. In this instance, ichnotaxonomy would be extremely useful for overcoming an otherwise huge language barrier between Australian and Canadian ichnologists, and their utterance of the words “<i>Amblydactylus gethingi” </i>would allay any confusion provoked by a rapid exchange of “G’Days” and “Eh’s.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMf16SK7wkDsxIvBHamTl66dfAKyRDdjtF1BpIttO2u7aJdThZ7qHqqcONzHJNHJETP_VosdOL1nHkzqkEYyoEoAChmvqmJZ4ecIszWAWoKthfrdR3c6vwoNNopgHZppbRyhundTdCezyH/s1600/Amby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMf16SK7wkDsxIvBHamTl66dfAKyRDdjtF1BpIttO2u7aJdThZ7qHqqcONzHJNHJETP_VosdOL1nHkzqkEYyoEoAChmvqmJZ4ecIszWAWoKthfrdR3c6vwoNNopgHZppbRyhundTdCezyH/s320/Amby.jpg" width="317" /></a><i> </i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Comparison between the foot bones of the large Early Cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur</i><i> </i></span>Muttaburrasaurus langondi of Australia <span style="font-size: small;"><i>and the Early Cretaceous ichnospecies </i></span>Amblydactylus gethingi, <span style="font-size: small;"><i>outlined in purple (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsKO_r76kfQ"><b>the preferred color of the enemy</b></a>). But the track was previously identified as </i>Tyrannosauropus<i> and interpreted as made by a large theropod dinosaur. Do you see where this line of reasoning is going? Illustration modified very slightly (colorized) from Figure 7 of Romilio and Salisbury, <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622812/description"><b>Cretaceous Research</b></a>, <a href="doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2010.11.003">in press</a>.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Anyway, Thulborn and Wade also proposed two new ichnogenera and ichnospecies for the two smaller and much more abundant tracks at Lark Quarry: <i>Wintonopus latomorum</i> – which were made by some emu-sized ornithopods – and <i>Skartopus australis</i> – which were made by chicken-sized theropods. As mentioned <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-made-three-toed-dinosaur-track.html"><b>in my previous post</b></a>, we know the approximate sizes of the trackmakers based on their footprint lengths; these were multiplied by 4.0, which give us the hip heights of the dinosaurs. The small theropods were 13-22 cm (5-9 in) at the hip, whereas the small ornithopods had hip heights up to 150 cm (5 ft), and the “Big Guy’s” (or “Gal’s”) hip height was about 2.5 m (8.3 m).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwki5bZdUKeNXiUfYJSmkZPRyN9g16YGWW6e66Ztti_eIyIzJjS9-4_-PvqbPkmw8IyaBgZpL7eHvQqcXxTdZ779UyPbMsxcD8GuFZagzAwaGfkvZOJ_4U4sFelwFp_jRHvteihsL5tuRi/s1600/The-Three-Ichnogenera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwki5bZdUKeNXiUfYJSmkZPRyN9g16YGWW6e66Ztti_eIyIzJjS9-4_-PvqbPkmw8IyaBgZpL7eHvQqcXxTdZ779UyPbMsxcD8GuFZagzAwaGfkvZOJ_4U4sFelwFp_jRHvteihsL5tuRi/s320/The-Three-Ichnogenera.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>The three ichnogenera of tracks at Lark Quarry, all in one photo: “</i>Tyrannosauropus<i>” (T), which is now identified as </i>Amblydactylus gethingi<i>; </i>Wintonopus<i> (W); and </i>Skartopus<i> (S). </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Well, that is yet another piece of evidence that resulted in a dinosaur assumed to be more like <a href="http://www.deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/hugh-jackman-wolverine1.jpg"><b>Hugh Jackman</b></a> to suddenly transmogrify into <a href="http://indyposted.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dame-edna.jpg"><b>Dame Edna Everage</b></a>. A hip height of 2.5 meters just happens to match the hip height of <i>Muttaburrasaurus langdoni</i>, which is a large ornithopod known from body fossils in rocks of about the same age as the Lark Quarry rocks, from about 98 million years ago.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6TpauGuEklMfQcPCtlWYYM5deZ9FEw9vcxs_9ArvXt-m9VHjbqj_g1nuft5NdMPaZJl3LKdY6c4LTMumttarfV5FMojD1M3KSzLO2adL9XauY97xM_EYEztWchwQ6TrDnyYgAzZ6PBjtl/s1600/Me%2526Muttaburrasaurus+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6TpauGuEklMfQcPCtlWYYM5deZ9FEw9vcxs_9ArvXt-m9VHjbqj_g1nuft5NdMPaZJl3LKdY6c4LTMumttarfV5FMojD1M3KSzLO2adL9XauY97xM_EYEztWchwQ6TrDnyYgAzZ6PBjtl/s320/Me%2526Muttaburrasaurus+copy.jpg" width="166" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>A life-sized reconstruction of the large Early Cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur </i>Muttaburrasaurus langdoni<i> in Hughenden, Queensland, with me underneath it for scale. Just out of view in the background is a closed pub. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pub_with_No_Beer"><b>Oh what a terrible place, is a pub with no beer</b></a>. Photo by Ruth Schowalter.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Remember the <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/case-of-mistaken-dinosaur.html"><b>opening scene of the Lark Quarry story</b></a>, in which a large ornithopod plods onto the Early Cretaceous lakeshore? An ornithopod about half the size of <i>Muttaburrasaurus</i> left<i> </i>tracks on part of the exposed surface at Lark Quarry before the arrival of the smaller dinosaurs. Although I don’t know whether ichnogenus or ichnospecies names were applied to those tracks, they may have represented a missed opportunity, as they could have been compared to the 11 “<i>Tyrannosauropus</i>” tracks to test for differences. After all, juveniles, subadults, and adults of the same species of ornithopod could have made footprints that, 100 million years later, would have been given three different names by ichnologists, erroneously leading some to think that perhaps three different species of dinosaurs made them. This is the continuing challenge of ichnotaxonomy: how to separate descriptions from interpretations when making names. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So to make a long story mercifully just a tiny bit shorter, here’s a summary of what is still accepted about the Lark Quarry <b>“<a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/">dinosaur stampede</a>”</b> story:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• A sizeable ornithopod dinosaur walked onto the lakeshore.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• A stampede later took place on that same lakeshore, involving more than 150 dinosaurs.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• The stampeding dinosaurs were comprised of two species of small dinosaurs, one a theropod and the other an ornithopod.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• These dinosaurs ran at high speed and in the same direction.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• A large dinosaur walked onto the scene from the same direction in which they ran. In other words, the small dinosaurs ran directly toward the big one.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So even though the “giant predator scaring the small dinosaurs” story is now in doubt, the most pertinent question one can still ask about Lark Quarry is that posed by Thulborn and Wade in 1979:</div><br />
<blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Persuasive circumstantial evidence leads us to conclude that they represent a stampede - that is, a wild, unreasoning and panic-stricken rush to escape the threat of danger. What could have caused such presumed panic?</i></div></blockquote><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Just as an anecdotal and speculative explanation, I have watched flocks of small shorebirds flee/fly as a group and move toward and then around me when I approach them on foot, even though predation is not my intent. After all, my 1.65 m (5 ft. 6 in) height must seem rather intimidating to such tiny animals. As a result, I also can’t help but imagine how a small, <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>chook</b></a>-sized dinosaur would have likewise tried to avoid being underfoot when a 3-5 tonne herbivore arrived on the scene, if for no other reason than to avoid being squashed. So you might say, they were running flat out to avoid being flattening.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The moral of Lark Quarry is that <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html"><b>dinosaur tracks still matter</b></a>, as do names. But perhaps the most important lesson of all, is that naming something should never stop learning about what is being named.</div><br />
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</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Australian country-singing legend <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Dusty">Slim Dusty</a>, singing a lament to the absence of adult beverages in a public bar in his most famous song, In the first version, it’s all sadness and sorrow, but nothing is done other than to whinge about it. The second song is a response to the first, in which <b>“<a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html">true blue</a>”</b> Aussies decide they’re going to do something to remedy this situation. How does this relate to ichnotaxonomy and the Lark Quarry dinosaur tracks? I’m not really sure, but I think it has to do with variations on a main theme, as well as an excuse to mention beer.</i></span></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-9548412102663601452011-01-09T10:06:00.004-05:002011-01-09T10:35:22.902-05:00Who Made the Three-Toed Dinosaur Track?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4977vTA3sPKOmrxlhD5HdDzV6yhLbs2bSBrqES7UZIST4atrENVC0dpJ4D5ORXrBVxkkXKEDCTR-X4aljobP10KnPynN5V9cGnE0Zn4b-BznynWzoaITjxYceVKCRy2W6WHVMhizoDR0A/s1600/Three-Toed-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">In paleontology, occasionally a scientific hypothesis rules for several decades or more and enters the public realm, becoming part of popular lore. Nonetheless, science is always changing, which means that what we took for granted as a “true” story can be upended in a way that surprises everyone, perhaps even the paleontologists doing the revising. Such is the situation with the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/dinosaur-stampede/lark-quarry/lark-quarry.html"><b>“giant-stalking-theropod-dinosaur-causing-a-dinosaur-stampede” story</b> </a>of the <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>Lark Quarry dinosaur tracksite</b></a> in Queensland (Australia). This tale has been reigning for more than 30 years and is known worldwide by paleontologists and laypeople alike, but now faces a makeover in the light of new evidence.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCUgQ-e80vGxQ19me_VggJB4a6GdSv4Un16rehqK7i2-kgo-SwrAOayBoccDDGzryiIhWHcQ9byLzcQt824yyW7NR5F1DIcJFY29UwIi-r8W2e0LTiY7BPFnpJVjUZlfg3B2NxI9J0u5k/s1600/Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCUgQ-e80vGxQ19me_VggJB4a6GdSv4Un16rehqK7i2-kgo-SwrAOayBoccDDGzryiIhWHcQ9byLzcQt824yyW7NR5F1DIcJFY29UwIi-r8W2e0LTiY7BPFnpJVjUZlfg3B2NxI9J0u5k/s320/Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="277" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Here are some dinosaur tracks from Queensland, Australia. The dinosaurs that made them had three toes on their rear feet, and walked only on those two feet (<b>bipedally</b>). So were these from theropod dinosaurs or ornithopod dinosaurs? Don’t know? Then I guess you’ll have to read more, won’t you? Display is at the <b><a href="http://www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au/">Museum of Tropical Queensland </a></b>in Townsville, Queensland (Australia). Note the stylish sunglasses (lower right) for scale.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">As mentioned<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/case-of-mistaken-dinosaur.html"><b> last week</b></a>, the previous story of Lark Quarry is now challenged in a recent study by Anthony Romilio and Steven Salisbury of the <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/"><b>University of Queensland</b></a>, and published last month in the journal <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622812/description#description"><b>Cretaceous Research</b></a>. In this study, these paleontologists say the “giant stalking theropod” (= bloody big carnivore with small-dinosaur <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>tucker</b></a> on its mind) that supposedly made big, three-toed tracks was actually a “giant walking ornithopod” (= still bloody big, but <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>sooky</b></a> and looking for a salad bar instead). This dinosaurian equivalent of wearing <a href="http://img.costumecraze.com/images/vendors/forum/59682-Kids-Oversized-Clown-Shoes-large.jpg"><b>clown shoes</b></a> (or, more aptly, <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/strange-creatures/bigfoot2.htm"><b>Bigfoot shoes</b></a>) is a quite a shocker for anyone who has grown up hearing the tale of Lark Quarry, perhaps bordering on heresy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">In science, though, we like slaughtering sacred cows, then making burgers out of them, adding a couple of slices of bacon, and putting a fried egg on top. (You know, <a href="http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2009/08/19/104401_back-paddock.html"><b>the lot</b></a>.) As mentioned last week, <a href="http://gdisauro.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/motivator2459909.jpg"><b>we do not prove in science, we disprove</b></a>. This means that hypotheses are only accepted conditionally, then they may be tested later to find out whether or not they still hold up to scrutiny. Sometimes these hypotheses continue to stand (so far, so good), but more than a few get knocked down. And if they get knocked down, it’s often because someone found data that better supports an alternative hypothesis, or “another story.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">For example, think of how a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp368iEcB78&playnext=1&list=PLCE7C0CF960187891&index=3"><b>young Einstein</b></a> challenged facets of Newtonian physics with his <a href="http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/einstein.html"><b>general theory of relativity</b></a>, or how <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html"><b>Alfred Wegener</b></a> provided the initial evidence for <b>“<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do12we.html">continental drift</a>”</b> (which formed the foundation of modern plate-tectonic theory). In both instances, it took a while for the rest of the scientific community to discern the same phenomena and test it further, we waved goodbye to the previous hypotheses and unceremoniously threw them into the trash. (Although “recycling” sometimes happens too, especially with scientists who get a little too attached to a pet hypothesis, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE"><b>perhaps long after it’s dead</b></a>.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So just what was the evidence supporting the previous hypothesis – big theropod caused a panic because it was ready to eat an ornithopod – and how does this contrast with the evidence supporting the new hypothesis – big ornithopod, maybe caused a panic, but for different reasons than eating another dinosaur – about the dinosaur tracks at Lark Quarry? It all comes down to a common dilemma in dinosaur ichnology, and <a href="http://www.strangescience.net/hitch.htm"><b>one that has been around for going on for more than 200 years</b></a>: How do we distinguish three-toed dinosaur tracks from one another, and interpret who made the tracks?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Fortunately, the evidence backing up the new hypothesis for Lark Quarry is spelled out in a detailed and well-done study, and I say this as a professional ichnologist (with “professional” defined as when someone buys me a beer to hear what I have to say about ichnology). This study involved:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">(1) A close look at the dinosaur tracks as they are preserved today at Lark Quarry;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">(2) Studying casts made of the dinosaur tracks soon after they were excavated in the 1970s; and</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">(3) Lots of statistics, which I will try to explain simply to any of my non-scientist (yet admirably geeky) audience who might need it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The heart of Romilio and Salisbury’s interpretation is a focused reexamination of the large dinosaur tracks, which are among the 3,300 tracks at Lark Quarry. Although these large tracks dwarf the others at Lark Quarry, they are relatively few in number, with only 11 such footprints recorded on the tracksite surface. That’s right: the key plot element of the original story of Lark Quarry hinges on a sequence of only 11 tracks, and identifying who made those tracks. So this was certainly a good place to start if someone felt like challenging the previous story, er, I mean, hypothesis.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHV2YRD-ujyO2ul7tcmbn6wvj7ErDqJPU6CxJHKHzO1M-HOtqDbcIaDDXQ_5BwuqhiUx52mWqXwa7TYJkLoVnzJdxe0Kqy_52QVW5HVfOz3HGWRb0eWREY5adfgaaEaKjkeQrQo1E-dl3q/s1600/Three-Toed-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHV2YRD-ujyO2ul7tcmbn6wvj7ErDqJPU6CxJHKHzO1M-HOtqDbcIaDDXQ_5BwuqhiUx52mWqXwa7TYJkLoVnzJdxe0Kqy_52QVW5HVfOz3HGWRb0eWREY5adfgaaEaKjkeQrQo1E-dl3q/s320/Three-Toed-Dinosaur-Track.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>When you look at a big three-toed dinosaur track, like this one at Lark Quarry in Queensland, you should always ask yourself: “cow” (ornithopod) or “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081398/"><b>raging bull</b></a>” (theropod)? Although it’s never a good idea to underestimate the potential ferocity of cows<b>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1295771171">especially if armed</a></b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI">…</a></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Why is identifying the maker of these big tracks so difficult? Mostly because the tracks show only three toes (<b>digits</b>) – a trait also known as <b>tridactyl</b>. These tracks are also symmetrical on either side of the middle toe, or <b>mesaxonic</b>. Furthermore, such tracks were made by two-legged (<b>bipedal</b>) dinosaurs, as trackways normally show an alternating right-left-right diagonal-walking pattern consistent with just the rear feet (<b>pedes</b>) doing the walking. Now that you know all of these neat terms, be sure to show them off in daily conversations, such as, “Wow, your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu"><b>emu</b></a> leaves some of the best tridactyl mesaxonic tracks in a bipedal trackway I’ve ever seen. You must be proud!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">This little checklist helps to narrow down the possible dinosaur trackmakers, in that we know it is definitely not a <a href="http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Fossilgroups/stegosauria/Web%20Pages/index.html"><b>stegosaur</b></a>, <a href="http://tolweb.org/Ankylosauria"><b>ankylosaur</b></a>, <a href="http://users.tamuk.edu/kfjab02/dinos/VPSAUROPOD.htm"><b>sauropod</b></a>, or <b><a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ornithischia/ceratopsia.html">ceratopsian</a>,</b> all of which walked on four legs (<b>quadrupedally</b>) and had feet with more than three toes (<b>tetradactyl</b> = four toes, <b>pentadactyl</b> = five toes). Well, except for stegosaurs, which had tridactyl rear feet, but as far as we know, stegosaurs never<b> </b>walked bipedally. (Paleo-artists, though, should take note of that, and have fun.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7xbWxwIsKv0Gf8DHAK3fdEVrTSbxBQjfF6Wb0eLjwpMlLZoR1wvdfjXyzmddAFbQmN0T2GzJhil8qrTtdTLFu-MR7bbA_OZ0a2iFN18ztLcl87O-A7VClg6CTxYbowKZETTP2bGK9Xch/s1600/Dinosaur-Trackways.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7xbWxwIsKv0Gf8DHAK3fdEVrTSbxBQjfF6Wb0eLjwpMlLZoR1wvdfjXyzmddAFbQmN0T2GzJhil8qrTtdTLFu-MR7bbA_OZ0a2iFN18ztLcl87O-A7VClg6CTxYbowKZETTP2bGK9Xch/s320/Dinosaur-Trackways.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Typical trackway patterns for dinosaurs, and notice the similarity between the theropod and ornithopod ones if you took out the small front footprints. Figure stolen brazenly from a dinosaur textbook, </i><a href="http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/dinosaurs/"><b>Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs</b></a><i>, by A.J. Martin (2006), who also happens to be the same person writing this blog, so don’t take it too seriously.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So now you're thinking, "ornithopod or theropod" for your three-toed tracks, but notice also how in the trackway diagram the ornithopod is leaving small front-foot impressions. This is because some ornithopods also walked quadrupedally sometimes, and bipedally at other times. Theropods, on the other hand (sorry) almost always moved on just two legs, although a <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004591"><b>few rare instances of hand impressions</b></a> have shown up in their trace fossils made where they stopped to sit briefly.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So let’s say you found some three-toed dinosaur tracks like the ones shown in the first photo (the ones that were in the Museum of Tropical Queensland), and you want to figure out whether these are from a theropod or an ornithopod. The most basic way to tell the difference is to measure the track length and width, then compare the two. On average, theropod tracks are longer than wide, whereas ornithopod tracks are wider than long. There, did it, done. The tracks shown in the first photo are from ornithopods. No worries, mate!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Oh, if only ichnology were so simple, where we could all be so satisfied with our results, saying, “Oh, look at me! I'm making people happy! <a href="http://animatedtv.about.com/od/lists/a/simpquotes.htm"><b>I'm the Magical Man from Happy Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!</b></a>” Well, time for an exercise in humility, Mr./Ms. <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b>Big-Note Oneself</b></a>. Let’s run through a few questions and see how you do:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• How would you describe the toes relative to the overall length of the track: thin, medium, or fat?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• Did those toes end with sharp clawmarks, or blunt ones?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• What did the “heel” (track posterior) look like?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• Did you take into account how the substrate preserving a track, which might have been wet mud, dry sand, or moist muddy sand, might have affected the overall outline of a track?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• Did you think about how the dinosaur stopping suddenly, turning to the right, or moving its head might have distorted the track outline?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• Did you also think of how the substrate drying out might have changed a track outline before it was fossilized?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">• Do you feel clueless yet? (If so, welcome to my world.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Fortunately, an article written by three Spanish paleontologists – Josè J. Moratalla, Josè L. Sanz<sup>,</sup> and Santiago Jimenez – took some of this guesswork out of distinguishing theropod and ornithopod tracks. In this article, which they published in 1988 in the journal <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.advertisers/622310/description#description"><b><i>Geobios</i></b></a>, they used a sample of 66 Early Cretaceous tridactyl dinosaur tracks from Spain that had been definitely identified as either ornithopod or theropod tracks. With these tracks, they measured nearly every parameter they could imagine: digit lengths, digit widths, angles between digits, widths on the foot between digits, and much more.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3PRuKMeGoNGqpV7MhYuUzUEVUmAhQ2DYIDfxRiFJHoW-eXqhDPpPhiDkHa164BkUz46Ff_zuyeqZioSfTk25xxNRx7zlSz7VKKZnv_VbBmtjFUa4KU6sJH-OcICxKZZWQ2wUPRAAfqQ_F/s1600/Dino-Track-Parameters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3PRuKMeGoNGqpV7MhYuUzUEVUmAhQ2DYIDfxRiFJHoW-eXqhDPpPhiDkHa164BkUz46Ff_zuyeqZioSfTk25xxNRx7zlSz7VKKZnv_VbBmtjFUa4KU6sJH-OcICxKZZWQ2wUPRAAfqQ_F/s320/Dino-Track-Parameters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Diagram showing what could be (and should be) measured on a tridactyl dinosaur track; measurements can be then made into ratios and generate lots of numbers that can be put into statistical analyses. And you thought dinosaur ichnology would be easy? From Moratalla et al. (1988), </i>Geobios<i>, v. 21(4): 395-408.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Moratalla and his coauthors then compared ratios of these parameters to see which ones were significantly different from one another (statistically speaking). From these analyses, they figured out “threshold” values for some of the ratios, and calculated probabilities of a ratio belonging to an ornithopod or theropod. For instance, if the length:width ratio of a tridactyl track is above 1.25 (or, 25% longer than it is wide), then there is an 80% probability the track belongs to a theropod, but you don't just stop there. You also check the other ratios to see whether they consistently show a high probability of a theropod trackmaker, just to retest your initial identification.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">With the publication of this study in 1988, dinosaur ichnologists then had a quantitative checklist they could apply to three-toed dinosaur tracks. (Whether all dinosaur ichnologists actually read this paper or applied its methods is another matter, but we won’t get into that persnickety subject this week.) These numbers also could be combined with other general, non-numbered observations to test whether a fearsome carnivore or a peaceful herbivore made a series of three-toed dinosaur tracks. One example of such an observation is the presence of sharp clawmarks in a track, which are in theropod tracks but absent in ornithopod tracks (ornithopods tend to have more rounded or blunt ends to their toes). Sharp clawmarks even show up in modern bird tracks, which we all know now <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html"><b>are also theropod dinosaurs</b></a>. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGipABFEj_FA7dEbWdHUnL61AQKxZd13-tME1iHaURYQ7jA_FnpdolRT1R36gA3BLrK1PaPUfrtkPhFQkK8n_TZ0DDvXMZwVF-xL00VNkOjjIutMsI1iPaYvjtSTzYH15NvNhmzRGD63yH/s1600/Rhea-Theropod-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGipABFEj_FA7dEbWdHUnL61AQKxZd13-tME1iHaURYQ7jA_FnpdolRT1R36gA3BLrK1PaPUfrtkPhFQkK8n_TZ0DDvXMZwVF-xL00VNkOjjIutMsI1iPaYvjtSTzYH15NvNhmzRGD63yH/s320/Rhea-Theropod-Tracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Comparison of a large modern flightless bird track (right) with an equivalent-sized theropod dinosaur track (left), with a few differences in overall form, but both have three forward-facing digits and sharp clawmarks in common, among other traits. The bird track is from a greater rhea (</i>Rhea americana<i>) in Patagonia, Argentina; scale = 15 cm (6 in). The dinosaur track is definitely from an Early Jurassic theropod, although I’m not sure which one, as it’s an epoxy resin cast of an original from the western U.S. The really cool looking photo of the dinosaur-track replica is courtesy of <a href="http://www.tylight.com/"><b>Tylight</b></a>™, taken by Ty Butler in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">As you may recall from <b><a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-of-lark-quarry.html">previous entries</a> </b>(with your memory perhaps dependent on how much eggnog or other adult beverages you’ve had over the holidays), I told how the original hypothesis for the Lark Quarry tracksite – “dinosaur stampede provoked by a large stalking theropod” – was first proposed by Australian paleontologists <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/thulborn.html"><b>Tony Thulborn</b></a> and <a href="http://earthsci.org/fossils/ichthyosaurs/mary%20wade.html"><b>Mary Wade</b></a> in 1979. This was nine years before the publication of Moratalla and his colleagues’ study, so Thulborn and Wade can’t be blamed for what they did not yet know; they were using the best science known then to interpret the tracks. And, like I said before (and it bears repeating), they did fantastic work. I consider their 1979 paper a classic in dinosaur ichnology, which they also followed up with a much more detailed 105-page report in 1984.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Nonetheless, where they could have made a mistake was with the identification of the large “theropod” tracks. They identified on the basis of their resemblance to dinosaur tracks known elsewhere, which had been allied with tyrannosaur-like tracemakers. Objections to this identification voiced by Romilio and Salisbury were not new, either, as a few dinosaur paleontologists questioned this affiliation soon after Thulborn and Wade’s second article came out in 1984. Romilio and Salisbury were just the first to rigorously test the original hypothesis using statistical methods, as opposed to just the scientific equivalent of <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diss"><b>dissing</b></a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">What went wrong with the original study of the Lark Quarry tracks? Well, to go into that topic would require a discussion of the necromancy that ichnologists call <a href="http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/palaeofiles/tracks/report3/ichnology.html"><b>ichnotaxonomy</b></a>, which is the naming of trace fossils. And because that would require much more verbosity (and you’ve all been such a good audience today), we will take a closer look at that subject next week.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So for now, let us reflect on the benefits of skepticism, and how our reexamination of old stories can generate new perspectives and insights, similar to those caused by a young Albert Einstein as he grew up in rural Australia.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/prqQKESDrj4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/prqQKESDrj4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Rare, archival documentary footage of a young Albert Einstein, taken immediately after his invention of rock and roll music in Tasmania. What, you don’t believe me? Then be a real scientist and disprove it!</i> </div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-43381296661860616462011-01-02T13:08:00.000-05:002011-01-02T13:08:20.084-05:00The Case of the Mistaken Dinosaur<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Like all stories in paleontology, that of <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-of-lark-quarry.html"><b>Lark Quarry</b></a> – a world-famous dinosaur tracksite in Queensland, Australia - starts in the geologic past; in this instance, during the Cretaceous Period, about 98 million years ago. The cast of this tale consisted of about 150 dinosaurs, played by:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• One species of a large herbivorous dinosaur (an <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/ornithischia/ornithopoda.html"><b>ornithopod</b></a>), who was a mere bit actor, making a cameo appearance before the main act.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• Two species of small dinosaurs – one a <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/theropoda.html"><b>theropod</b></a> and the other an ornithopod – who made up most of the cast; and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">• The star of the show, a <a href="http://tolweb.org/articles/?article_id=502"><b>tyrannosaur</b></a>-sized theropod, who made a grand entrance toward its climatic finish.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The story is filled with dramatic flourishes, of a tranquil scene shattered by brutal carnivory, and of a quiet Cretaceous lakeshore becoming a killing ground. The former lakeshore, though, left no bodies, only tracks. So we have to reconstruct what happened there by using the oldest science known to humankind, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichnology"><b>ichnology</b></a>: the study of modern and fossil traces.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0FWPjcbmG98TKLtntXCxA9lNclNi2jpUGr08A80cD_BJp0uiue-5RRm4NL9JPOpN3o4SAxwwiEwMHKGYcbqBp2KsRtjzXrdFhF-okKizO8yP2DomkC2yVRKiUPqifI2cAATfpm2W5dnGy/s1600/We-Three-Trackmakers-Of-Lark-Quarry-Are.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0FWPjcbmG98TKLtntXCxA9lNclNi2jpUGr08A80cD_BJp0uiue-5RRm4NL9JPOpN3o4SAxwwiEwMHKGYcbqBp2KsRtjzXrdFhF-okKizO8yP2DomkC2yVRKiUPqifI2cAATfpm2W5dnGy/s320/We-Three-Trackmakers-Of-Lark-Quarry-Are.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A small sample of the 3,300 dinosaur tracks of Lark Quarry in Queensland, Australia, showing evidence for three species of dinosaurs that either walked or ran along a Cretaceous lakeshore 98 million years ago. Who made these tracks, what behaviors do they represent, and how were the trackmakers’s behaviors related to one another? That is the mystery – and now the controversy - of Lark Quarry.</i></span></div><a name='more'></a> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The curtain opens, revealing a subtropical lakeshore, and the large ornithopod, similar to the Australian dinosaur <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muttaburrasaurus"><b><i>Muttaburrasaurus langdoni</i></b></a>, lumbers onto the dimly lit stage, emerging from a fog. His arms are long and almost touch the ground, but all of his walking is done with the rear legs. He stops briefly, bellows a low-frequency, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g592I-p-dc"><b>didgeridoo</b></a>-like moan, turns to the left, and exits, enveloped by the mist. Several minutes slip by until the stage lights swell in imitation of a Cretaceous dawn. Insect-like buzzes and chirps intrude the silence, accompanied by <a href="http://www.birdsongsofthemesozoic.org/"><b>bird songs of the Mesozoic</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Soon thereafter, small two-legged theropods and ornithopods, prancing and mincing, enter from Stage Right in twos and threes. They pay no heed to the presence of another species, as neither poses a threat to the other. They wander about and occasionally halt to sip water from the shoreline, but whether stopped or moving, they frequently pop their heads up, down, and around, ever alert to danger. The little theropods behave much like chickens in a, well, chicken yard (no need to search any further for a metaphor, I suppose). The ornithopods, most about the size of modern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu"><b>emus</b></a> of various ages, also remind the audience of their modern analogs, especially if this production is taking place in Australia.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">At some point, the insects, which had reached a cacophonous crescendo through their blended mating calls, suddenly cease, quickly joined in silence by the birds. This hush puts the theropods and ornithopods on high alert, the Cretaceous equivalent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON"><b>DEFCON 2</b></a>. They all look up and to the left simultaneously, where the quiet first descended and then spread like a wave. They begin to sniff the air, but do not succumb to full-fledged panic until they actually feel the danger in their feet. There it is, now felt by the audience as a <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround">Senssuround</a>-</b>like effect: the bass-profundo vibrations caused by each footfall of an approaching multi-tonne animal, coming from the left and offstage. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDegjfVi-Aw"><b>Boom. Boom. Boom.</b></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">His imposing head appears first, with a mouth full of bladed teeth, and nostrils that snort steam into the cool morning air. The rest of the massive body appears with each halting step, his long tail held straight behind him, tiny arms dangling in front. After stopping once, he crosses his right foot over his left, stops again, and crosses his left foot over his right, then quickens his pace as a target is acquired. He is now stalking his prey.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dydu9GBgWiVcHXvVTVPudKXEmi1FKnGiV272HjAiqdH4im2YbnmI8cXDU3aQ3OqdDAnpYq55ueTRlLK9oHg2w' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Video of the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1492602088"><b>BBC’s </b></a></i><a href="http://www.dinosaurlive.com/news/"><b>Walking with Dinosaurs</b></a><i> production, in which “Big Momma” (a </i><a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/prehistoric/tyrannosaurus-rex.html"><b>Tyrannosaurus rex</b></a><i>) makes her presence known to </i><a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/prehistoric/ankylosaurus-magniventris/"><b>Ankylosaurus</b></a><i> and </i><b><a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/prehistoric/triceratops-horridus/">Triceratops</a> </b>while defending her little <a href="http://onlineslangdictionary.com/definition+of/ankle+biter"><b>ankle biter</b></a><i>. Footage was taken by me in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), but the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/stage/dinosaurs-return-to-australian-soil-20101018-16qcf.html"><b>production premiered in (and returned to) Australia</b></a>. Now think of yourself as a teeny-tiny dinosaur and how quickly you would make some incipient <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolite">coprolites</a> </b>before fleeing that scene.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span>The small dinosaurs react appropriately to such a rude interruption of their morning. As one panicked mind, they run to the left as fast as their little legs can carry them, straight toward and around the marauder. In the slippery mud, though, one ornithopod loses its balance and lands on its side, hapless against the assault and bleating like a sheep led to slaughter.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The theropod roars, pins its struggling prey underneath one 65-cm (26-in) long clawed foot, and lowers its head to deliver a final blow. The stage darkens, the curtain closes, and the audience erupts into applause. Peaceful reverie shattered by gruesome death, in which the fleet of foot and the strong survive, and the weak perish. What’s not to like?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then, just as the applause begins to subside, the curtain opens again to reveal the star of the show, the villain/hero theropod. The audience applauds madly, thinking this is the start of the casting call. Only, their enthusiasm is curtailed abruptly when they realize that the theropod is not bowing, but is looking at them with a mischievous smirk. He winks, says a cheery “G’Day!”, and reaches up with one arm to his face. The people gasp as they watch his arm telescope and lengthen: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ7rezDwqEI"><b>this is not a tyrannosaur</b>!</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOjBGgdzuY3u4SNHTR9v9q6mwh20kBAF00QA0zc2uQbmHx-Dw-2q0fiOgYnI785ma9NHlKz2lqkiSKeLgu0qb06QDaXLyNndQPAW7L_ooJa63LBSg5IOir1HrnW999PsgPzjozaFuEeB4/s1600/Tyrannosaur-Type.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOjBGgdzuY3u4SNHTR9v9q6mwh20kBAF00QA0zc2uQbmHx-Dw-2q0fiOgYnI785ma9NHlKz2lqkiSKeLgu0qb06QDaXLyNndQPAW7L_ooJa63LBSg5IOir1HrnW999PsgPzjozaFuEeB4/s320/Tyrannosaur-Type.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>You thought I was this? HA! I actually look like this, mates:</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMXKSoShhI1E2l28xZxNGIdfrHiqvfC_t-ne6_uWhth6fx20H7Jv6IRMaC8Kci2RsSRhKZ-n3EpXDacN_IKaPOTbjrhMAh2oigXX9cWc9DIDj36Hohd-8P_N37LNSrmj3i56I2WFAq5lV8/s1600/Muttaburrasaurus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMXKSoShhI1E2l28xZxNGIdfrHiqvfC_t-ne6_uWhth6fx20H7Jv6IRMaC8Kci2RsSRhKZ-n3EpXDacN_IKaPOTbjrhMAh2oigXX9cWc9DIDj36Hohd-8P_N37LNSrmj3i56I2WFAq5lV8/s320/Muttaburrasaurus.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Well, you all look like a bunch of<a href="http://www.slang-dictionary.com/definition/stunned-mullet.html"> <b>stunned mullets</b></a> now, don’t you?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>(First photo is of the <a href="http://geology.about.com/od/paleontology/a/typespecs.htm"><b>type specimen</b></a> of </i>Tyrannosaurus rex<i>, in the <b><a href="http://www.carnegiemnh.org/">Carnegie Museum of Natural History</a> </b>in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA); second is of a reconstruction of the large ornithopod </i>Muttaburrasaurus langdoni<i>, displayed at the <a href="http://www.hughenden.com/Document1.aspx?id=808"><b>Flinders Discovery Centre</b></a> in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b>Hughenden, Queensland</b></a>.)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Their shock is doubled when the “theropod” pulls off an elastic mask, revealing that it was, all along, the big ornithopod seen at the opening of the play. With that, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki"><b>Kabuki</b></a> comes to the Outback, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlkZVAw8Gc&feature=related"><b>Hannibal Lecter</b></a> is instantly transformed into <a href="http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=71976"><b>Tootsie</b></a>. Within seconds, rotten vegetables and fruit, carried in by the otherwise affluent-looking crowd, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH2nQHPs4aA&feature=related"><b>shower the stage</b></a>. Boooooo! Hissssss! The curtain closes, and a full-fledged riot erupts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">(Incidentally, for those of you who think this would be a fantastic story to recreate, especially using hand puppets, be my guest and put it on YouTube. Or, even better, make it into a full-fledged musical production, like <a href="http://redux.com/stream/item/1699007/Jurassic-Park-the-Musical-Part-1"><b>Jurassic Park: The Musical</b></a>. Just be sure to credit me for the idea, as in, “Based on a beer-induced hallucination by A.J. Martin.")</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">With that dramatization in mind, imagine it being retold thousands of times, inspiring: <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Predator-and-prey-The-Winton-Trackway"><b>museum dioramas</b></a>; <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/2010/12/reverb10-everything-is-ok-reenvisioning.html"><b>artwork</b></a>; <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/dinosaur-stampede/lark-quarry/flash-entry.html#larkq"><b>animated recreations</b></a>; <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/31364/jurassic-park-flock-of-dinos"><b>dramatic scenes in mainstream movies</b></a>; a <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/building-design"><b>specially designed building</b></a>; and <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/dinosaur-stampede/index.html"><b>national-heritage status</b></a> to preserve the dinosaur tracks that made the story possible in the first place. Except, omit the very last scene – you know, the one that pulls the rug out from under its adoring public – and let it be told incompletely for decades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what happened? How did we miss such an important part of the story? Well, ichnologists, like any other scientists, generate new observations every year. These observations result in more data and fresh perspectives that have the potential to overturn or otherwise revise old hypotheses, including ones we enjoy very much.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is exactly what happened with Lark Quarry. Based on newly gathered and analyzed trace fossil data – done by Anthony Romilio and Steven Salisbury of the <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/"><b>University of Queensland</b></a>, and published in the journal <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622812/description#description"><b><i>Cretaceous Research</i></b> </a>– the large “theropod” tracemaker <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=22416"><b>is now interpreted as a large ornithopod</b></a>. Hence the new hypothesis states there the “dinosaur stampede” was not triggered by the arrival of a large predator, and no stalking of a small dinosaur by such a voracious predator took place, either. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The story of Lark Quarry and its dinosaur tracks illustrates very well a constant feature of science, which is that it is always evolving through self-correction. This principle was certainly realized in a big way with <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/evotheory.html"><b>evolutionary theory</b></a>, <a href="http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/physics_and_astronomy/research/gravitation.html"><b>gravitational theory</b></a>, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/tectonics/intro.html"><b>plate tectonic theory</b></a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_theory"><b>quantum theory</b></a>. Lots of testing, scrutinizing, and arguing took place before the majority of the scientific community accepted any of these grand schemes. And the same standard applies to hypotheses of all shapes and sizes, including dinosaur tracks and other trace fossils.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Indeed, the preceding overturning of long-held hypotheses by trace fossil evidence is not unusual. For example, just in 2010, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07dinosaurs.html"><b>fossil tracks from Poland</b></a>, dating to the Early and Middle Triassic Period (about 245 million years ago), indicated that the immediate ancestors to dinosaurs were extant earlier than previously thought. Also in 2010, <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2010/07/16/a-mammals-worst-nightmare-hungry-digging-dinosaurs/"><b>dinosaur dig-marks preserved in Cretaceous rocks</b></a> in the western U.S. were linked to a raptor-like theropods. Even better, these dig-marks were directly associated with shallow mammal burrows, demonstrating a predatory behavior never before known in theropods. In my own research in 2009, I proposed the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8144000/8144199.stm"><b>earliest known dinosaur burrows</b></a> in Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, Australia, one of which was eerily similar to the <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/dinosaurs-down-underground-part-ii.html"><b>first known dinosaur burrow</b></a>, reported from Cretaceous rocks of Montana (USA) in 2007. In short, trace fossils matter in paleontological hypotheses, whether for supporting new ones or knocking down old ones.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">In science, we do not prove, we disprove, meaning that old stories are sometimes revised in the face of new evidence. Furthermore, answers always generate more questions, meaning that although we may get closer to the truth, we may never quite reach it, especially when we deal with events of the distant geologic past.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">So in 2011, here’s to more disproving and more questions from trace fossils in Australia and elsewhere. Meanwhile, in the story titled <i><b>The Mystery of Lark Quarry and the Case of Mistaken Dinosaur</b></i>, the hypothesis is dead: long live the hypothesis! That is, until it is <a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_great_tragedy_of_science-the_slaying_of_a/197162.html"><b>slain by more and better evidence</b></a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrEEe_s0Gj29mGpEe-tbg8KIuKidt4zL6I3yaoOT1xb_rU_KOFtQo4cH3LdM-cX5JCWIEeFadgkCQjoWtdn7dnWtBORZRc4NrO5TqPt6_dpUAoBk2ED65Av59hEPXFu5QVyI1dbCXx0MX/s1600/Groovy-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrEEe_s0Gj29mGpEe-tbg8KIuKidt4zL6I3yaoOT1xb_rU_KOFtQo4cH3LdM-cX5JCWIEeFadgkCQjoWtdn7dnWtBORZRc4NrO5TqPt6_dpUAoBk2ED65Av59hEPXFu5QVyI1dbCXx0MX/s320/Groovy-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Stalking theropod or bumbling ornithopod? We used to be certain, now we're not. Welcome to ichnology, mates. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">And just what is the evidence, and the scientific basis for this dramatic change in the story of the Lark Quarry dinosaur tracksite? That will be the topic of next week’s entry.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-83483873833234770662010-12-26T17:29:00.001-05:002010-12-26T17:51:34.725-05:00The Mystery of Lark Quarry<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the most famous dinosaur tracksites in the world – <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>Lark Quarry Conservation Park</b></a> in central Queensland – is protected from the elements of the Australian outback by a beautiful, spacious, and environmentally friendly building. But how comfortable would it be to spend a night there, alone with the dinosaur tracks? I was about to find out, having been accidentally locked in, and just after the departure of the last tour of the day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggXT3hdH5xqpgGi7_4j3CpInhPrYq048yWV1-LYzT6Zfi4m626HoUEO2Gu9UfQIjFiLa1kcwEwnOozd66dPjxgjsJFsjB4LAigXog44fTus-m78Knp3PnnY8eU3XZzd3q6zzp6fxwCAG4B/s1600/Sleeping-With-The-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggXT3hdH5xqpgGi7_4j3CpInhPrYq048yWV1-LYzT6Zfi4m626HoUEO2Gu9UfQIjFiLa1kcwEwnOozd66dPjxgjsJFsjB4LAigXog44fTus-m78Knp3PnnY8eU3XZzd3q6zzp6fxwCAG4B/s320/Sleeping-With-The-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Lark Quarry has gorgeous dinosaur tracks, and lots of them. But would you sleep with them?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: large;">Before talking about that embarrassing episode from the first time I visited Lark Quarry in 2007, let’s go back to justifying why these dinosaur tracks deserve such renown, including why they have their own building – in the proverbial “middle of nowhere,” about 110 km (65 miles) from the nearest town of <a href="http://www.experiencewinton.com.au/"><b>Winton</b></a> – and <b><a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/dinosaur-stampede/index.html">National Heritage</a> </b>status in Australia.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZHMfCQlHSB6ms3APQqJxLB45dDzbyndzedDKCAVSVe9EX_6BjrmhQ-8Yj-hfoOO2V3CratJxGkhk3D1t5p8fRVz8I7QQHl4_6JwTEgI2DmGgToFfWJ3Whrhv5L_DgMqOR3xJHBOvxA85/s1600/Lark-Quarry-Conservation-Centre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZHMfCQlHSB6ms3APQqJxLB45dDzbyndzedDKCAVSVe9EX_6BjrmhQ-8Yj-hfoOO2V3CratJxGkhk3D1t5p8fRVz8I7QQHl4_6JwTEgI2DmGgToFfWJ3Whrhv5L_DgMqOR3xJHBOvxA85/s320/Lark-Quarry-Conservation-Centre.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The eco-chic Lark Quarry Conservation Centre, one of the few buildings anywhere in this part of Queensland and made to preserve one of the best dinosaur tracksites in the world, while serving as a valuable </i></span><a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/dinoresources"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>educational resource</b></i></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><i>. I should point out, though, that despite the energy efficiency of this building, and construction that used recycled materials and local labor, I saw no shade-grown coffee, cruelty-free eggs, or free-range tofu on the premises.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb7CxTNndHDxAFSeMT7-jyPzNV-a-noqsOyGtHnvUDUxPGs8t2hM_IOr700AM0X5v8g4vyuPXh7okY6l7mqJVsMtn4GES6D4cduX0-ElVJr9ZDQSF6NcYwPjkdpv-EZDpAVUNOV-eCDUnk/s1600/Dinosaur-Stampede-Monument.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb7CxTNndHDxAFSeMT7-jyPzNV-a-noqsOyGtHnvUDUxPGs8t2hM_IOr700AM0X5v8g4vyuPXh7okY6l7mqJVsMtn4GES6D4cduX0-ElVJr9ZDQSF6NcYwPjkdpv-EZDpAVUNOV-eCDUnk/s320/Dinosaur-Stampede-Monument.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>How often do you get to pose with a sign that has the words “Dinosaur Stampede” on it, and it’s not a joke? Photograph by Ruth Schowalter.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I remember first learning about Lark Quarry as a geology graduate student, soon after beginning my studies in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichnology"><b>ichnology</b></a> while at the University of Georgia (USA) in the mid 1980s. Imagine how thrilling it was for a nascent ichnologist in Georgia to read about a site that held more than 3,000 Cretaceous dinosaur tracks in faraway Queensland, Australia. What an amazing place, worthy of communal worship in the <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/wht-dinosaur-tracks-matter.html"><b>Church of Ichnology</b></a>! I likewise dreamed of the ichnological ecstasy that would result from a pilgrimage to see it in person. This aspiration became real for the first time in 2007 (that’s when I got locked in) and was fulfilled again in 2010, although that time with my wife <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/2010/12/reverb10-everything-is-ok-reenvisioning.html"><b>Ruth</b></a> along to gaze admirably at this hallowed ground. She also successfully kept us from being trapped in the building.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">How was such an incredible site discovered? As is still typical for fossil finds in Queensland, it was spotted by a sharp-eyed amateur, cattle-station manager <b>Glen Seymour</b>. (And just as a grumpy aside, academic paleontologists everywhere are too busy nowadays sitting behind computer screens, replying to e-mails, and serving on committees to find much of anything. Consequently, we depend even more on amateurs with “eyes on the ground,” who we very much appreciate.) When Mr. Seymour saw the tracks in the 1962, only a few were visible on a rock surface sticking out of a hillside; I imagine that their resemblance to <b><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emu_tracks_on_salt_lake.JPG">emu</a> </b>or<b> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Brush-turkey">brush turkey</a> </b>tracks caught his eye, honed by much time outdoors and looking at the ground.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTVsXC2P0QQGhOJ2B5jsuZ0JLWANyDD1Pj6_9D6eBBAtvNXC4ECeFvibFInKOD9t_ukeMKezc-mUbmlhTinAw7jQNKwxhTdSJH7NcmEcyYVT3DoOJh4lf1N_Zdrp6926LenCek19e5z6R5/s1600/Outback-Queensland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTVsXC2P0QQGhOJ2B5jsuZ0JLWANyDD1Pj6_9D6eBBAtvNXC4ECeFvibFInKOD9t_ukeMKezc-mUbmlhTinAw7jQNKwxhTdSJH7NcmEcyYVT3DoOJh4lf1N_Zdrp6926LenCek19e5z6R5/s320/Outback-Queensland.jpg" width="254" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The rolling red hills of the Queensland outback. Somewhere out there are more dinosaur tracks, waiting to be discovered, and make the Cretaceous rocks of Australia even more famous.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Indeed, he later said he considered them as fossil bird tracks, and was flabbergasted when local grazier, photographer, and naturalist <b>Peter Knowles</b> indentified them as dinosaur tracks. I also can’t help but think, though, that the indigenous people of this area and other parts of Australia, <a href="http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/indigenous/trackers/"><b>many of whom were expert trackers</b></a>, probably noticed these marks of long-gone animal life in the Cretaceous rocks and incorporated these trace fossils into <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sle62XV0BO0"><b>Dreamtime stories</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, this might seem strange to people outside of paleontology, but nine years passed from the discovery of this world-class tracksite until academic paleontologists arrived to evaluate them. Nonetheless, this lag time reflected the reality of how long news took to travel from outback Queensland to the “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Tower"><b>ivory towers</b></a>” of academia. Several years after their discovery, Ron McKenzie (a station hand of Mr. Seymour’s) had taken natural casts to the Queensland Museum and had them confirmed as dinosaur tracks, but nothing much happened after that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, in 1971, Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Knowles took paleontologists to the site, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_H._Tedford"><b>Richard H. Tedford</b></a> of the American Museum of Natural History, <a href="http://pipl.com/directory/people/Alan/Bartholomai"><b>Alan Bartholomai</b></a> of the Queensland Museum, <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/rich/index.html"><b>Patricia (Pat) Vickers-Rich</b></a> of Monash University, and <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-research/sciences/staff/thomas-h-rich/"><b>Thomas Rich</b></a> of the Museum of Victoria. Oddly enough, they weren’t in the area to look at dinosaur tracks, but instead were more interested in <a href="http://home.alphalink.com.au/%7Edannj/non-rept.htm"><b>Cretaceous mammals</b></a>. The dinosaur tracks, brought up by Mr. Knowles in conversation with the paleontologists, nonetheless made for an interesting non-mammalian diversion. Once they visited the site, Dr. Tedford traced the track-bearing layer into an adjoining hillside, meaning the entire layer was more extensive than originally surmised, and would need to be excavated before it could be investigated scientifically.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZLDix1rYmMLxMd_LI04zoK94kuylL2t98HF-8RjIiG_CTHl4TvbXo6LiaaV89xpTcPqPtQFeff7S7K3-krnbt4Pj3w1X71QLHZQhUNILa7Q-hMIZKJ7OQ-YAoZ71kILPcez8RrGvsV_N/s1600/Lateral-Continuity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZLDix1rYmMLxMd_LI04zoK94kuylL2t98HF-8RjIiG_CTHl4TvbXo6LiaaV89xpTcPqPtQFeff7S7K3-krnbt4Pj3w1X71QLHZQhUNILa7Q-hMIZKJ7OQ-YAoZ71kILPcez8RrGvsV_N/s320/Lateral-Continuity.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The basic geological principle of lateral continuity, using a tilted layer (<b>bed</b> or <b>stratum</b>) of Cretaceous-age sandstone from coastal Victoria, Australia. This bed should continue laterally unless interrupted by erosion or some other geological process. This is how you can predict the extent of a bed that contains dinosaur tracks, and is exactly what Richard Tedford did to find the extent of the Lark Quarry tracksite.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">How did the site get its current nickname of “Lark Quarry”? When paleontologists from the University of Queensland and Queensland Museum – Drs. <a href="http://www.geosci.monash.edu.au/about/directory/thulborn.html"><b>Tony Thulborn</b></a> and <a href="http://earthsci.org/fossils/ichthyosaurs/mary%20wade.html"><b>Mary Wade</b></a> – decided to study the site in the mid-1970s, one of their most dedicated volunteers was local resident <b>Malcolm Lark</b>. The “quarry” part came from what these paleontologists and volunteers did during the field seasons of 1976 and 1977 to better see more of the track-bearing surface: strip off the 30-cm (12 in) thick sandstone overlying the tracks. These hard-working folks estimated that more than 50 tonnes of rock were moved, which exposed more than 200 m<sup>2</sup> (= 650 feet<sup>2</sup>) and 3,300 dinosaur tracks. This site was a motherlode of dinosaur trace fossils.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjogh9l7VA9VlAbhDLUiUz6EkdnHS0WWd1I8n4NDEPwyVQ6sVkqZtCD_dmbI5MSt4ek1lfwVIP-aZKgbDnk_mq3_DP5PXwejKKn9MhNyEFCc3LSa67owU8K4g_yzzxXgfIR43FO6ucD02L/s1600/Heaps-of-Rocks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjogh9l7VA9VlAbhDLUiUz6EkdnHS0WWd1I8n4NDEPwyVQ6sVkqZtCD_dmbI5MSt4ek1lfwVIP-aZKgbDnk_mq3_DP5PXwejKKn9MhNyEFCc3LSa67owU8K4g_yzzxXgfIR43FO6ucD02L/s320/Heaps-of-Rocks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Lark Quarry toward the end of the field season in 1976, with the piles of rubble showing just how difficult it was to get to the dinosaur tracks, while also demonstrating how ichnology sometimes requires “digging,” too. Photo by the Queensland Museum, and lifted from the <b>Australian Age of Dinosaurs Journal</b>, Issue 2, p. 23. To compensate for my shameless borrowing of this photo, everyone reading this should subscribe to the award-winning magazine from which it originated: <a href="http://aaodl.com/aaod-journal-hub.php"><b>http://aaodl.com/aaod-journal-hub.php</b></a></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">You would think that such a concentration of dinosaur tracks (on average, about 17 tracks per </span><span style="font-size: large;">m<sup>2</sup></span><span style="font-size: large;">) would be enough in itself to guarantee everlasting paleontological fame. But it got even better. Once the surface was clear and its tracks could be mapped and described in detail, a remarkable story emerged. And storytelling is what ichnology is all about, and <a href="http://www.cybertracker.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=43"><b>why it is probably among the oldest sciences known to humankind</b></a>. Moreover, any science worth mentioning should <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57895/"><b>astonish us</b></a>, and these tracks certainly surprised its original investigators, as well as more than a generation of paleontologists and the public afterwards.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The original environment in this area about 98 million years ago was a lakeshore that had been submerged by a nearby stream emptying into it. Fluctuations between submergence and emergence of the shoreline can be discerned from alternating sand and mud layers in the rock, as well as long, parallel grooves caused by logs that dragged across the lake bottom during a flood. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjogh9l7VA9VlAbhDLUiUz6EkdnHS0WWd1I8n4NDEPwyVQ6sVkqZtCD_dmbI5MSt4ek1lfwVIP-aZKgbDnk_mq3_DP5PXwejKKn9MhNyEFCc3LSa67owU8K4g_yzzxXgfIR43FO6ucD02L/s1600/Heaps-of-Rocks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSay4zdY0tbyEjRZtqb6n45fYVpc__Uu9MqcJ_QIB6ZO1-SQ9xnmP0kEU-flGnUdA2oVHXAbod-BkH445Rjd1sqoFIrFZ1bxcnvARv0suN0O-THvcU6pmBukk7INTVCBuKA57EgWi5QmiJ/s1600/Groovy-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSay4zdY0tbyEjRZtqb6n45fYVpc__Uu9MqcJ_QIB6ZO1-SQ9xnmP0kEU-flGnUdA2oVHXAbod-BkH445Rjd1sqoFIrFZ1bxcnvARv0suN0O-THvcU6pmBukk7INTVCBuKA57EgWi5QmiJ/s320/Groovy-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Those long grooves were not caused by dinosaur tails dragging along a muddy surface, but by logs or some other inert objects pushed by a current. You may now instead stare at the dinosaur tracks, especially the really big ones to the right.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">When emergent, this shoreline would have served as a waterhole for local animals; its moist, muddy sediments may have registered tracks over the course of several days or weeks. The tracks would have dried slightly underneath the warmth of a Cretaceous sun, but not so long as to bake them and cause mudcracks to radiate from the tracks. A small amount of flooding from the lake or a nearby stream later covered the tracks with a protective layer of sand, which, along with the track-bearing layer, hardened and became part of the fossil record. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCmXLhzqeLSCSMfq-u22kVFeQ3bLRwzKs9Ih0rqWgOI9f1K7w7awITdwEVkdivtfDuEHBQ2w1uFbkxTXQa_h2B5HNK106P10w2aLEX6n5Pf5WmeTsqWEcXwmAejOLHC3yzxSXaM7Z6ZeR6/s1600/Ornithopod-Theropod-Lunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCmXLhzqeLSCSMfq-u22kVFeQ3bLRwzKs9Ih0rqWgOI9f1K7w7awITdwEVkdivtfDuEHBQ2w1uFbkxTXQa_h2B5HNK106P10w2aLEX6n5Pf5WmeTsqWEcXwmAejOLHC3yzxSXaM7Z6ZeR6/s320/Ornithopod-Theropod-Lunch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Ah, the calm before the storm, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1-NpyaOWV0"><b>the salad days</b></a>, if you will. Wait, did someone hear something? Artwork on display at the Lark Quarry Conservation Centre.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">At the time of their excavation, the forms and sizes of the tracks pointed toward three species of two-legged (bipedal) dinosaurs as the main trackmakers: a small herbivorous ornithopod, about the size of a modern emu; a much smaller theropod dinosaur (only slightly bigger than a <b>“<a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html">chook</a>”</b>); and the source of drama in the story, a large carnivorous theropod. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_1MWV22hTxdV6o0bleCUhNinaEvPUiVk1VhS2kFcD9mg6A4ElRnD5zTRqN5XZ_ZT6CndNhxUT-3pYEw0DngQYCibBHr-8vGLNFyUYwCREfsbPfhqmSOXfS5HP8iIuLoFo1JjeUikY_VD5/s1600/We-Three-Trackmakers-Of-Lark-Quarry-Are.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_1MWV22hTxdV6o0bleCUhNinaEvPUiVk1VhS2kFcD9mg6A4ElRnD5zTRqN5XZ_ZT6CndNhxUT-3pYEw0DngQYCibBHr-8vGLNFyUYwCREfsbPfhqmSOXfS5HP8iIuLoFo1JjeUikY_VD5/s320/We-Three-Trackmakers-Of-Lark-Quarry-Are.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Size differences between the three trackmakers at Lark Quarry can be figured out by looking at their tracks; their overall forms also indicate three species of dinosaurs. Do you see all three represented here as three-toed tracks? The smallest are from chook-sized theropods, the slightly larger ones from emu-sized ornithopods, and the big one is from, well, something different from the other two.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The vast number of tracks on the surface originated from the small ornithopods and theropods, and they were not lolling about in idyllic harmony at the lakshore. Instead, these dinosaurs were running flat out, clearly motivated by something that caused all of them to move in the same direction at high speed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Drs. Thulborn and Wade realized this scenario once they measured the directions of the individual trackways and distances between tracks within each trackway. Furthermore, the tracks mostly showed toe-tips touching the ground, instead of entire digits. Lastly, some tracks were greatly elongated, indicating a little bit of slipping and sliding. Very simply, when small animals take big steps, get up on their toes, and start to lose their footing, they are running.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So instead of my recounting more of their evidence, I will let words from Drs. Thulborn and Wade’s first research paper about the site (published in 1979) speak for the feelings evoked by the tracks. Note here how they broke an unspoken rule in paleontology: they expressed an emotional empathy with animals from nearly 100 million years ago:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Persuasive circumstantial evidence leads us to conclude that they represent a stampede - that is, a wild, unreasoning and panic-stricken rush to escape the threat of danger. What could have caused such presumed panic?</i></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">To answer this question, Thulborn and Wade pointed to the large, three-toed tracks that entered the scene from Stage Left, exactly the direction taken by more than a hundred small dinosaurs that ran around and onto the tracks of the big dinosaur. Based on size and overall outline, the paleontologists interpreted the large tracks as those of a big theropod. How big? <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/dynamic/session3/sess3_act2.htm"><b>Dinosaur sizes can be estimated by track sizes</b></a>: just multiply the length of the footprint by 4.0, and you have the approximate hip height of the dinosaur. In this instance, the best-preserved track was 64 centimeters (25 inches) long, so its hip was at about 2.5 meters (8.3 feet) off the ground.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, this would have been big enough to make you and me run, so imagine the fright felt by a little ornithopod or theropod from the approach of a predatory dinosaur this large. Compounding this effect was the contagious fear that would have spread instantly through the sizeable group of small dinosaurs, causing a chain reaction in behaviors. Think of the arrival of a fox in a chicken yard, or even a human walking up to a group of shorebirds, and how the jittery reaction of one bird is enough to spook the others, thus all sharing the terror.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifG5RbTUiTL9yK4rYPUVX033gJ-O88eJ_1XJG5TGPV5bMproYcQfCPAnlsl2DtavFJB53kx_7rebHIas6SbyY1CeSPSTHnOGHemM053vgyQiHsAK0m0eJJ_d6fe6SXFolNB8NN8GFL9wsA/s1600/Run-Away.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifG5RbTUiTL9yK4rYPUVX033gJ-O88eJ_1XJG5TGPV5bMproYcQfCPAnlsl2DtavFJB53kx_7rebHIas6SbyY1CeSPSTHnOGHemM053vgyQiHsAK0m0eJJ_d6fe6SXFolNB8NN8GFL9wsA/s320/Run-Away.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8">Run away! Run away!</a> </i></b><i>Diorama at the Corfield and Fitzmaurice Building in Winton, Queensland, showing little theropods and ornithopods running around the leg of a massive and presumably hungry theropod.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thulborn and Wade’s map and analysis of the tracksite was a masterpiece of meticulousness, providing a wealth of data supporting their interpretation. They published two peer-reviewed papers about the tracksite, the first with the provocative title of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1502-3931.1979.tb01008.x/abstract"><b><i>Dinosaur Stampede in the Cretaceous of Queensland</i></b></a>, published in the journal <i>Lethaia</i> in 1979. The second was a much longer and more detailed report in <i>Memoirs of the Queensland Museum</i>, modestly titled <b><i>Dinosaur Trackways in the Winton Formation (Mid-Cretaceous) of Queensland</i></b> and published in 1984.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I still point to the 1979 paper as one of the most compelling I have ever read in ichnology, and I often re-read it to remind myself of what constitutes a “gold standard” in the study of dinosaur tracks. I also keep in mind that Thulborn and Wade completed their study of 3,300 tracks without the benefit of tools we now take for granted: no high-resolution digital cameras, digital calipers, GPS, GIS, image analysis, laser scanners, 3-D rendering, Internet, or other technological short-cuts that would have made such a study a lot easier. Just heaps of hard physical labor, lots of surveying and other measurements, and scientific reasoning, served with a healthy dollop of intuition on top. And the end result was <b><a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/dinosaur-stampede/lark-quarry/flash-entry.html#larkq">a tale that still astonishes us</a></b>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">This story of a dinosaur stampede in Queensland became so intriguing, it is rumored to have inspired one of the more spectacular scenes in the movie <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_%28film%29"><b><i>Jurassic Park</i></b></a> (the first one, not its awful sequels). In this scene, a flock of the Late Cretaceous theropod dinosaur <i>Gallimimus</i> (“ostrich mimic”) stampedes in fear at the nearby presence of a large carnivorous dinosaur (who happens to be the most redeeming character in that movie), <i>Tyrannosaurus rex</i>, also from the Late Cretaceous. (Both dinosaurs also illustrate why <i>Jurassic Park</i> should have been titled <i>Cretaceous Park</i>). Unfortunately for the prey, but fortunately for the predator, one of the flock is separated from its group and singled out for sacrifice while the others continue running for safety. (<a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-v.html"><b>No mateship in Cretaceous dinosaurs</b></a>, that’s for sure.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><object height="288" width="512"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/YGuOaX9XSLk3rWxGbYkNlQ"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/YGuOaX9XSLk3rWxGbYkNlQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512" height="288" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A brief clip from the “documentary film” </i>Jurassic Park<i>, likely inspired by the Lark Quarry tracksite in Queensland. Did you notice the most unrealistic part of this scene? You got it: the paleontologist does </i>not<i> have a beer in his hand.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps more than a hundred million people have seen this scene, but I’ll bet less than 1% of these people know about the connection between it and Lark Quarry. Of course, locals in Winton know about it, and I have heard them joke about how nice it would have been for the Lark Quarry Conservation Centre to receive a very small royalty from the film profits (indeed). Regardless, Ruth and I were pleased to contribute in a non-Spielberg way to the local Winton economy by visiting the tracksite, staying four nights in a Winton pub hotel, purchasing pub meals, singing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvazMc5EfE"><b>Waltzing Matilda</b></a>, and of course quenching our thirst with <a href="http://www.xxxx.com.au/beer-info/"><b>XXXX beer</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Oh yes: you’re wondering how I got trapped in the building with the dinosaur tracks? In July 2007, I had driven six hours from Townsville, Queensland to Winton, then another hour to Lark Quarry. I made it to the last afternoon tour of the day, and after it ended, I purposefully dawdled, waiting for other people in the tour to leave so I could soak in the beauty of these trace fossils in silence. I took many photographs and otherwise gazed longingly at the tracks, beheld at long last after reading about them for more than 20 years. However, while in this ichnologically induced nirvana-state-of-mind, I neglected to hear the clicking of the entrance, now locked by the tour guide, who had not bothered to check whether anyone was still inside with the tracks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The immoveable door invoked a panic akin to that experienced by the small dinosaurs there more than 95 million years ago (although, on the bright side of things, I was not locked in overnight with a multi-tonne predator). Fortunately, my primate brain kicked into gear, and I recalled how the tour guide had used a portable PA (public-announcement) system. I quickly commandeered this unit, and after much hooting and hollering at its highest volume, I managed to attract the attention of the tour guide, who was about to leave for Winton. Saved! However appealing it might have been in a spiritual way to spend a night with these much-adored tracks, I was also happy to say “goodbye for now” and hope that I would see them another day. Which I did, in July 2010.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So next week, with stories of Lark Quarry anxieties dancing in our heads, we will reconsider the original dinosaurian tale told here, and think about how science can change stories. Even ones we really, really like. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Sources of information about Lark Quarry you should read (please don’t believe anything I just wrote):</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thulborn, R.A., and Wade, M., 1979. Dinosaur stampede in the Cretaceous of Queensland. Lethaia 12, 275-279.</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thulborn, R.A., and Wade, M., 1984. Dinosaur trackways in the Winton Formation (mid-Cretaceous) of Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 21, 413–517.</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Meiklejohn, D., and Elliott, J. 2004. The ghosts of Lark Quarry. Australian Age of Dinosaurs Journal, Issue 2: 18-31.</i></span></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-52312975240847953572010-12-18T09:46:00.001-05:002010-12-18T09:47:50.922-05:00Why Dinosaur Tracks Matter<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">As an <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ichnology"><b>ichnologist</b></a>, I have often witnessed and noted the contrasting enthusiasm of someone finding a dead body, versus finding clues that tell a story, but lack a body. No, I am not writing about a scene from some lurid U.S. crime show on TV (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI:_Crime_Scene_Investigation"><b>CSI</b></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCIS_%28TV_series%29"><b>NCIS</b></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bones_%28TV_series%29"><b>Bones</b></a>, <i>ad nauseum</i>). </span></div><style>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNffDGOxRq43fSncJbLTv5Mdq5T4Ns7h1I_WHR8g6BHlIuCwelodPGEaSK1RSg3wFD5EW1mk09RBhSgm2ig3Tb9TnDOMnukaVPRcHZf7sh7Rc2QTVcfzi3Je0SIktLzpxdGiStdCs3C7d/s1600/Where-are-the-trace-fossils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNffDGOxRq43fSncJbLTv5Mdq5T4Ns7h1I_WHR8g6BHlIuCwelodPGEaSK1RSg3wFD5EW1mk09RBhSgm2ig3Tb9TnDOMnukaVPRcHZf7sh7Rc2QTVcfzi3Je0SIktLzpxdGiStdCs3C7d/s320/Where-are-the-trace-fossils.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A crime scene in progress, where one fossil collector turns on another, either in a jealous rage over a recently discovered Cambrian trilobite, or (more likely) because the ichnologist (right) will not stop complaining about the lack of trace fossils in the rocks.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Instead, this is about the excitement that surrounds the discovery of a bone, shell, or other body fossil in the field, and how that interest stands in direct contrast to the discovery of a trace fossil, which may have been made by the very same animal that owned the body part.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, this is not to put down bones, shells, impressions, carbon films, or other fossils that reflect former bodily remains of plants and animals. I am likewise very happy to find body fossils, and become excited for my fellow paleontological practitioners when they uncover these, too. After all, let’s say you crack open a rock with a hammer, and that rock splits to reveal the remains of a once-living, once-breathing, once-reproducing, once-feeding (well, you get the idea) plant or animal. Then dig this (pun intended): yours are the first human eyes to see it since it <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/319800.html"><b>shuffled its mortal coil</b></a></span> <span style="font-size: large;">and became one with the earth. How could any feeling human being not be excited by that thrill of discovery?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.paleoportal.org/"><b>Paleontology</b></a> in practice is an inclusive science, though, in which its participants ideally employ a combination of <b>body fossils</b>, <b>trace fossils</b>, and <b>chemical fossils</b> to reconstruct life before humans. Body fossils, appropriately enough, consist of body parts, and hence represent direct evidence of ancient life. Trace fossils normally do not include any body parts and are the products of behavior; these fossils are best represented by tracks, trails, burrows, nests, feces, toothmarks, scratchmarks, and other forms of indirect evidence. Chemical fossils consist of ratios of elements that tell you something was alive just before its elements were incorporated into an examined rock, such as stable isotopes of carbon (no, I will not explain that – but you can read about it <a href="http://archaeology.about.com/od/stableisotopes/a/si_intro.htm"><b>here</b></a>) or certain compounds called <a href="http://www.phy229.group.shef.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/Fossil_biomarkers"><b>biomarkers</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So when given this list of possible fossils, which do you think paleontologists work with the most? Yes, you’re right: body fossils. Accordingly then, the paleontologists who receive the greatest public accolades for their finds are those who discover or describe body fossils. OK, so of these body fossils, which ones get the most attention from that same adoring public? Why yes, you’re right again: dinosaurs! Granted, an occasional fossil <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/science/06fossil.html"><b>fish</b></a> or <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8057465.stm"><b>mammal</b></a> sneaks into the bright, shiny media spotlight, but a single dinosaur bone, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/tyrannosaur-dinosaurs-called-australia-home-20100325-qzvm.html"><b>especially of a large carnivore</b></a>, can generate thousands of headlines, Facebook status updates, Tweets, and other digital shockwaves.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8_dz7mBpVdbYr9n9q-0uo3ZlHwqVntzL1QjJYHJuqI_C0LcA6Se-AjwNYQMEY7XabFespT6LCUGf33jEatG3R6pwI09xvHxzVDyTYBkW2dku0PVAsPIV_UUeSE2u2BMjZT7FsMwNbYmH/s1600/Tyrannosauroid-Pelvis-Victoria.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8_dz7mBpVdbYr9n9q-0uo3ZlHwqVntzL1QjJYHJuqI_C0LcA6Se-AjwNYQMEY7XabFespT6LCUGf33jEatG3R6pwI09xvHxzVDyTYBkW2dku0PVAsPIV_UUeSE2u2BMjZT7FsMwNbYmH/s320/Tyrannosauroid-Pelvis-Victoria.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A single dinosaur bone – a pelvic bone, specifically – from the Cretaceous of Victoria, Australia <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/about/mv-news/2010/victorian-tyrannosauroid-found/collecting-the-aussie-tyrant-reptile/"><b>that got a wee bit of public recognition recently</b></a>. Why yes, it belongs to a large carnivore: why did you even have to ask? Image from Roger Benson of Cambridge University, and published by <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100325-new-dinosaur-t-rex-southern-tyrant-australia/"><b>National Geographic</b></a>. (And for you Yanks out there who refuse to use the metric system, 30 cm = 12 inches.)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand (or foot), a single track belonging to a dinosaur, especially of a carnivorous one, can also get some attention, but its fame may not last as long. For example, once I had found a couple of (not-so-good) large theropod tracks at the Dinosaur Dreaming dig site in Victoria, Australia in 2006, dig crews thereafter were on the alert for other tracks. So they started looking for something they previously did not think was there. (You never know until you look, even if sometimes you <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1XXs7e7ac">still haven’t found what you’re looking for</a>.</b>) And what do you know, they found one, <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071023-dinosaur-tracks.html"><b>and it was from a large theropod dinosaur</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Kqh6hKfjHeMWqn77kZ9gD607chHpMhF31oROmAQd-GdYm56aA39KsIspQRt-89Ui8CHDT_IujI-TDfeVgDfaO5zEbtfjyL1E6hcHDmIaV1XG187-kIf8voYYFQUQ0VVs40LpXBKIBjPT/s1600/Big-Dinosaur-Track-Victoria-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Kqh6hKfjHeMWqn77kZ9gD607chHpMhF31oROmAQd-GdYm56aA39KsIspQRt-89Ui8CHDT_IujI-TDfeVgDfaO5zEbtfjyL1E6hcHDmIaV1XG187-kIf8voYYFQUQ0VVs40LpXBKIBjPT/s320/Big-Dinosaur-Track-Victoria-1.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A single dinosaur track, probably of a large theropod dinosaur, found by volunteer Tyler Lamb at the Dinosaur Dreaming dig site in February 2007. And I mean, </i>at<i> the site, only a few meters away from where they were digging for dinosaur bones. Volunteers had been walking over it for about 14 years and had not noticed it, because, you know, it wasn’t a body fossil. Scale = 10 cm (4 inches).</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once a body fossil of a large carnivorous dinosaur was unveiled three years later, though, this track <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8588282.stm"><b>was not mentioned at all in news reports</b></a> as previous evidence of large theropod dinosaurs living in that area at about that time. How fleeting the fame.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">No, I’m not jealous of body fossils and the flashbulbs, red-carpet walks, <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bling"><b>bling</b></a>, and <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=swag+bag"><b>swag bags</b></a> they receive: I just want equal time for trace fossils. Consequently, in recent years I have been acting more and more as an “ichnoevangelist,” trying to convert the <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-great-unwashed.html"><b>Great Unwashed</b></a> who have not felt the daily transformative power of trace fossils in their lives. (As for paleontologists who study chemical fossils: sorry, you’re on your own.) I have even created my own “religion,” <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/not-so-rotten-day-at-rotten-point-part_26.html"><b>The Church of Ichnology</b></a>, which has its holy trinity of <b>Substrate</b>, <b>Anatomy</b>, and <b>Behavior</b> (amen). (More will be said about that topic in a future post. But for now, also file away that this “church” requires drinking, dancing, and lots of cursing about body fossils.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So let’s say you love body fossils, especially of dinosaurs, and are amenable to an ichnological conversion; in other words, you’re paleontologically bi-curious. Why should you care about dinosaur trace fossils, and especially dinosaur tracks? Let me count the ways:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>• Dinosaur tracks are typically found in the exact same place where a dinosaur was living.</b> Where you see a dinosaur track, that’s where it was walking (or, less commonly, running). On the other hand, bodies and bones can be moved far away from where an animal actually lived. For instance, where I live, in the state of Georgia (U.S.A.), all dinosaur body fossils there have been found in Cretaceous rocks that formed in <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3166"><b>shallow-marine environments</b></a>. Yet all dinosaurs lived in terrestrial environments. This means these dinosaurs died on land, then their bodies were washed out to sea, where their bones were finally buried.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUR8swwzvvC32HmkPEWRhMkSBjAb0HOLjKR2Lunor910sJWjOEjAqfFZClB7FC0_8avkbQvi63GK6henbv6Ox5HmCVYyc4rPei4KiJRdBgeMCeGqj95GWAS0wkWrbgYe1Ysnn5khjfXKn/s1600/Lark-Quarry-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUR8swwzvvC32HmkPEWRhMkSBjAb0HOLjKR2Lunor910sJWjOEjAqfFZClB7FC0_8avkbQvi63GK6henbv6Ox5HmCVYyc4rPei4KiJRdBgeMCeGqj95GWAS0wkWrbgYe1Ysnn5khjfXKn/s320/Lark-Quarry-Dinosaur-Tracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Close-up of a surface of Cretaceous rock that used to be soft sediments deposited on a lakeshore about 98 million years ago, in Queensland, Australia. See any dinosaur tracks? If you do, then you know those dinosaurs were living on that lakeshore (however temporarily). </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>• Dinosaur tracks are far more abundant than their bones.</b> My esteemed colleagues who study dinosaur bones and make regular appearances on <a href="http://www.oprah.com/index.html"><b>Oprah</b></a> (or, more likely, <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/home"><b>The Colbert Report</b></a>) will begrudgingly concede this point if I press them on it. Dinosaur ichnologists just have lots more fossils to work with. Of course, when you think about it, it’s not even fair to make the comparison. After all, one dinosaur could have made tens of thousands of tracks during its lifetime, but it’s various body parts may or may not have made it into the fossil record. The odds are lopsidedly stacked in favor of a paleontologist finding dinosaur tracks, not bones. <a href="http://edwardcheever.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/epicwin.jpg"><b>Epic win</b></a> for dinosaur ichnologists!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqOvxfmDiak2om7M8WYr_wSJtrHAASAvrHJmqc40Naj9fcf5xL43Zx8Z1gBMX860vm4Rcpl75E_GsGz3kMMS6l51XfQbb6bd7ekPOLFBf5cGzRSvSL-3kHak0zrUo5PNIJz4542LuCgcdd/s1600/Lark-Quarry-Panorama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="93" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqOvxfmDiak2om7M8WYr_wSJtrHAASAvrHJmqc40Naj9fcf5xL43Zx8Z1gBMX860vm4Rcpl75E_GsGz3kMMS6l51XfQbb6bd7ekPOLFBf5cGzRSvSL-3kHak0zrUo5PNIJz4542LuCgcdd/s320/Lark-Quarry-Panorama.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Panorama of Lark Quarry tracksite in Queensland, Australia from the mid-Cretaceous age (about 98 million-year-old). See all of those indentations on the surface? Almost all of those are dinosaur tracks. Number of dinosaur tracks on this 210-square meter rock surface? About 3,300. Number of dinosaur bones on this same surface? Zero. I rest my case, however anecdotally.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>• Dinosaur tracks are often in places where you don’t find their bones.</b> Let’s say you’re a paleontologist and you want to find some dinosaur bones. So you start by looking at sedimentary rocks of the right ages, which would be from the Late Triassic through Late Cretaceous Periods, or about 225-65 million years old. You also want to look at rocks formed in the right environments, such as rivers or lakes. (Yes, I mentioned earlier how dinosaur bones might be in rocks formed in marine environments, but these are much more rare.) Lastly, you’d like a place with lots of exposed rock <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/dinosaurs-down-underground-part-i.html"><b>that is not covered by pesky vegetation</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCWz54iMXLI1855JLPSCpsVcKpKZq4sSRTacZPuDvzWqdrM4JK9e3XX6EtNfdsg7wFVUrK2tphf-Q2ov1zG4COlVnPoL8jS-uz5qZLadHRqgTzHbc6CmCOcQA_qNn9m6z14YbsFz9GsS9/s1600/Victoria-Cretaceous-Outcrops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCWz54iMXLI1855JLPSCpsVcKpKZq4sSRTacZPuDvzWqdrM4JK9e3XX6EtNfdsg7wFVUrK2tphf-Q2ov1zG4COlVnPoL8jS-uz5qZLadHRqgTzHbc6CmCOcQA_qNn9m6z14YbsFz9GsS9/s320/Victoria-Cretaceous-Outcrops.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>Why is this paleontologist (<a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-research/sciences/staff/thomas-h-rich/"><b>Tom Rich</b></a> from the <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/"><b>Museum of Victoria</b></a>) looking for dinosaur bones along this dangerously slippery rocky platform inundated by smashing waves, and just below high cliffs that continually test <a href="http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p67.htm"><b>gravitational theory</b></a> by shedding excess boulders, which always seem to fall down instead of up? Could it be because these rocks represent the right age and right environments for dinosaurs, and are not covered by vegetation?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So let’s say you go down this checklist – check, check, check – and you still don’t find any bones. Well, you can blame this misfortune on the <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/05/where-have-all-fossils-gone.html"><b>Great Goddess of Taphonomy</b></a>, who decided that the dinosaur bones would not be deposited in those environments, or that they would be deposited, but have since been dissolved by acidic groundwater or otherwise had their elements recycled.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So you have places without dinosaur bones that really should have them? Start looking for dinosaur tracks instead. You just might find them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>• Dinosaur tracks can tell you exactly how a dinosaur was behaving on a given day.</b> If you look at any given dinosaur bone, it can tell you something about how that animal lived. But this exercise often requires a lot of speculation, and usually fails to provide any “snapshots” of behavior on a given day in the Mesozoic Era, unless it has cool trace fossils in it, like <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100616161207.htm"><b>toothmarks</b></a> or <b><a href="http://jpaleontol.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/1/201">carrion-beetle boring</a>s </b>in it (which, incidentally, were not made by the dinosaur that owned the bone). In contrast, dinosaur tracks <a href="http://paleo.cc/paluxy/ovrdino.htm"><b>tell you the type of dinosaurs</b></a>, <a href="http://www1.fccj.cc.fl.us/pacrews/trace_fossils.htm"><b>their approximate sizes</b></a>, <a href="http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Tracks/Report7/speed.html"><b>how dinosaurs moved</b></a>, <a href="http://www.sorbygeology.group.shef.ac.uk/DINOC01/dinocal1.html"><b>how fast they were moving</b></a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004591"><b>when they stopped for a rest</b></a>, <b><a href="http://www.aragosaurus.com/secciones/publicaciones/.../Avanzini_etal_2008.pdf">if they had an injury</a>,</b> <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002243"><b>whether they were moving together</b></a>, and other such important information that either supplements or surpasses information that can be gained from bones.</span><style>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo9UCZUdyxIXUz3vOVb2HGJ7zLipyaNzMaD9Yr0jQoZluUjNYjt-W4x5verxXMF4zxg1vCOSASkMlShcmrZnrd6rFzceT8Vp0ZxVYd2b6poBhcxLV4DktrAyEOjC2n_1prq9eLqh8ufTf4/s1600/Broome-Sauropod-Tracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo9UCZUdyxIXUz3vOVb2HGJ7zLipyaNzMaD9Yr0jQoZluUjNYjt-W4x5verxXMF4zxg1vCOSASkMlShcmrZnrd6rFzceT8Vp0ZxVYd2b6poBhcxLV4DktrAyEOjC2n_1prq9eLqh8ufTf4/s320/Broome-Sauropod-Tracks.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>See those big, round impressions in Cretaceous rocks of Western Australia (near <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broome,_Western_Australia"><b>Broome</b></a>)? Those are sauropod dinosaur tracks, and they indicate a probable presence of <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Wintonotitan-wattsi"><b>titanosaurs</b></a> in an area where their bones have not been found (yet). My wife Ruth (a.k.a. <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b>Hallelujah Truth</b></a>), a true convert to the Church of Ichnology, gazes upon these tracks with genuine awe.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">So now that all of you are members of the Church of Ichnology and believe in the restorative and redemptive value of dinosaur tracks, you will appreciate next week’s topic all the more: the mystery of <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>Lark Quarry</b></a> – one of the most important dinosaur tracksites in the world – and how it was originally interpreted, then recently reinterpreted. Best of all, it’s in central Queensland, mates. See you then and there, but in the meantime, happy tracking!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-9667624599082202052010-12-12T11:32:00.014-05:002011-09-29T08:37:55.397-04:00Clancy, Matilda, and Banjo: Australian Dinosaurs, Living Large<style>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Discoveries are the currency of science.” When I heard renowned biologist and Pulitzer-Prize winning science author <a href="http://bigthink.com/edwardowilson"><b>E.O. Wilson</b></a> say these words several years ago during a visit to <a href="http://www.emory.edu/"><b>Emory University</b></a>, I have reminded myself since of how the continuing discoveries of dinosaurs and other fossils probably reflect the most cost-effective way for science to progress. And when it comes to paleontology, few places in the world have yielded better “bang for the buck” than Australia.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMu_LL-q4BBO9AX4BrS9whNJgewHzNDQHq-7I9I0y4NsdFsMh1cM4ZUIKL32Fv_-MjSr2fKKekr3JQTgPyNNm2fqK2w9zHJ0u6SobRJwwp4nFUfaGsOIb7fEjUL_-r5ytx6zYZQ0_KZpdj/s1600/Australovenator-out-of-gum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMu_LL-q4BBO9AX4BrS9whNJgewHzNDQHq-7I9I0y4NsdFsMh1cM4ZUIKL32Fv_-MjSr2fKKekr3JQTgPyNNm2fqK2w9zHJ0u6SobRJwwp4nFUfaGsOIb7fEjUL_-r5ytx6zYZQ0_KZpdj/s320/Australovenator-out-of-gum.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“G’Day! My name is Banjo. I have come here to</i> <i>chew bubblegum, and kick bum<b>. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/quotes">And I'll all out of bubblegum</a>.</b>” Fantastic artwork by Travis Tischler, <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b>Australian Age of Dinosaurs</b></a>.</i></span></div>
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I<span style="font-size: large;">n science and other realms of human inquiry, though, Australia has long operated under the handicap of <b><a href="http://www.qbd.com.au/product/9780732911171-The_Tyranny_Of_Distance_by_Geoffrey_Blainey.htm">“The Tyranny of Distance.”</a> </b>That is, its great size and geographic isolation from the other five inhabited continents has meant many of its scientific discoveries - particularly in paleontology - either lagged behind the rest of the world, or (worse) surpassed discoveries made elsewhere, yet were virtually ignored.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Exceptions abound, of course, including the discovery of Precambrian animal fossils from the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vendian/ediacara.html"><b>Ediacara Hills of South Australia</b></a>, first found in 1946. These fossils constituted abundant evidence for the oldest animal life on earth, from about 580-550 million years ago. Still, because these fossils were found in Australia, they seemed to require outside validation, and their true antiquity was not recognized until similar ones were noticed in rocks of the same age in England in 1957.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizXSgMAakikdcoGFvUOOnRuA-r5LcdtREPPAO8PtbWyuvftQeaSOkUO3eFATqXGvACDr3AP_DaPvRyJWrFbQeN2JJUml8cPF-zwHdxsrPty1BJYy7rot1i-84COMUqr7Kwnj5jePCK9tw9/s1600/Dickinsonia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizXSgMAakikdcoGFvUOOnRuA-r5LcdtREPPAO8PtbWyuvftQeaSOkUO3eFATqXGvACDr3AP_DaPvRyJWrFbQeN2JJUml8cPF-zwHdxsrPty1BJYy7rot1i-84COMUqr7Kwnj5jePCK9tw9/s320/Dickinsonia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Two specimens of the wonderfully weird fossil </i>Dickinsonia<i>, a 550-million-year-old, flat, corrugated fossil “thing” from the Ediacaran Hills of South Australia. What is it? After more than 60 years of study, we’re still not sure, although we think it’s an animal. And it was first found in Australia. Specimens in the <a href="http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/"><b>South Australia Museum</b></a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even the first dinosaur fossil discovered in Australia, a single theropod claw <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/dinosaur-dreaming--the-inverloch-fossil-site/"><b>found in Victoria in 1903</b></a>, had to travel thousands of kilometers to the <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/"><b>Natural History Museum</b></a> in London first before it could be verified as belonging to a dinosaur (which it did). Amazingly, dinosaur research stopped then and there in Australia, and more than 70 years passed before another dinosaur fossil was found in the same area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In another example how Australia was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Dangerfield">“<b>Rodney Dangerfield</b>” </a>of countries in paleontology, a beautiful specimen of perhaps the most famous marine reptile discovered in Australia, the giant pliosaur <i>Kronosaurus queenlandicus</i> (mentioned in a <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-ii.html"><b>previous entry</b></a>, and to be discussed in a future one), does not even reside there. Instead, it is on display in the <a href="http://www.oceansofkansas.com/kronosar.html"><b>Harvard Museum of Natural History</b></a>, transported out of Australia in 1932.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately, those days of being forsaken are long gone, and Australia is now more than ever on people’s maps for its scientifically significant (and majorly cool) paleontological discoveries. For example, in just the past few decades, the dinosaur discoveries from Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, which started in the late 1970s, has generated major scientific momentum in that part of the continent, and still lives on there with an annual dig site near Inverloch, Victoria (dubbed <a href="http://dinosaurdreaming.monash.edu//"><b>Dinosaur Dreaming</b></a>). This dig and other excavations also led (unexpectedly) to Victoria becoming known as the most significant site for fossils of <a href="http://home.alphalink.com.au/%7Edannj/non-rept.htm"><b>Mesozoic-age mammals in the Southern Hemisphere</b></a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdmnhpHq_7_OjuyTGah1gbSLYmTzRU1PJsz5CCEG15QLxvo4lgdpIKFUVot_7LjAR1Z6P8GqCDNczM2hVyQRuj5XjrC-rdybvvmieuVBAil7qReaAt-p_47y0BkBR74VyU2pDReDmHoOp/s1600/Ausktribosphenos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdmnhpHq_7_OjuyTGah1gbSLYmTzRU1PJsz5CCEG15QLxvo4lgdpIKFUVot_7LjAR1Z6P8GqCDNczM2hVyQRuj5XjrC-rdybvvmieuVBAil7qReaAt-p_47y0BkBR74VyU2pDReDmHoOp/s320/Ausktribosphenos.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Take a look at this tiny, long-lost cousin of the kangaroos: a jaw from </i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-style: normal;">Ausktribosphenos nyktos</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria;">, a marsupial that lived about</span></i><i> 115 million years ago, found in Cretaceous rocks of Victoria. Amazing illustrations of the jaw and recreation of the animal are by renowned paleo-artist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Trusler"><b>Peter Trusler</b></a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Australia also has some <a href="http://sciencewise.anu.edu.au/articles/gogofish"><b>superb fossil fish</b></a> from the Devonian Period (nearly 400 million years ago), some of which have rewritten our understanding of early fish evolution. Some of the <a href="http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/5243.aspx"><b>oldest stromatolites</b></a> (algal colonies) in the world are from the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and living examples are in Western Australia at <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/578"><b>Shark Bay</b></a>. Fossils of the <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-iv.html"><b>largest lizards, land birds, and marsupials</b></a> ever known are in many places throughout Australia as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(And not to sound like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome">“<b>tall poppy</b>,”</a> but I threw in my $0.02 – depending on the exchange rate – to the paleontological knowledge of Australia in 2008 with the naming of the <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080208-crayfish.html"><b>oldest fossil crayfish</b> </a>in the Southern Hemisphere, <i>Palaeoechinastacus australianus</i> (= “ancient spiny crayfish of Australia,” and I dare you to say that ten times really fast). Since 2006, I’ve also opened up a few more doors (or is that Pandora’s boxes?) by finding and describing trace fossils in Victoria, included the discovery of the first known <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071019123615.htm"><b>large carnivorous dinosaurs tracks</b></a> in southern Australia.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But what about Queensland? It actually has been known for its vertebrate and invertebrate fossils for quite a while, including <i>Kronosaurus</i>, which was discovered in 1931. But it was not until the past 10 years that “dinosaur fever” (an incurable disease, incidentally) spread to Queensland in any way. Lark Quarry had already been known since the mid-1970s as a <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>significant dinosaur tracksite</b></a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/dinosaurs/fact_files/forest/muttaburra.htm"><b><i>Muttaburrasaurus</i></b></a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minmi_%28dinosaur%29"><b><i>Minmi</i></b></a> were known from well-preserved skeletons, and a few sauropod bones were also found in the area during the 1970s. Otherwise, not much else had been recognized there. Well, this all changed with the discovery of more (and bigger, and varied) bones <a href="http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Dinosaurs+and+Ancient+Life+of+Queensland/Dinosaurs/Winton+dinosaurs"><b>from 1999 onward</b></a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMNRjGxaUOntTSYKigSRUke7KZlUEBUR8GaBm2zYb2B27p0vh9up-ySDcXz6h8xT1yx8U4SQxc8Utj-Fbwoeju-XctLRMOZc9RFK9q9q-iGylvPCugF5XOMdsa7yEeCSjg8fMZWY7w5SY/s1600/Diamantinasaurus-Bones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMNRjGxaUOntTSYKigSRUke7KZlUEBUR8GaBm2zYb2B27p0vh9up-ySDcXz6h8xT1yx8U4SQxc8Utj-Fbwoeju-XctLRMOZc9RFK9q9q-iGylvPCugF5XOMdsa7yEeCSjg8fMZWY7w5SY/s320/Diamantinasaurus-Bones.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg"><b><i>Look at the bones!</i></b></a><i> Here’s a very small sample of the dinosaur bones recovered from Cretaceous rocks of Queensland in the past decade, on display at the <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b>Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre</b></a> near Winton.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Again, though, the “Tyranny of Distance” came into play in the recovery and description of these finds. Australia is a country with vast distances to cover, but with few people occupying those spaces: only about 23 million live within the borders of a landmass that’s just smaller than the lower 48 states of the U.S. So getting together volunteers who would go into the field, transport the right gear, and ensure enough supplies for maintaining the recovery efforts became very challenging. (Although at least they didn’t have killer waves, rock falls, explosives, and similar such challenges that characterized <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=lAfNnAnjyC8C&pg=PA1&dq=dinosaur+cove+australia&hl=en&ei=yYkDTePTFsK78gbJvOTmAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dinosaur%20cove%20australia&f=false"><b>Dinosaur Cove, the first dinosaur dig site in Victoria</b></a>.)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhix9xXj9C_cuju6TVau8tjHlNCcpZtyZ5nRMXMPlQCapxGXfmEe9jUakbCtSE-OsIBwD_o7PwMJv0is-ObMZ9BdZCq5dyURu-KcmNmjhes8qlUGgJM20A1nYsIso2icXHsQZE5sLo5s5kT/s1600/Queensland-Field-Work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhix9xXj9C_cuju6TVau8tjHlNCcpZtyZ5nRMXMPlQCapxGXfmEe9jUakbCtSE-OsIBwD_o7PwMJv0is-ObMZ9BdZCq5dyURu-KcmNmjhes8qlUGgJM20A1nYsIso2icXHsQZE5sLo5s5kT/s320/Queensland-Field-Work.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This is field work in Queensland.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS9zBONIG2TNGULtzDD6G-Tix9HXLWwal4cPPWQkzp0XcXXh_dLf8eTuU_OFT93DIxiCJIetc6I6Rl3uGwNWDRwjQv115PbgGQS1W8eJdfTrs4O2ylJJn7TYaW2E7YtW9EDn7bQAlv9YV_/s1600/Victoria-Field-Work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS9zBONIG2TNGULtzDD6G-Tix9HXLWwal4cPPWQkzp0XcXXh_dLf8eTuU_OFT93DIxiCJIetc6I6Rl3uGwNWDRwjQv115PbgGQS1W8eJdfTrs4O2ylJJn7TYaW2E7YtW9EDn7bQAlv9YV_/s320/Victoria-Field-Work.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>And this is field work in Victoria. Any questions?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i> (Queensland photo from: </i><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/28/2669412.htm"><i>http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/28/2669412.htm</i></a><i>)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">After several seasons of digging, solving of new problems that cropped up every day (sometimes solved by using heavy equipment that gulped lots of petrol), and large amounts of human labor, all fueled (no doubt) by many liters of beer, <a href="http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Dinosaurs+and+Ancient+Life+of+Queensland/Dinosaurs/Winton+dinosaurs"><b>three dinosaur species emerged from the Cretaceous past</b></a> of Queensland.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKm9W3EZeZqKuRObg2jPcRYbCaZd0mwdZPU7tudlfIedQbZt1JyTUopSPXS4Oe0WO1a8OiU02JJGAOrZVRHJpAQmeoWKRaYc8ir8hocj1N9jNggbT1rVGC00WOwW82t13FSLoSQeWPceXG/s1600/Queensland-Dinosaurs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKm9W3EZeZqKuRObg2jPcRYbCaZd0mwdZPU7tudlfIedQbZt1JyTUopSPXS4Oe0WO1a8OiU02JJGAOrZVRHJpAQmeoWKRaYc8ir8hocj1N9jNggbT1rVGC00WOwW82t13FSLoSQeWPceXG/s320/Queensland-Dinosaurs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Recreations of three new Cretaceous dinosaur species from the Cretaceous of Queensland, shown at the same scale:</i> Australovenator wintonensis <i>(top),</i> Wintonotitan wattsi <i>(middle),</i> and Diamantinasaurus maltidae <i>(bottom). Gorgeous artwork is from Travis Trischler. Bar scale = 1 meter (3.3 feet).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">These dinosaurs were given genus and species names that had local cultural significance, explained later: <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Wintonotitan-wattsi/"><b><i>Wintonotitan wattsi</i></b></a>, <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Diamantinasaurus/"><b><i>Diamantinasaurus matildae</i></b></a>, and <a href="http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Dinosaurs+and+Ancient+Life+of+Queensland/Dinosaurs/Winton+dinosaurs/Wintons+southern+hunter"><b><i>Australovenator wintonensis</i></b></a>. But they also were also given nicknames more amenable to the casual and easy-going nature of most Australians. (This is one of the main reasons why I keep going back there, although the great fossils may have something to do with it, too.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Let’s start with the large sauropod dinosaur <i>Wintonotitan wattsi</i> (= “titan of Winton + Watts,” namely Keith Watts, who first discovered its bones in 1974). This dinosaur hase been nicknamed “Clancy.” Why “Clancy”? It’s from the title of a poem (<a href="http://www.wallisandmatilda.com.au/clancy-of-the-overflow.shtml"><b><i>Clancy of the Overflow</i></b></a>) by Australian poet <a href="http://www.wallisandmatilda.com.au/banjo-paterson-biography.shtml"><b>Banjo Patterson</b></a>, an ode to the imagined advantages of life in the Outback versus the city. This “Clancy” had no such choice, and lived in a landscape filled with lush vegetation (ferns, gingkoes, and gymnosperms) that needed to recover and grow quickly enough to feed this 10-15 tonne <a href="http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/typesofdinosaurs/a/titanosaurs.htm"><b>titanosaur</b></a>. Although this sounds like a big animal – which it was, when compared to modern elephants – it was much smaller than other titatnosaurs that left <a href="http://svpow.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/how-big-were-the-biggest-sauropod-trackmakers/"><b>1-2 meter (3.3-6.6 feet) wide tracks</b></a> in Cretaceous rocks of Western Australia. Unfortunately, only the front limbs, ribs, and vertebrae have been found for this animal, with no skull (yet).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7RSWoq0N_8-57U3xqYsRK8LiKTCauV4fLPqurAAjnUUO5mufuYtwGNamGlRv5Vh4xBM0P6LeRLebXMVx_HkvdI1YRszNLKNYcrWKb_aWS95j5DKWotRfYL-bSBTW3rNI9Ids5hIfQN5A/s1600/Wintonotitan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="99" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7RSWoq0N_8-57U3xqYsRK8LiKTCauV4fLPqurAAjnUUO5mufuYtwGNamGlRv5Vh4xBM0P6LeRLebXMVx_HkvdI1YRszNLKNYcrWKb_aWS95j5DKWotRfYL-bSBTW3rNI9Ids5hIfQN5A/s320/Wintonotitan.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Clancy” (</i>Wintonotitan wattsi<i>) shown as a recreation (top) and with representative bones (bottom); figures by Travis Tischler, and from Hocknull et al. (2009): <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006190">PLoS One</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Diamantinasaurus matildae</i> (= “reptile of Diamantina + Matilda) is another large sauropod, and its nickname is “Matilda.” Its species name and popular moniker are, of course, inspired by Australia’s unofficial national anthem, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda"><b>Waltzing Matilda</b></a>, which was penned by famed poet and songwriter Banjo Patterson and performed first in Winton <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-iv.html"><b>at the site of the North Gregory Hotel</b></a>. Visiting American paleontologists have even been known to perform this song in public while staying at the North Gregory:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>What amazing piano skills – his fingers aren’t even touching the keys! Video footage by <a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><b>Ruth Schowalter</b></a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Matilda” is a smaller but more robust sauropod than “Clancy,” possessing stouter limb bones: in other words, less like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a7E6yyUNVo"><b>Kylie Minogue</b></a> and more like <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwqclvO7XbA">Dame Edna Everage</a>.</b> Although the artistic recreation shows it with dermal armor – seen in other titatnosaurs – these parts have not been found (yet). How it occupied the same area at the same time as “Clancy” is an interesting ecological problem, because they probably were not competing for the same vegetation and nesting spaces: evolution often solves such problems through a process called <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1488.abstract"><b>niche partitioning</b></a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiozc-L8J4WQ693ZTVhyphenhyphenyVS6NhMhtjYmyAsC8zXAyZX5qCNwcd76bQNp6MAuFIOpYHFBZAPtGzKubJ2U2FPTcdriMXTbR11Fz5zDqt9SEPjL6JrZWa5wonUkBlqoKmwUAwUcC4PfKrPE98V/s1600/Diamantinasaurus-Bones-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiozc-L8J4WQ693ZTVhyphenhyphenyVS6NhMhtjYmyAsC8zXAyZX5qCNwcd76bQNp6MAuFIOpYHFBZAPtGzKubJ2U2FPTcdriMXTbR11Fz5zDqt9SEPjL6JrZWa5wonUkBlqoKmwUAwUcC4PfKrPE98V/s320/Diamantinasaurus-Bones-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Matilda” (</i>Diamantianasaurus matlidae<i>), shown as a recreation (top) and with representative bones (bottom); figures by Travis Tischler, and from Hocknull et al. (2009): <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006190">PLoS One</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Those two sauropods alone as species new to science would have put central Queensland on the map for Southern Hemisphere dinosaurs, but there’s one more species announced at the same time that generated worldwide attention: <i>Australovenator wintonensis</i> (= “southern hunter of Winton”), nicknamed “Banjo,” after not the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo"><b>musical instrument</b></a>, but Banjo Patterson (mentioned earlier), who was nicknamed after the musical instrument).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFyUQiRZqJHMHDWKnKCHnTvV7zhcr9ao9lVDnnzO_5l9aWhoidW4bDombcuRIgVE2OvS_HN9jzXIVLTtZEOWU5aAuAkmbxbQZ5azxn62nkWK1V6bPu_IdyCKtwG5_V3ZdhcJ1-S-n56j8p/s1600/Australovenator-Mount-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFyUQiRZqJHMHDWKnKCHnTvV7zhcr9ao9lVDnnzO_5l9aWhoidW4bDombcuRIgVE2OvS_HN9jzXIVLTtZEOWU5aAuAkmbxbQZ5azxn62nkWK1V6bPu_IdyCKtwG5_V3ZdhcJ1-S-n56j8p/s320/Australovenator-Mount-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Remember me? And I’m still out of bubblegum, mate.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This was a lightly built (“lean and mean”) theropod that was a little smaller than <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/saurischia/carnosauria.html"><b><i>Allosaurus fragilis</i></b></a><b><i> </i></b>from the Late Jurassic of North America, but would have made the Late Cretaceous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor"><b><i>Velociraptor mongoliensis</i></b></a> look like a mere <a href="http://www.ausinternet.com/ettamogah/aussiewords.htm"><b>ankle biter</b></a> (not that you should ever disregard the <a href="http://www.velociraptors.info/"><b>threat of a <i>Velociraptor</i> attack</b></a>). Oh, so you need more information for this to be exciting for you? How about it was by far the most complete theropod dinosaur found in Australia? How about its well-developed grasping claws and arms, leaving no doubt about its predatory proclivities? How about its sharp, recurved and serrated teeth that show evidence of wear, meaning many critters got eaten by it?</span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibyBbIZ-PDIG7Xi69B6s7olC0Gf53nzaMH3C60qm9MnTxyQpwSa_eAMwdkH-XhIJCgpJWR-PrRjz_2bZss8p3aPCq7dfZF66cw7rNrDhuxYh4waBvLywt7IOC56yDnH6Y7_SJDnDaotN6t/s1600/Australovenator-Bones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibyBbIZ-PDIG7Xi69B6s7olC0Gf53nzaMH3C60qm9MnTxyQpwSa_eAMwdkH-XhIJCgpJWR-PrRjz_2bZss8p3aPCq7dfZF66cw7rNrDhuxYh4waBvLywt7IOC56yDnH6Y7_SJDnDaotN6t/s320/Australovenator-Bones.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Banjo”” (</i>Australovenator wintonensis<i>) shown as a recreation (top) and with representative bones (bottom); figures by Travis Tischler, and from Hocknull et al. (2009): <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006190">PLoS One</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, I could go on. So I will. “Banjo’s” bones were also found in the same oxbow-lake (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong"><b>billabong</b></a>) deposit as “Matilda,” which meant they very likely lived (and died) at about the same time. Although we don’t know whether “Banjo” preyed or fed on “Matilda” – no such toothmarks have been found (yet) – we can say that they lived near rivers in that area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Color-coded bone map showing where “Matilda’s” bones were with relation to “Banjo’s” when uncovered in the field. Map on display at the <b><a href="http://aaodl.com/">Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre</a></b>.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Artistic recreation of “Matilda” and “Banjo” together in that Cretaceous billabong, about 95 million years ago. On display at the <b><a href="http://aaodl.com/">Australian Age of Dinosaurs</a></b>, and the artist was Laurie Beirne.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So as mentioned here last week, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/australian-age-of-dinosaurs-is-now.html"><b>the age of Australian dinosaurs is now</b></a>, and no doubt many more new and important fossils will be found in Cretaceous rocks of Queensland and Victoria, rewriting the geological history books. So what could be next, and especially from the world of trace fossils? Time to put on my <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/+i_love_my_ichnologist_womens_plus_size_scoop_neck,156933070"><b>ichnologist</b></a> hat, and talk about that in next week’s entry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In parting, let’s listen to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Dusty"><b>Slim Dusty</b></a> sing that famous Banjo Patterson song again, but this time, think of how, instead</span><span style="font-size: large;"> of jumbucks, swagmen, and squatters,</span><span style="font-size: large;"> it conjures up dinosaurian ghosts of long-gone Cretaceous billabongs.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">What is happening right now in Australia with dinosaurs is akin to another time and place on the other side of the world: the 19<sup>th</sup> century and the American West.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> <a name='more'></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">But before getting into the present and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEgCkOfl4jE"><b>Land Down Under</b></a>, let’s talk about that previous time and other place. Fossils from Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks of the American West – and dinosaurs in particular – inspired a “dinosaur bone rush” (which involved far fewer people than a “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_rush"><b>gold rush</b></a>”) during the late 19<sup>th</sup> century, from about 1870 through 1895. Two American paleontologists were at the center of this quest into the dinosaurian West, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Drinker_Cope"><b>Edward D. Cope</b></a> (1840-1897) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh"><b>Othniel C. Marsh</b></a> (1831-1899).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcaUiyaUs_ptciJCilhoGO3TfGjcAsUfHzt03Ynq-Fk2e8z0BX32bia8AfJTGTrUuB-g6j5zeV-FiIFav2f5EBXCht17qKAT-W1_1JAfJmBjFoJma4dtLpXNtNn8AmjxygVPtk3lMNFbP/s1600/Cope-and-Marsh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcaUiyaUs_ptciJCilhoGO3TfGjcAsUfHzt03Ynq-Fk2e8z0BX32bia8AfJTGTrUuB-g6j5zeV-FiIFav2f5EBXCht17qKAT-W1_1JAfJmBjFoJma4dtLpXNtNn8AmjxygVPtk3lMNFbP/s320/Cope-and-Marsh.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Edward Cope (left) and O.C. Marsh (right), who discovered a large number of dinosaurs and other fossils during the late 19<sup>th</sup> century and definitely were not <b><a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bff">BFF</a>. </b>Image from <a href="http://wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia.org</a>.<b><br />
</b></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">For anyone who has read more than a few pages on the history of dinosaur studies in the U.S., these paleontologists’ names are synonymous with the phrases “bitter rivals,” “arch enemies,” “sworn mortal enemies,” and other such clichés normally reserved for <a href="http://comicbooks.about.com/od/characters/tp/archenemies.htm"><b>comic-book heroes and villains</b></a>. Yet despite all of the strife, these two paleontologists and their field assistants were responsible for discovering and describing many of the world’s most famous Jurassic dinosaurs, such as <i>Allosaurus</i>, <i>Apatosaurus</i>, <i>Camarasaurus</i>, <i>Diplodocus</i>, <i>Stegosaurus</i>, and <i>Triceratops</i>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQqRxD9v86BcWdPczZAODumcrDVdit8fZH7J0qIsEbHyNaeI42s7maxoaZZf8u7FlHznJUUN4MJbh2R81hX4YpsmY4C90KtrkHp2YhCDLMq8Pw4Y5aetTlh-KYEjyTOfew534QFDOz9I2/s1600/Camarasaurus-herbivore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQqRxD9v86BcWdPczZAODumcrDVdit8fZH7J0qIsEbHyNaeI42s7maxoaZZf8u7FlHznJUUN4MJbh2R81hX4YpsmY4C90KtrkHp2YhCDLMq8Pw4Y5aetTlh-KYEjyTOfew534QFDOz9I2/s320/Camarasaurus-herbivore.jpg" width="187" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A skeleton of </i>Camarasaurus<i> at the <a href="http://www.wyodino.org/home/"><b>Wyoming Dinosaur Center</b></a>. Edward D. Cope named that dinosaur.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeTcDFvfNFDattELdoeKa_fvJHLV3UrQPj-7Rg4rs38ZusG07h7XhEpD_F801JU7mdKoZmCWkSsydWfQjKLI12KkiabhTNplF5qyLvYBagInsQGynqN0kPQF2jW_KGOW6K6aTK5FkBNdo1/s1600/Allosaurus-predator.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeTcDFvfNFDattELdoeKa_fvJHLV3UrQPj-7Rg4rs38ZusG07h7XhEpD_F801JU7mdKoZmCWkSsydWfQjKLI12KkiabhTNplF5qyLvYBagInsQGynqN0kPQF2jW_KGOW6K6aTK5FkBNdo1/s320/Allosaurus-predator.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A skeleton of </i>Allosaurus<i> at the <a href="http://www.carnegiemnh.org/"><b>Carnegie Museum of Natural History</b></a>. Othniel C. Marsh named that dinosaur.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">This explosion of dinosaur discoveries was unprecedented then, and was only recently surpassed by a second <b>“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance">dinosaur renaissance</a>” </b>of the late 20<sup>th</sup> century. Several books and<b> </b>lots of other documents are out there<b> </b>already about <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars">Cope and Marsh’s “bone wars</a>,”</b> which involved back-stabbing, sabotaging, conniving, scheming, plotting, and otherwise unsavory activities. Thus I feel no need to go into the sordid details, and will instead advise the gentle reader to seek further information on this unseemly period of U.S. dinosaur paleontology.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">So what does all of this have to do with Australia? Well, I hereby propose that a paleontological awakening similar to what happened in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century of the American West is taking place right now in central Queensland, Australia. This dawning of paleontological knowledge has been dubbed “The Australian Age of Dinosaurs.” Some of this <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/discovering-australias-tyrannosaurus-rex.htm"><b>has already happened in Victoria, Australia</b></a>, but the largest and most complete dinosaur bones have been coming out of the ground near Winton, Queensland.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5kBWXDnPdRidJ26OuR3kN6ncsI82_O9bku-l1zFlwkWFqAGsN3oAL9NcN7xrvGd61xLFnIrU9BJcckAAQSzi3c6zLwFSkGzvixem9yVmdZnFYi3-jX6TrzEEdPy2TB_WVq3rGHDQQrGi/s1600/Australian-Age-of-Dinosaurs-Sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5kBWXDnPdRidJ26OuR3kN6ncsI82_O9bku-l1zFlwkWFqAGsN3oAL9NcN7xrvGd61xLFnIrU9BJcckAAQSzi3c6zLwFSkGzvixem9yVmdZnFYi3-jX6TrzEEdPy2TB_WVq3rGHDQQrGi/s320/Australian-Age-of-Dinosaurs-Sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>It’s a sign that the Australian Age of Dinosaurs is happening near Winton, Queensland.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_EgjZGulp_RvFoTJRk6Y7OQ7GSYmf2rQgODH6Te1lhbiOoC9adILaiw6Ke7wMTqimoz7XTtvhLomIgk1Rto00o8RKXSiaznZ4Wp8dtaixFsOBeoTJJTVhmbiF8cyh_BQb-L8D76NbRwtI/s1600/Dinosaur-sport-ute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_EgjZGulp_RvFoTJRk6Y7OQ7GSYmf2rQgODH6Te1lhbiOoC9adILaiw6Ke7wMTqimoz7XTtvhLomIgk1Rto00o8RKXSiaznZ4Wp8dtaixFsOBeoTJJTVhmbiF8cyh_BQb-L8D76NbRwtI/s320/Dinosaur-sport-ute.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>A cool-looking “sport ute” like this would never deceive you: the “Australian Age of Dinosaurs” is now and it’s near Winton, Queensland. Did I mention that it’s turbocharged?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">However, the biggest difference between the 19<sup>th</sup> century “bone rush” in North America and its 21<sup>st </sup></span><span style="font-size: large;">century antipodal version is that the current one is mercifully devoid of competition, infighting, vows of sweet revenge, and other such indecencies. (At least, as far as this naive Yank could tell.) Instead, a visiting paleontologist – let’s say for the sake of argument, me – is greeted by smiling faces, a hearty “G’Day!”, offers to have a “</span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.ausinternet.com/ettamogah/aussiewords.htm"><b>cuppa</b></a>,” and an eagerness to exchange paleontological discoveries and insights. Such are the advantages of <a href="http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-1-23/50826.html"><b>mateship</b></a>, of which I am a huge fan, and I try to pass on as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme"><b>meme</b></a> here in the U.S. whenever possible. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rUNL4KSSLnNuWBO8K6kBSgVgdHSXQLky82H-CkjK0JAHfDZWlkAF68oKQjJUTL-oxLK8A_wl_j4msDDXjSJ0i9BVIVhDQAawKtXCWczhhKykVZWNUMWQQMNhmRLdRavkfja4Si8kUYpf/s1600/Cooperation-in-paleontology.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rUNL4KSSLnNuWBO8K6kBSgVgdHSXQLky82H-CkjK0JAHfDZWlkAF68oKQjJUTL-oxLK8A_wl_j4msDDXjSJ0i9BVIVhDQAawKtXCWczhhKykVZWNUMWQQMNhmRLdRavkfja4Si8kUYpf/s320/Cooperation-in-paleontology.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>David Elliott (right) and some other bloke, having a cuppa while chatting about paleontology. Wait a minute - cooperation? What would Cope and Marsh have said about such a crazy concept? Photo by <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/">Ruth Schowalter</a>.</i></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW2qxNNE4UFGDpuntEgcOfiEycWJ9c5J2pHrhpRf9JqHuXLuRbptG3FGVJw8GRzSmItIoeJ0GH2USr3V6NHnzgJEGm98_w5a8urkBYGbe-SX1rXYwLGWozn9HyTs4pPS4E312Mq8WZxj_h/s1600/Oz-Bone-War.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW2qxNNE4UFGDpuntEgcOfiEycWJ9c5J2pHrhpRf9JqHuXLuRbptG3FGVJw8GRzSmItIoeJ0GH2USr3V6NHnzgJEGm98_w5a8urkBYGbe-SX1rXYwLGWozn9HyTs4pPS4E312Mq8WZxj_h/s320/Oz-Bone-War.jpg" width="289" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Two Australian paleontologists (George and Freddy) about to get into a knock-down, drag-out, full-fledged fight over a dinosaur fossil, a battle waged daily in modern-day Queensland, Australia.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The “Australian Age of Dinosaurs” more or less began in an oddly inauspicious way in 1999 with <a href="http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/recipients/?m=david-elliott-2010"><b>David Elliott</b></a>. At that time, David was not trained as a paleontologist, but made his living as an Australian sheep-herder, or “musterer” near Winton. (Sorry, “shepherd” sounds a bit too biblical to me, even if the dinosaurs were of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan"><b>leviathan</b></a> proportions.) David, while out one day mustering (as opposed to blustering), spotted a large fossil bone in the ground, and promptly said, “Bloody hell!” (Actually not, but that’s what I imagined him saying.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The bone was a sauropod femur, the first found by anyone in Queensland, and the dinosaur to which it belonged was later nicknamed “<a href="http://www.southbank.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Dinosaurs+and+Ancient+Life+of+Queensland/Dinosaurs/Winton+dinosaurs/Elliot+the+Sauropod"><b>Elliott</b></a>.” One bone was not enough, though, and soon David was joined by his wife <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaod/2852625022/"><b>Judy Elliott</b> </a>in searching for more bones, and their continued efforts uncovered many more. Judy also started the <a href="http://aaodl.com/news-whitley-award-09.php"><b>Australian Age of Dinosaurs Journal</b>,</a> a finely edited (and award-winning) magazine with many great stories about Australian fossils. The Elliotts' mustering then went from sheep to people, who they successfully herded into volunteering time and energy for recovering the bones. They also contacted paleontologists from the Queensland Museum and Univrsity of Queensland, who have been key in making sure the fossils are properly collected, prepared, described, stored, and displayed.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQwD2OvMwEPP-cRUbid4_ZyImeHNgnv0y1ItfwoYeyBJIg_u1Qi09UOPefNCx4tFT7Zk8NuHkvVIzJw6iSG1ktNmGmLwoqyhtjY52454KhpgYgXh0dV-i6lb7kQDas5CwPMYpYO3wSHrn/s1600/Sauropod-leg-bones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQwD2OvMwEPP-cRUbid4_ZyImeHNgnv0y1ItfwoYeyBJIg_u1Qi09UOPefNCx4tFT7Zk8NuHkvVIzJw6iSG1ktNmGmLwoqyhtjY52454KhpgYgXh0dV-i6lb7kQDas5CwPMYpYO3wSHrn/s320/Sauropod-leg-bones.jpg" width="235" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>When you find a sauropod dinosaur in Queensland, it’s a big fossil, and a big deal.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">A few dinosaurs had been found in the Cretaceous rocks of central Queensland before 1999, namely the beautifully preserved ankylosaur <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minmi_%28dinosaur%29"><b>Minmi</b></a> and the ornithopod <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/dinosaurs/fact_files/forest/muttaburra.htm"><b>Muttabarrasaurus</b></a> (see a <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b>previous entry</b></a> about the latter dinosaur). Moreover, the area near Winton was already known for its abundant and well-preserved Cretaceous marine reptiles (plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs), introduced to dedicated readers <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-ii.html"><b>several entries ago</b></a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Nevertheless, no sauropod or theropod dinosaurs were yet known, let alone bones or partial skeletons. The main dinosaur discovery in the area was of thousands of their tracks at <a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b>Lark Quarry</b></a>, about 100 km south of Winton, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-v.html"><b>mentioned briefly last week</b></a>. Hence these first few dinosaur bones were important finds, motivating people to find more. Which they did: heaps of them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">That’s all changed in just the last 10 years. Bones found since 1999 have resulted in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006190"><b>three Australian Cretaceous dinosaur species</b></a> new to science: <i>Wintonotitan</i>, <i>Diamantinasaurus</i>, and <i>Australovenator</i>. Before that, the Elliotts and many supporters gave birth to the <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b>Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre (AAOD)</b></a>, located on a gorgeous mesa (“jump-up”) outside of Winton, which now is the largest fossil preparatory lab in Australia, and possibly the Southern Hemisphere. This is the place where most of these newly found dinosaur bones are stored, prepared, and sometimes molded so that artificial casts can be made.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiTRLjIV0r49CSrQpRINiBetZPCdVEgjvfwhJ4oIAB_tz8cLcF4d8fbOVaR-rK1HKtbSxavui98XHjtRV3j7OKS0Ryy1o4ekGUkr3PcTlhCWIcR0HASyBYeVeQUZBrbx0tkTBtAWXf3hQ/s1600/Dinosaur-bone-mold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiTRLjIV0r49CSrQpRINiBetZPCdVEgjvfwhJ4oIAB_tz8cLcF4d8fbOVaR-rK1HKtbSxavui98XHjtRV3j7OKS0Ryy1o4ekGUkr3PcTlhCWIcR0HASyBYeVeQUZBrbx0tkTBtAWXf3hQ/s320/Dinosaur-bone-mold.jpg" width="297" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Behold, a dinosaur bone from Queensland and its molding! Presentation is expertly performed by Trish (“Tricky”) Sloan of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinyo-oL-RJFSwpXtc-S9zV04RARkIk2GxK41DZy92SNbxhFo20GsX0WZL0BmlzXa_cPd1VIxkvuIEF-ILP7wUPGmY7IseMihFg8mYD3VQmmG0VVidlJP8gOdVQhAwveaFHpAu5swwR8AtI/s1600/AAOD-Centre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinyo-oL-RJFSwpXtc-S9zV04RARkIk2GxK41DZy92SNbxhFo20GsX0WZL0BmlzXa_cPd1VIxkvuIEF-ILP7wUPGmY7IseMihFg8mYD3VQmmG0VVidlJP8gOdVQhAwveaFHpAu5swwR8AtI/s320/AAOD-Centre.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre, Phase I, in July 2010. Get ready, mates: it’s going to get a lot bigger in the upcoming years.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">More importantly for the ichnologist writing this blog, dig-site volunteers over the past few years had collected and catalogued suspected trace fossils, which I was eager to examine. Before Ruth and I had even left Victoria <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/07/end-of-great-cretaceous-walk-victoria.html"><b>toward the end of field work there</b></a>, I had written to David and Judy to tell them we would be in the Winton area. I further inquired if we could meet with them, and whether I could take a look at any trace fossils they might have. Fortunately, they did, and they had some very interesting trace fossils there, for sure.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHvPGU0NYQK8jGFNZYdtKXFa2xI-VPUhz95q6ibIXfj0q4ohRJD79x3fLBxs1gv8e_-NwPsMEs-sKrFwzHKpgtsLC3Q56YADPHhvkaiMS3WA-6wu_LOn_BV5rg9za2KTzCInTrsjVxkWY/s1600/Don%2527t-Drink-Beer-This-Way.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHvPGU0NYQK8jGFNZYdtKXFa2xI-VPUhz95q6ibIXfj0q4ohRJD79x3fLBxs1gv8e_-NwPsMEs-sKrFwzHKpgtsLC3Q56YADPHhvkaiMS3WA-6wu_LOn_BV5rg9za2KTzCInTrsjVxkWY/s320/Don%2527t-Drink-Beer-This-Way.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>From left to right, Judy Elliott, Trish (“Tricky”) Sloan, David Elliott, and me, as I told them about the time I got in a bar fight in Winton because I was holding a beer with my pinky finger extended. Photo by Ruth Schowalter.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhINWsJQ69P8eBhsj21SEDfkliufC8VUAWXDaG7rpev9Gb0_3KbEIvT_ccu2HIpQzNxER4woF62hZAQ-3MD-WsGsL7P8SqhhDVj1mCcNr9KNZ0kz0E-JRqLVkpDEqhNne9MIab49XsvyXcd/s1600/Trace-Fossils-Are-Cool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhINWsJQ69P8eBhsj21SEDfkliufC8VUAWXDaG7rpev9Gb0_3KbEIvT_ccu2HIpQzNxER4woF62hZAQ-3MD-WsGsL7P8SqhhDVj1mCcNr9KNZ0kz0E-JRqLVkpDEqhNne9MIab49XsvyXcd/s320/Trace-Fossils-Are-Cool.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>David Elliott (right) and Yours Truly (left) in one of the AAOD storage areas, taking a close look at a rock slab and its trace fossils. Wish I could tell you what they were, but then I’d have to bill you. Photo by Ruth Schowalter.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Suffice it to say that Ruth and I were thrilled to experience the AAOD Centre, meet the people who have made it become a reality (and so successful), and become a small part of its world. Now and the near future constitute very exciting times for dinosaur paleontology in this part of the world. Even better, the science that comes out of here will likely continue to lack the animosities of the 19<sup>th</sup> century American West, and cooperation will be the key to upcoming success.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, except for George, who took full advantage of some handy <i>Australovenator</i> killing claws to take out a rival Yank paleontologist. Either that, or he was already auditioning for <a href="http://au.tv.yahoo.com/beauty-and-the-geek-australia/geeks/article/-/article/8042181/george/"><b>Beauty and the Geek</b></a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOHEfhU2nYSuDSkwK3meKqTsGIrXyIi0Z6uOgaO5kUKSqxKqI3qY7K7k9Va_0mnEVrskjGYPGYh9cmBxSsz4lYx-Ls0riAjCp2uROjiAKkPPOt7RhE8PMMCPgJ0pIFRERixMed90dSIcs/s1600/Predator-and-the-geek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOHEfhU2nYSuDSkwK3meKqTsGIrXyIi0Z6uOgaO5kUKSqxKqI3qY7K7k9Va_0mnEVrskjGYPGYh9cmBxSsz4lYx-Ls0riAjCp2uROjiAKkPPOt7RhE8PMMCPgJ0pIFRERixMed90dSIcs/s320/Predator-and-the-geek.jpg" width="244" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Never turn your back on an Australian wielding an </i>Australovenator<i> forelimb, especially if you’ve told them about Cope and Marsh and they’re feeling a little inspired by that bit of American history. Photo by Ruth Schowalter.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> Say, that photo looks familiar. Where have I seen that pose before?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzHEMPqMw35XDijysh7bcJDlMP927fSGT7UhMXkLUQEvutGnQyOOLg8OK92hmATAzsB9urjyqU8oP59ho6_uHYY3b-06T2WAOwizqmyJBLpZIhALE09Jxa4tiRKz5fC3aJ7j3Wp8vDNVwF/s1600/wolverine-huge-jackman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzHEMPqMw35XDijysh7bcJDlMP927fSGT7UhMXkLUQEvutGnQyOOLg8OK92hmATAzsB9urjyqU8oP59ho6_uHYY3b-06T2WAOwizqmyJBLpZIhALE09Jxa4tiRKz5fC3aJ7j3Wp8vDNVwF/s320/wolverine-huge-jackman.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>This guy really needs to get his nails done. Photo from </i><a href="http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/whattheflick/tag/x-men/"><i>http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/whattheflick/tag/x-men/</i></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, for Ruth and me, this was a fantastic introduction to some of the exciting new developments in Australian paleontology happening in Queensland.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And with that in mind, we’ll take a closer look next week at the three dinosaur species new to science that came out of this area, and why you really need to know about them. Many thanks to David, Judy, Trish, Freddy, George, and everyone else for their wonderful hospitality during our visit to the AAOD Centre!</span></div>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-45539778291099053982010-11-28T07:32:00.000-05:002010-11-28T18:22:00.457-05:00Cretaceous Worlds of Queensland, Part V: Fossil Lives in Downtown Winton<span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span> <style>@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }@font-face { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.BalloonTextChar { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }div.Section1 { page: Se</style><span style="font-size:130%;">After spending a night in the paleontologically delightful town of <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part.html"><b style="">Hughenden</b></a>, my wife and paleo-companion <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ruth</span></a> and I were off to Winton, about 215 km to the southwest.<br /><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I had visited Winton once before in 2007, but for only a day and night. Nonetheless, the trip there was so memorable (and why is another story), I had vowed to come back, and was eager for Ruth to visit it with me. Based on my all-too-short foray, I reckoned its combination of paleontology, bush poetry, cowboy culture, ample beer, and welcoming folks would be a winning blend for both of us. So we were prepared to stay a while to better soak up the unique flavors of this place.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">We arrived in town early afternoon on Wednesday, June 30 2010, just after the start of the antipodal winter on a gorgeous blue-sky day, and promptly checked into the North Gregory Hotel. I had also stayed at the North Gregory during my previous trip, the main reason being that this was the site of where <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda"><b style="">Waltzing Matilda</b></a> was first performed in public, in 1895. Was this the original hotel, you ask? Well, no, and neither was its previous incarnation: three fires had wiped out three earlier hotels, including the original one. Hence the designation of this as the “site” where Waltzing Matilda was played. Place is important, as is memory.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX-VzW13NfVlQbIz_bwQH06YuvJb68GJHupQ-U81RevS4ihVX8GH4BwVL1uHh7vc89ZQQtNootUggE7EgsTIAbwUBAZhjwbSF3VDws9xeYRogY7Mf7rhoiAa3ZXmFk3_nRXbtLDdItsHmj/s1600/winton-north-gregory-hotel.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 173px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX-VzW13NfVlQbIz_bwQH06YuvJb68GJHupQ-U81RevS4ihVX8GH4BwVL1uHh7vc89ZQQtNootUggE7EgsTIAbwUBAZhjwbSF3VDws9xeYRogY7Mf7rhoiAa3ZXmFk3_nRXbtLDdItsHmj/s320/winton-north-gregory-hotel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544581179591292402" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">The North Gregory Hotel, site of classic songs, fires, beers, paleontology, and other essential facts of life in the outback of Queensland, Australia. Photo is from <a href="http://www.ritas-outback-guide.com/winton-australia.html"><b style="">Rita’s Outback Guide</b></a>.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">With only a few hours of sunlight left, we had a decision to make about our afternoon in Winton: Australian culture or Australian fossils? Our typical eclectic (or is it hedonistic?) attitude of “having our cake and eating it too” held sway, though, so we did both.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">First we walked across the street to the <a href="http://www.matildacentre.com.au/"><b style="">Waltzing Matilda Centre</b></a>, which claims that it is “the only centre devoted to a single song.” (I have little doubt that this assertion is correct, so you should likewise feel no urge to use <b style=""><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MunMCO3uNdA">“The Google” on “the Internets”</a> </b>to find out whether it is true.). The display there does indeed supply a thorough history of the composer <a href="http://www.wallisandmatilda.com.au/banjo-paterson-biography.shtml"><b style="">Banjo Patterson</b></a> and how Australia’s most famous song originated (like many songwriters, he was trying to impress a <a href="http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html"><b style="">sheila</b></a>). But Ruth was most impressed with a separate art gallery in the centre, which featured <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/2010/11/images-that-emerge-from-soul-winton.html"><b style="">Australian-themed art from local artists</b></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The beauty of a small town like Winton is that we just had to walk back across the street to sate our thirst for paleontological knowledge. (Also beautiful was that beer could be had on both sides of the street.) The historic Corfield and Fitzmaurice Building, which used to be the town’s general store, is where you go to see fossils in downtown Winton. To see the largest dinosaur bones in Australia, which are coming out of the ground near there, you have to drive a little ways (about 15 km) east of town to the <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b style="">Australian Age of Dinosaurs</b></a>, and to see a world-class dinosaur tracksite (<a href="http://www.dinosaurtrackways.com.au/"><b style="">Lark Quarry</b></a>), you have to drive a lot more (about 100 km) to the south of Winton. (Do you think that’s enough foreshadowing of the next two blog entries?)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtqQn4hrwD_IpfB8WeeSPq8-CuzLekPLrq82tOd9T3hnoo06DhfsNwzlIQTjBy2ZHQDrPwQV_TaiC8DwWY6Y40TISizuTeIamcqGVSAvhUrb-RwpKr19zINokAozxIRsbECJwEpyr_pt7/s1600/TracksGalore.jpg"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5OanKpM2G5C24IPLbOjYO-lSFtrQIyrIrbtb1cCL0fu7-JMRWbqS74l7gzzbKHxrM-B-XfIMeIvvJANZEf-t_X_5LsjKbeMYXivA405gfsjK0js9W-J5GqOTQWeu_AFop5or9eLBFdtI/s1600/Dinosaurs%2526Hotel%2526Bar.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5OanKpM2G5C24IPLbOjYO-lSFtrQIyrIrbtb1cCL0fu7-JMRWbqS74l7gzzbKHxrM-B-XfIMeIvvJANZEf-t_X_5LsjKbeMYXivA405gfsjK0js9W-J5GqOTQWeu_AFop5or9eLBFdtI/s320/Dinosaurs%2526Hotel%2526Bar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544581716704407634" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Dinosaurs, the North Gregory Hotel, and a bar! Winton has it all, including an abundant supply of <a href="http://www.xxxx.com.au/beer-info/"><b style="">XXXX</b></a>. No, it’s not what you might first think, but as the Australian joke goes, “It’s how you spell ‘beer’ in Queensland.”</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Despite what looked like a small place from the outside, we were impressed with what awaited us inside, all for just a small entrance fee: a nice collection of local fossils (many Cretaceous), and a locally produced diorama that recreated an event from the Cretaceous Period, 95 million years previously, recorded in the aforementioned dinosaur tracksite south of town.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnicdBhl0U5NdiK4-cSFAi0qnXgZBy_jN3XJ1nY4pXYCIhQBfLVNiuEygZVDdw3Fzgai_abVr9Lg35IIswRY6tV_37_ObBogYlnh-KQBTHx_tI7HVQ1e36JykpwfCjHuzyDDHTqvPRKkl/s1600/RunAway.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 203px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnicdBhl0U5NdiK4-cSFAi0qnXgZBy_jN3XJ1nY4pXYCIhQBfLVNiuEygZVDdw3Fzgai_abVr9Lg35IIswRY6tV_37_ObBogYlnh-KQBTHx_tI7HVQ1e36JykpwfCjHuzyDDHTqvPRKkl/s320/RunAway.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544582092363716274" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">“Excuse me! Pardon me! We really must be going!” There’s something about a large theropod walking through your neighborhood that invokes a bit of anxiety in a wee dinosaur.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">The diorama in the Corfield and Fiztmaurice Building represents a labor of love, depicting in dramatic detail the interpreted scenario of the Lark Quarry tracksite. In it, the artisans reproduced the probable environment (a muddy lakeshore), a few representative dinosaurs that made the tracks – including one very imposing (and rather portly) theropod – and a bunch of dinosaur tracks, looking as if they were made yesterday, when actually they were made sometime in the past few years.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtqQn4hrwD_IpfB8WeeSPq8-CuzLekPLrq82tOd9T3hnoo06DhfsNwzlIQTjBy2ZHQDrPwQV_TaiC8DwWY6Y40TISizuTeIamcqGVSAvhUrb-RwpKr19zINokAozxIRsbECJwEpyr_pt7/s1600/TracksGalore.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtqQn4hrwD_IpfB8WeeSPq8-CuzLekPLrq82tOd9T3hnoo06DhfsNwzlIQTjBy2ZHQDrPwQV_TaiC8DwWY6Y40TISizuTeIamcqGVSAvhUrb-RwpKr19zINokAozxIRsbECJwEpyr_pt7/s320/TracksGalore.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544582217044717890" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Dinosaur tracks, recreated in downtown Winton and representing tracks from a large number of small dinosaurs, with the real thing (a dinosaur tracksite) about 100 km south of town. I wonder why most of those tracks are heading in the same direction?</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">The diorama even include a bit of speculation (as far as I know) that one of the small ornithopod-dinosaur trackmakers slipped and fell into the mud, leaving it vulnerable to victimization, whereupon the large theropod set upon it in a most rapacious way. In other words, it got eaten.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQutO5oR69GiLjdg9sSwZJR91l6iXDPVBUqwODWnH5_hVBDmqmSPrMwStKHKMsOCduAx52C2QmCh67eU-wCQpf9p9kjFVoFlcxwIDJxrrClvPLB44h3ATD7_gFU2QqbTsAsyXjK9l9OUCB/s1600/NoMateship.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQutO5oR69GiLjdg9sSwZJR91l6iXDPVBUqwODWnH5_hVBDmqmSPrMwStKHKMsOCduAx52C2QmCh67eU-wCQpf9p9kjFVoFlcxwIDJxrrClvPLB44h3ATD7_gFU2QqbTsAsyXjK9l9OUCB/s320/NoMateship.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544581938893625778" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Bloody hell – all me mates left me here in the mud for that theropod! (Too late, this small ornithopod discovers that there’s no <a href="http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-1-23/50826.html"><b style="">mateship</b></a> in the Cretaceous.)</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Other than the diorama were fossils, and perhaps the most impressive is a sauropod femur in a display case, which I recall belongs to the sauropod dinosaur nicknamed <a href="http://www.southbank.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Dinosaurs+and+Ancient+Life+of+Queensland/Dinosaurs/Winton+dinosaurs/Elliot+the+Sauropod"><span style="font-weight: bold;">“Elliott.”</span></a> This prodigious bone was set alongside the femur of an adult bull (<i style="">Bos taurus</i>, male version). Considering the cowboy culture of the area, this made for a brilliant contrast, easily understood by nearly any visitor educated in bovine anatomy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XSw4i6240XkLdYdIwPuG2xh2xhH42clm0sPakSRS-ZTDv1S934tqgSoXTg4FAKwcC0NID3f4e0Vw_iv0kEA7GNFK59p_a25LxkGb8uf2xd-MEiEOXC65IlmFrfl0CMW2VL012fgns8I8/s1600/LittleFemur.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XSw4i6240XkLdYdIwPuG2xh2xhH42clm0sPakSRS-ZTDv1S934tqgSoXTg4FAKwcC0NID3f4e0Vw_iv0kEA7GNFK59p_a25LxkGb8uf2xd-MEiEOXC65IlmFrfl0CMW2VL012fgns8I8/s320/LittleFemur.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544581868368947314" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">That’s not a femur.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjobBiTQp4c7uHcu2kAo62yukMr_Q_z34J-d_MwrR2VhzlBSTjIbrhe0w6FukHs2wdfxyAhTtk1iOuPy8A_s-rI0eWuJuKeeb6nyLUdg7995UO-ddiokADZay-BVRlNr17P5QME-WUMv8Ys/s1600/BigFemur.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 123px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjobBiTQp4c7uHcu2kAo62yukMr_Q_z34J-d_MwrR2VhzlBSTjIbrhe0w6FukHs2wdfxyAhTtk1iOuPy8A_s-rI0eWuJuKeeb6nyLUdg7995UO-ddiokADZay-BVRlNr17P5QME-WUMv8Ys/s320/BigFemur.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544581660393690434" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01NHcTM5IA4"><b style="">That’s<i style=""> a femur!</i></b></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01NHcTM5IA4"><b style=""><i style=""><br /></i></b></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">But there was much more than dinosaurs here for a paleo-enthusiast to marvel. How about fossil plants? There were some of those, and as a great two-for-one special that pleased this ichnologist very much, a Cretaceous fossil leaf had a leaf mine preserved in it, where a larval insect burrowed below the leaf cuticle as it chowed down on some yummy <a href="http://www.chemical-ecology.net/insects/leafmine.htm"><b style="">mesoglea</b></a>. How cool is that? These sorts of trace fossils can lend to insights about the original ecosystems in which the dinosaurs lived.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFXCuODnh_35sFt1rT3NwJ2XhTBdR38js0ypgn2ej0VDzFdn4NUAkdFZiSOpFKmsSnqPbouaH61IrlmN4B344Xquh7vuXiLZz0tnMRtdpMUv6gDtStFJu05qe4rNMoxfClvVNY7nkcVDz/s1600/LeafMine.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 311px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFXCuODnh_35sFt1rT3NwJ2XhTBdR38js0ypgn2ej0VDzFdn4NUAkdFZiSOpFKmsSnqPbouaH61IrlmN4B344Xquh7vuXiLZz0tnMRtdpMUv6gDtStFJu05qe4rNMoxfClvVNY7nkcVDz/s320/LeafMine.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544581793101002914" border="0" /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">It’s a body fossil (a deciduous-tree leaf) and it’s a trace fossil (the leaf mine in the leaf, indicated by the arrow), coming from Cretaceous rocks of Queensland.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Some trace fossils on display that were not from the Cretaceous, but much more recent (I suspected Pleistocene) were labeled as “Sea Wasp Eggs. Leftopius duponti. Loc. S. Aus.” Yet they looked very much like some insect trace fossils I had seen from Argentina, like beetle pupal cases. So I took this picture and looked up the name later (yes, using “The Google” on “The Internets”), and was gratified to see that <a href="http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content%7Edb=all%7Econtent=a795061070%7Efrm=abslink"><b style="">they were indeed pupal chambers</b></a>, they are interpreted as the works of the Pleistocene weevil <i style="">Leptopius duponti</i>, and they have been reported from South Australia and northern Queensland.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUm-Eqs9K0qi5itbTAfPz_psAAiCDgwrC7RifLSMRzlsHHmaZqv6pnIvfIp2T38LY4yF49DziTWv9J13moENPRUpX3KHeFPqMSolcZjjmGmBEii6P-3y09_XWgJB8WElhDaK9DqLvagAiB/s1600/Leftopius.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUm-Eqs9K0qi5itbTAfPz_psAAiCDgwrC7RifLSMRzlsHHmaZqv6pnIvfIp2T38LY4yF49DziTWv9J13moENPRUpX3KHeFPqMSolcZjjmGmBEii6P-3y09_XWgJB8WElhDaK9DqLvagAiB/s320/Leftopius.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544586696514087426" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">“Sea-wasp nests”? No on all of those words, but they’re still very interesting trace fossils. These were made by Pleistocene weevil larvae, and found in South Australia and northern Queensland.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">And even though dinosaurs were the paleontological stars of this exhibit, I was pleasantly surprised to see the skeleton of an old (but not quite a fossil) <a href="http://www.australianfauna.com/northernhairynosedwombat.php"><b style="">northern hairy nosed wombat</b></a> (<i style="">Lasiorhinus krefftii</i>) on display, nicknamed the “Winton Wombat.” This wombat became famous within the Australian paleontological community when its bones were found in between some sauropod dinosaur bones at a dinosaur dig site near Winton.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXR0RoG_f4EU1UVX9jp9FCn3zdcRunekgia4NT6k0rA8oomReCg7u_LEP72mLTf73PtcxxnuxL_15HB88S7ePWKiVOx1BsrVQP54PMeQs9gL8cgrhwB_jjPg6nz_jyx6NP4_Fv0UCNJE5R/s1600/WintonWombat.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXR0RoG_f4EU1UVX9jp9FCn3zdcRunekgia4NT6k0rA8oomReCg7u_LEP72mLTf73PtcxxnuxL_15HB88S7ePWKiVOx1BsrVQP54PMeQs9gL8cgrhwB_jjPg6nz_jyx6NP4_Fv0UCNJE5R/s320/WintonWombat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544582328078562994" border="0" /></a><i style="">The “Winton Wombat,” a northern hairy nosed wombat that burrowed down next to some dinosaur bones and died in its burrow just so it would confuse some paleontologists a few thousand years later. Cheeky bugger.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Was this a creationist dream come true, where modern mammals and dinosaurs lived at the same time, then were mixed together by a Noachian flood just before burial? Well, as we like to say in the southern U.S.: “Not just no, but <i style="">hell</i> no!” Here’s a really simple explanation, in three parts: (1) wombats are very good at burrowing; (2) this wombat burrowed down to the level of some 95-million-year-old dinosaur bones near the surface (which, as a matter of fact, is where they are found today); and (3) the wombat died in its burrow. Or, <a href="http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/pages/gallery.php"><b style="">a miracle occurred</b></a>. Your pick.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">So what was next on our quest for furthering our paleontological education in the Winton area? How about a visit to the most exciting recent development in Queensland paleontology, the <a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b style="">Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre</b></a>? See you there next week!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNJVa8yUI8Jhr8bgbHBuoeyLqPKVOjSgJj9BPfJU5JwuVrd9nbWvA9CkYCLsd_M_2ekxyhEpUwdRPjebUpUVqYNffy35RelOoSA33LGFwHhqVLXTZcroSS-vmjn3Dx0WluP0OOirawLA7H/s1600/OzDinoTrailSign.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 173px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNJVa8yUI8Jhr8bgbHBuoeyLqPKVOjSgJj9BPfJU5JwuVrd9nbWvA9CkYCLsd_M_2ekxyhEpUwdRPjebUpUVqYNffy35RelOoSA33LGFwHhqVLXTZcroSS-vmjn3Dx0WluP0OOirawLA7H/s320/OzDinoTrailSign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544582024724730642" border="0" /></a><i style="">The theropod track on the sign would not lie: when you’re in Winton, you’re on Australia’s Dinosaur Trail.</i></span></p>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-85507614521256984592010-11-20T13:32:00.000-05:002010-11-20T14:14:58.038-05:00Cretaceous Worlds of Queensland, Part IV: Ages of Winton<span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span> <style>@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }@font-face { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.BalloonTextChar { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }div.Section1 { page: </style><span style="font-size:130%;">In the heart of central Queensland is the town of <a href="http://www.experiencewinton.com.au/"><b style="">Winton</b></a>, a place with a long human history, and a even longer geologic history, the latter more so by about three orders of magnitude. So in chronological order and applying those orders of magnitude (base 10), here’s a summary of the history of that area and who was living there.<br /><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">100 million years ago</b>: Dinosaurs, such as <b style=""><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0006190"><i style="">Australovenator</i>, <i style="">Diamantinasaurus</i>,<i style=""> </i>and</a><i style=""> Wintonotitan</i></b>, some crocodiles, insects, and a good number of land plants were thriving in environments on and around rivers, lakes, and the coast of the Cretaceous seaway. Although the climate was fairly warm, the southern part of Australia was only just then waving goodbye to Antarctica, the start of a northward drifting of Australia that brought it ever so closer to the equator.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvFyKQz6pt8Xn_BlcY96HGqQq6Jk83BOyPlPeToqT7LH6cbs7-5huVb-aDlg4BpjjeHo-saDNK2oXYNlVv0R7IBut59l8vZNZDjkTSpGeJjl7n8Uf6qqYEfBWnMZ4-UCA-KnRFwlQNH2o/s1600/LarkQuarry-SaladDays.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvFyKQz6pt8Xn_BlcY96HGqQq6Jk83BOyPlPeToqT7LH6cbs7-5huVb-aDlg4BpjjeHo-saDNK2oXYNlVv0R7IBut59l8vZNZDjkTSpGeJjl7n8Uf6qqYEfBWnMZ4-UCA-KnRFwlQNH2o/s320/LarkQuarry-SaladDays.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541702932454847458" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Depiction of a Cretaceous scene, in which small ornithopod (left) and theropod (right) dinosaurs live together in idyllic harmony on a lakeshore, surrounded by lush semi-tropical vegetation. But note the foreshadowing of impending doom (is there any other kind?), hinted by one ornithopod peeking nervously over its shoulder. What could be warranting its attention? Oh, and if you want to see this artwork in person, just go to Lark Quarry, otherwise known as <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/dinosaur-stampede/information.html"><b style="">Dinosaur Stampede National Monument</b></a> (no, I am not making that up), about 100 km south of Winton, Queensland.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">10 million years ago</b>: We know the Cretaceous seaway was long gone. We also know that the last of the non-avian dinosaurs had been gone from Australia (and the rest of the earth, for that matter) for about 55 million years, but these were succeeded by birds, which Australia had in abundance then and now. <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/marsupial/marsupial.html"><b style="">Marsupial</b></a> and <a href="http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=4430"><b style="">monotreme</b></a> mammals were evolving into lineages somewhat familiar to us today, and some of the biotic exchange with the now-nearby New Guinea was starting to take place. The <a href="http://www.riversleigh.com/"><b style="">Riversleigh fossil assemblage</b></a>, several hundred kilometers to the northwest of Winton, provides reasonable precursors of what might have been living in central Queensland about 15 to 25 million years ago.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82y6w7dQTA0YYuoAoZCzxY0QoIz4B0bB43EEWbE6fDVl60GhQ61qhCEWtbEjYvflXn5iDxFsK-BBbZP8kLBW8c1OhU1SmYQNbtB7J8HAUcPMC92oLgVQ4evzfXCNK0jX4lSwBCTnVzCxd/s1600/Thylacoleo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 262px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82y6w7dQTA0YYuoAoZCzxY0QoIz4B0bB43EEWbE6fDVl60GhQ61qhCEWtbEjYvflXn5iDxFsK-BBbZP8kLBW8c1OhU1SmYQNbtB7J8HAUcPMC92oLgVQ4evzfXCNK0jX4lSwBCTnVzCxd/s320/Thylacoleo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541703421888564866" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Reconstruction of the so-called “marsupial lion” </i>Thylacoleo carnifex<i style="">, stalking some prey (perhaps you, although your species had not yet evolved to be stalked). It or its close relatives lived starting 25 million years ago in this area and persisted until the Pleistocene Epoch, less than a million years ago. As you can see from the diorama, sightings of this extinct animal only happen once in a blue moon. Display is at the <a href="http://www.outbackatisa.com.au/Attractions/Riversleigh-Fossil-Centre.aspx"><b style="">Riversleigh Fossil Centre</b></a> in Mt. Isa, Queensland.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">1 million years ago</b>: I know very little about this part of Australian history, other than land plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates were still evolving, diversifying, and occasionally going extinct with changing environments. Australia had continued drifting to the north, and was not too far off where it is today.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">100,000 years ago</b>: The landscape would have looked somewhat similar to those today, with grasslands dotted by eucalyptus, lots of marsupials – some rather large, such as the giant kangaroo <a href="http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/parks/sanpr/naracoortecaves/ea10.html"><b style=""><i style="">Procoptodon goliah</i></b></a> and the whopping wombat <span style=""> </span><a href="http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/parks/sanpr/naracoortecaves/ea11.html"><b style=""><i style="">Diprotodon australis</i></b></a> – a few reptiles – also large, such as the komodo-dragon-on-steroids <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/learning-federation/video-temp/dinosaur-walk/inostrancevia-alexandri---a-mammal-like-reptile13/"><b style=""><i style="">Varanus priscus</i></b></a> – and flightless birds – yes, these were rather non-small as well, such as <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Dromornis-stirtoni"><b style=""><i style="">Dromornis stirtoni</i></b></a><i style=""> </i>and<i style=""> <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Genyornis-newtoni"><b style="">Genyornis newtoni</b></a></i>. No people yet, but they would be there soon enough.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4en88e-G4v93qMDWjcPlmA2J1z2970GYAnzwf_8zihd6nJ8C0kry_g8RVMReXi9qHcBwKWXdB4_votB0GHBGrp_wnGj8BINA6lNPkHMpR2H4UJSbKkfepBI5fdUlngY8_yxXob_cAj46/s1600/Diprotodon.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 178px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4en88e-G4v93qMDWjcPlmA2J1z2970GYAnzwf_8zihd6nJ8C0kry_g8RVMReXi9qHcBwKWXdB4_votB0GHBGrp_wnGj8BINA6lNPkHMpR2H4UJSbKkfepBI5fdUlngY8_yxXob_cAj46/s320/Diprotodon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541704562300524802" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">The biggest marsupial that ever lived, </i>Diprotodon australis<i style="">, and it lived in Australia. Specimen is in the <a href="http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/page/default.asp?site=1"><b style="">South Australian Museum</b></a>, Adelaide, South Australia.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfxZIBZ_dBbjFEV7FdIFDEgVqgA1SJklDIAyIAWBalK0SXV_I39eNTQdkBybyyfDLs2KBmbsXa-rt-pCK45f6jEf6VkgXwZZt-jaNA_c2WlteFmewC_Cj4D5kbLSS3tntCV3F8YAFybKYg/s1600/VaranusBiggus.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfxZIBZ_dBbjFEV7FdIFDEgVqgA1SJklDIAyIAWBalK0SXV_I39eNTQdkBybyyfDLs2KBmbsXa-rt-pCK45f6jEf6VkgXwZZt-jaNA_c2WlteFmewC_Cj4D5kbLSS3tntCV3F8YAFybKYg/s320/VaranusBiggus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541704886157586882" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">The biggest land lizard that ever lived, </i>Varanus priscus<i style="">, and it lived in Australia. Specimen is in the <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/"><b style="">Museum of Victoria</b></a>, Melbourne, Victoria.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ETNJpPPCrBnDy3Iurhz3dtE-36Wi9ucezuwk5QS5g0-lOGy8R9AES8O2-5qRbm3YIa6UW4ZBDMbpWP-eSq7zkHPaOI1y2hunyggFmLgzEPdTbZCwgwNCM1ZPAwmQQ7K-0xkNEyjtKeSZ/s1600/Dromornis.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 251px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ETNJpPPCrBnDy3Iurhz3dtE-36Wi9ucezuwk5QS5g0-lOGy8R9AES8O2-5qRbm3YIa6UW4ZBDMbpWP-eSq7zkHPaOI1y2hunyggFmLgzEPdTbZCwgwNCM1ZPAwmQQ7K-0xkNEyjtKeSZ/s320/Dromornis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541705155388484338" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">The biggest land bird that ever lived, </i>Dromornis stirtoni<i style="">, and it (you guessed it) lived in Australia. See what happens when evolution selects against those pesky placental mammals? Specimen is in the <a href="http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/arts/ascp/mca.html"><b style="">Museum of Central Australia</b></a>, Alice Springs, Northern Territory.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">10,000 years ago</b>: The ancestors of the <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians">indigenous people</a> in this region had already been living here for at least 30,000 years (probably longer). All of those big land vertebrates mentioned earlier? Gone. Which fits a pattern in late Pleistocene-Holocene biogeography: <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5732/287.abstract"><b style="">whenever people show up, big animals tend to go extinct</b></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">1,000 years ago</b>: Yes, the ancestors of the indigenous people were still living here. Seems they had figured out how to live with the land, despite losing some ecologically important animal resources several tens of thousands of years earlier. The landscape looked very much like that of today, but had been shaped massively by fire. This was partially from pre-human fires, then accelerated by people, who became experts at fire ecology. And however hard it might be to believe for anyone who travels in Australia today, not a single hoofed mammal was anywhere on the continent, let alone in this area.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">• <b style="">100 years ago</b>: The descendants of the indigenous people were mostly gone (that’s a long, sad story), and descendants of European people (mostly from the British Isles) had established the town of Winton 35 years earlier, in 1875. Hoofed animals, imported from Europe, were now ubiquitous, as were (unfortunately) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia"><b style="">rabbits</b></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">And now? Winton does not live in the past, but it certainly lives off the past. Prominent among the points of local pride is a focus on what lived in the area 100 million years ago. The first clue of this, and that something is a little different about Winton and a few other central Queensland towns, is visible as you drive into town and take a look at its rubbish bins:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiz-Lhbu-tkOTFwd1T-Emk4oDPaZrZhcKp4MIAvBnUkL_0ynM4O2woyhef71dY_zXfzmRdPGLq2YKO5sqGCmxQyNW9AmqWzFA1miXamSBAnbkWfd7VS_7puUJykHTdjYimB3xUzlow7Ls/s1600/DinoBinLaden.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 282px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiz-Lhbu-tkOTFwd1T-Emk4oDPaZrZhcKp4MIAvBnUkL_0ynM4O2woyhef71dY_zXfzmRdPGLq2YKO5sqGCmxQyNW9AmqWzFA1miXamSBAnbkWfd7VS_7puUJykHTdjYimB3xUzlow7Ls/s320/DinoBinLaden.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541705792430802994" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Winton puts its best foot forward when it comes to taking care of your rubbish. A theropod foot, that is. Gee, I wonder what kind of tracks those would make?<br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Before arriving, you also see road signs hinting of Winton’s connection to the Cretaceous, including those that tell you you’re on the <a href="http://www.australiasdinosaurtrail.com/"><b style="">Dinosaur Trail</b></a> of Australia.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekg3X_gJYoTXUPjqwlTS60gJwISHw7AqNJuyzEt5mUmqoFdD0rJdUkO_GupXrYS5iL_WqolVlITcqYGM23bwEgmkddCKb284WBN7VF_unrfQjauFt0AKjxWb1si5xKekEVStwpgwkAu4R/s1600/ItsADino-Sign.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekg3X_gJYoTXUPjqwlTS60gJwISHw7AqNJuyzEt5mUmqoFdD0rJdUkO_GupXrYS5iL_WqolVlITcqYGM23bwEgmkddCKb284WBN7VF_unrfQjauFt0AKjxWb1si5xKekEVStwpgwkAu4R/s320/ItsADino-Sign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541706078887769442" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">It’s a sign that people are obsessed with the past here in Winton. And, from this paleontologist's perspective, that’s a good thing.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">This is a place that loves dinosaurs and everything about the geologic past. Sure, there’s some attention paid to the fact that Winton is the birthplace of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.qantas.com.au/"><b style="">Qantas Airlines</b></a> (where “QANTAS” = “Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Service”) and, more importantly, the birthplace of the unofficial “national anthem” of Australia, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda"><b style="">Waltzing Matilda</b></a>, penned by famed “bush poet” and songwriter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Paterson"><b style="">Banjo Patterson</b></a> and performed there in 1895. Ever since, Winton has attracted numerous <a href="http://www.opalhut.com.au/ausopals/bush.htm"><b style="">bush poets</b></a>, and has hosted bush poetry festivals and championships.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So before we get to talking about the dinosaurs that used to live in the vicinity of Winton, let’s listen to that beautiful and haunting song, with its lyrics about a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong"><b style="">billabong</b></a> and the spirits that still dwell in this land, dinosaurian and otherwise, evoking a history we try to imagine but can never relive.</span></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CwvazMc5EfE?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CwvazMc5EfE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CXasKlTsjf8?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CXasKlTsjf8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br /><object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VQ-0QdC1gCM?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VQ-0QdC1gCM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="640"></embed></object><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Three renditions of </i>Waltzing Matilda, <i style="">which was born in Winton. The first is a classic, performed by the most famous of Australian country singers<b style="">, </b></i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Dusty"><b style="">Slim Dusty</b></a><i style="">. The second is extraordinarily beautiful, played by Dutch violinist </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Rieu"><b style="">André Rieu</b></a><i style=""> in Australia. The third is, well, different from the other two. Nonetheless, this last one was “played” in the North Gregory Hotel, site of the song’s original performance 115 years previously, and the performer was aided considerably through the use of a player piano.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Next week, we will look at some of the fossils that can be viewed in downtown Winton, giving a taste of the paleo-treats that await us in upcoming weeks.</span></p>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-4415684799673346702010-11-13T21:49:00.000-05:002010-11-14T08:18:47.980-05:00Cretaceous Worlds of Queensland, Part III: Hughenden, on the Edge of the Cretaceous<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }@font-face { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }h1 { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 24pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.Heading1Char { font-family: Times; font-weight: bold; }span.BalloonTextChar { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }span.FooterChar { }div.Section1 { page: Section1</style><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br />If you want to visit the former locations of the Cretaceous seaway that cut through Australia 100 million years ago, as well as its coastal and landward environs, the easiest way to do this is to fly into Townsville, Queensland (mentioned in <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/cretaceous-worlds-of-queensland-part-ii.html"><b style="">last week’s entry</b></a>), rent a car, and drive west.</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">This is the point in the narrative where someone might invoke the cliché, “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027684/"><b style="">Go west, young man</b></a>,” but I do not qualify as “young” any more, plus my wife - <a href="http://coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com/2010/07/fossil-art-along-australias-dinosaur.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ruth</span></a> – was with me on this journey. Thus inclusivity, as oppposed to ageism and sexism, negate my saying that phrase. Regardless, I try to avoid clichés like the plague, but your mileage may vary, depending on how you roll the dice. (After all, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiwbZfxIp0M"><b style="">no matter where you go, there you are</b></a>.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7tYYdRhik2o44SUEiOqho0N0nlQS6zUYwxzFNzsaIsGoN8-CbA0w62se4AQjzwU6gbfQGN39SIZ_Osgsk4im-Bp1XzcjjF96MF1Ao26EO7RZGz9xN_a9IrMxAGjE6KW4PQWH04uqSKEIk/s1600/CretaceousQueensland-Closeup.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 306px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7tYYdRhik2o44SUEiOqho0N0nlQS6zUYwxzFNzsaIsGoN8-CbA0w62se4AQjzwU6gbfQGN39SIZ_Osgsk4im-Bp1XzcjjF96MF1Ao26EO7RZGz9xN_a9IrMxAGjE6KW4PQWH04uqSKEIk/s320/CretaceousQueensland-Closeup.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539232801513519634" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">A paleogeographic map of northeastern Queensland 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period; map from the <a href="http://www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au/"><b style="">Museum of Tropical Queensland</b></a>. Arrow points to Hughenden, the subject of this post. Notice how that area was coastal then (the white part represents the inland sea). Also note the inconvenient lack of roads during the Cretaceous.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Renting a car in Townsville for going into the Australian outback can be a bit tricky, as rental agencies frown on their vehicles going onto unsealed surfaces, including dirt roads. In sympathy with rental agency employees, who probably have a litany of horror stories about crazy foreigners destroying life, limb, and (most importantly from their perspective), property, I certainly understand the “off-road” restriction for a car that does not have four-wheel-drive, roll bars, exhaust pipe running above the roof, Kevlar tires, and other battle-ready accoutrements that many Australians advocate for driving in their continental interior. But to me, it seems too cautious to keep perfectly fine all-wheel-drive (AWD) cars off dirt roads that are marked clearly on a standard road map and government maintained.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So for the sake of privacy and not wanting to offend the agency that so kindly rented us a vehicle, please consider any mentions of driving on dirt roads as pure fiction.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXN2DfXtIjoJxFnD8ZGEJDUahT6NwD8rbY59CvtjmJEjkr5gT2hj2JZqDjhfP7cvZkO3tlthj-jbrXMjs_vnN5aL157hatluIm3VuZbeFx_gbbfO-m_tjOeTaEIkzUQF3ZKw6vJlHsxe9M/s1600/DirtyUte.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXN2DfXtIjoJxFnD8ZGEJDUahT6NwD8rbY59CvtjmJEjkr5gT2hj2JZqDjhfP7cvZkO3tlthj-jbrXMjs_vnN5aL157hatluIm3VuZbeFx_gbbfO-m_tjOeTaEIkzUQF3ZKw6vJlHsxe9M/s320/DirtyUte.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539233079036517282" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">The sport “ute” (utility vehicle) used for field work in Victoria, Australia during <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com"><b style="">The Great Cretaceous Walk</b></a> in May-June 2010, courtesy of the <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/"><b style="">Museum of Victoria</b></a>. This is the type of field vehicle you need to take for dealing with the harsh Australian outback, although a good number of Australians in recent years have been using them for just driving to <b style=""><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.woolworths.com.au/">Woolie’s</a> </b>to stock up on <a href="http://www.vegemite.com.au/"><b style="">vegemite</b></a> and <a href="http://www.victoriabitter.net/"><b style="">VB</b></a>. Alas, we lacked such a vehicle in Queensland, yet we somehow survived.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">We did take one serious precaution that many of our Australian friends suggested, which was to keep lots of water in the car. This safeguard is in case you get a flat tire or otherwise break down several hundred kilometers from the next town, as help might be a long time in coming and you should have plenty of drinking water on hand. Fortunately, Townsville has many grocery stores that stock 20-liter jugs of water, so we purchased two of these and kept them in the “boot” (or “trunk,” for all you Yanks out there). Incidentally, these jugs rode several thousand kilometers with us and ultimately returned unused to Townsville, which we donated to our hotel before departing. Oh well: better safe than thirsty.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Properly stocked with our sloshing supply of dihydrogen monoxide (<a href="http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html"><b style="">the deadliest substance known to humankind</b></a>), we left on the morning of June 30, and drove southwest for about three hours – passing through only a few pub-hotel “towns” along the way – before arriving at the first paleontologically significant town, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughenden,_Queensland"><b style="">Hughenden</b></a>. I had visited Hughenden about three years previously (2007) during a whirlwind weekend trip from Townsville to the outback (and back), and was looking forward to seeing it again. Of course, I was also curious how it might have changed during the intervening time.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">What to see in Hughenden, and why stop there, especially if someone is eager to make it to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winton,_Queensland"><b style="">Winton</b></a><b style=""><i style="">? </i></b></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Well, how could a dino-phile avoid pausing for a visit after being greeted by a life-sized replica of the ornithopod dinosaur</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Muttaburrasaurus-langdoni"><b style=""><i style="">Muttaburrasaurus langdoni</i></b></a>? This prodigious example of paleo-statuary is hard to miss, and is easily spotted on the right side of the road as you drive into town, located next to an old-fashioned outback pub hotel (sadly closed).<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqCqqqvpXUibqcYlFma93_KzH87P18b9DvgaQVTBLuxHOXX3LVG754G_lq9vCTsDeJbHuXUBMPLPPuQF0OU9CXgDCRm0Ju6Bo1NaD9Ax0uWbenmXYIo7TAVgCDqfrJAA1D8aAZE43S9Iu/s1600/Me%2526Muttaburrasaurus.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 166px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqCqqqvpXUibqcYlFma93_KzH87P18b9DvgaQVTBLuxHOXX3LVG754G_lq9vCTsDeJbHuXUBMPLPPuQF0OU9CXgDCRm0Ju6Bo1NaD9Ax0uWbenmXYIo7TAVgCDqfrJAA1D8aAZE43S9Iu/s320/Me%2526Muttaburrasaurus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539233528876133682" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">The large and very friendly Cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur </i>Muttaburrasaurus<i style="">, a roadside icon for Hughenden. <b style=""><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzNE5oV-xjg">Look at the size of this beauty!</a> </b>Photo by Ruth Schowalter.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Hughenden also has a very nicely arranged display of local fossils and some information about the local natural and human history, housed in the <a href="http://www.hughenden.com/Document1.aspx?id=808"><b style="">Flinders Discovery Centre</b></a>. For only $3.50 (AUD) admission, you can see a short film about the geologic history of the area (which actually was quite good), walk and gawk through the display to your heart’s content, take as many photos as your digital-memory card can hold, and otherwise enjoy learning about the rich natural history of central Queensland. The star of the display, though, is a mounted cast of a <i style="">Muttaburrasaurus</i> skeleton.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivQdoF-6qiHDtYBGsujDqWHB_L6ZXae04VSbnVQrCJcEo9vw4OH_T6w-jxQ4jvoTSUib8zcF4rH2WqaTzWlbJ6-K1_KdVfDhfcdv0xD1BmKg9e8W_nfLZN6td41ZcExZAuUeQRIjWLZlD/s1600/Muttaburrasaurus.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivQdoF-6qiHDtYBGsujDqWHB_L6ZXae04VSbnVQrCJcEo9vw4OH_T6w-jxQ4jvoTSUib8zcF4rH2WqaTzWlbJ6-K1_KdVfDhfcdv0xD1BmKg9e8W_nfLZN6td41ZcExZAuUeQRIjWLZlD/s320/Muttaburrasaurus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539233751374614178" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">If you didn’t like the Disney version of </i>Muttaburrasaurus <span style="font-style: italic;">pictured earlier,</span><i style=""> here’s the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Burton"><b style="">Tim Burton</b></a> one, which can be viewed in all of its awesomeness in the Flinders Discovery Centre.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">This dinosaur, besides having what is probably the most fun-to-say dinosaur name (other than <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/dino-directory/detail.dsml?Genus=Micropachycephalosaurus"><b style=""><i style="">Micropachycephalosaurus</i></b></a>), is the largest known ornithopod in Australia, which was apparently overrun with smaller, “hypsilophodontid” dinosaurs, especially in Victoria. Also unlike the Cretaceous dinosaurs of Victoria, this dinosaur is known from a nearly complete skeleton, including a skull. It derived its colorful name from a small town south of Hughenden near where it was found – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muttaburra,_Queensland"><b style="">Muttaburra</b></a> – which in turn is named after an indigenous word, meaning “meeting of the waters.” This is a very insightful appellation, reflecting how this now-dry (almost desert) area did indeed meet a Cretaceous seaway 100 million years ago.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Other fossils are in the Flinders Discovery Centre, most of them Cretaceous, and most of them local, thus showcasing the paleontological importance of this area for understanding Cretaceous life in Australia. In fact, bones from some of the Cretaceous marine reptiles, giant clams (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoceramus"><b style=""><i style="">Inoceramus</i></b></a>), and <a href="http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/ammonites.htm"><b style="">ammonites</b></a> were recognized in this area during the mid 19<sup>th</sup> century. Many such fossils – most of them real – were out in the open, allowing for unfettered photography, and those below glass in cabinets also beckoned for a close look. (And just as a curmudgeonly aside, I love these smaller, local museums for putting real fossils on display, eschewing the “bells-and-whistles” virtual-reality displays embraced by so many other museums in recent years.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi353d4_dz5o3-U2xts__9Mbg_34uxRe_Y2SbefcKSz_7mjvrbxbmIvno_PofKfVA9T_ePF1AL0AiOBDGCLRnkU8NYVTS_EPgmfgmQkm5Q870ZNktGv4NizLavoyhcmVN7ZJphSYzrWXwSV/s1600/Ammonites.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi353d4_dz5o3-U2xts__9Mbg_34uxRe_Y2SbefcKSz_7mjvrbxbmIvno_PofKfVA9T_ePF1AL0AiOBDGCLRnkU8NYVTS_EPgmfgmQkm5Q870ZNktGv4NizLavoyhcmVN7ZJphSYzrWXwSV/s320/Ammonites.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539234127339626626" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Wow, look, real Cretaceous fossils! In this case, ammonites of all shapes and sizes, with a modern </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus"><b style="">Nautilus</b></a><i style=""> thrown in for contrast and scale.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8GVR8kOjaPwIzL_edx5GuzuVOa587yg4Q7rdZJpPjQc9biFLWV5Bzr1nx7BBhYICtfXkD9ZrFzc7xFMk72F4cL0LiC1lZL8-oYoIUk-KHXkUunhdVmc3sr9g94NzYHU8oDXM76JeaA1no/s1600/CreteaceousCray.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 202px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8GVR8kOjaPwIzL_edx5GuzuVOa587yg4Q7rdZJpPjQc9biFLWV5Bzr1nx7BBhYICtfXkD9ZrFzc7xFMk72F4cL0LiC1lZL8-oYoIUk-KHXkUunhdVmc3sr9g94NzYHU8oDXM76JeaA1no/s320/CreteaceousCray.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539234419706467010" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">This beautiful fossil decapod, simply labeled as “Crayfish,” is most likely a marine species, and not a freshwater crayfish <b style="">(“<a href="http://australian-animals.net/yabby.htm">yabby</a>”</b>) for which Australia is famous. Its label also says it is from the Cretaceous, so it would be nice some day to know its exact taxonomic affinity. After all, I have a keen fondness for <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080206175537.htm"><b style="">Australian freshwater crayfish from the Cretaceous</b></a></i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">And you just knew this ichnologist was not going to neglect mentioning trace fossils, and the center had a few displays about those, too.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjv1XHXTmbTj-Qf9Y9jXzQ2zACDZgHUQyKgJQLvO0MTTUfyitk5SNBaMU2DzBZyq6qevNVWI3LZvnkNO2zxpW11wXC4PhEoJZTRMx17Zuj2tYK0zXfWkePo3eJx0XVVXj_u-T3h3VIMui/s1600/TheropodTrack.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjv1XHXTmbTj-Qf9Y9jXzQ2zACDZgHUQyKgJQLvO0MTTUfyitk5SNBaMU2DzBZyq6qevNVWI3LZvnkNO2zxpW11wXC4PhEoJZTRMx17Zuj2tYK0zXfWkePo3eJx0XVVXj_u-T3h3VIMui/s320/TheropodTrack.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539235052760420274" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Cast of a large Australian theropod dinosaur track, which was labeled as “</i>Allosaurus<i style=""> footprint,” but is probably not from that genus, which is North American. (Close enough, as it certainly was made by a large, </i>Allosaurus<i style="">-sized theropod, though – so no harm done.)</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukvH4Jb6cvGFEUxXgHhyd-HXxCJlZlQQBk9VWjxitobkdyOCxfyZuHL073BI3tRqkbSR8AchLUqhsUCKOzFFXXqszSTk78P2kXD-HQNE-691CtbJZZ55nkZHg1dPnlCkiv__OonWeUFkS/s1600/CrustaceanBurrows.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 308px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukvH4Jb6cvGFEUxXgHhyd-HXxCJlZlQQBk9VWjxitobkdyOCxfyZuHL073BI3tRqkbSR8AchLUqhsUCKOzFFXXqszSTk78P2kXD-HQNE-691CtbJZZ55nkZHg1dPnlCkiv__OonWeUFkS/s320/CrustaceanBurrows.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539235266780750866" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Branching invertebrate burrows preserved in a limestone as natural casts. These burrows are what most ichnologists would call </i>Thalassinoides<i style="">, trace fossils that are normally associated with crustacean tracemakers.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Ruth was delighted with the artistic portrayals of dinosaurs in the center, some of which would no doubt evoke snickers, chuckles, chortles, and outright guffaws from some of my paleontologically oriented friends because of their postural and chromatic inaccuracy (the dinosaurs, that is, not my paleo-friends). Nonetheless, we enjoyed seeing these included in the display area too, and appreciate all of the local effort that went into constructing these homages to all things dinosaurian.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJQt8pEFMfjgfoAI9Ym7-l849TUkkYyh8r3VACW8oO2Db6TnNonOTAwoPzCUd7t8sugRV3aclfdQckGziTKXSw95YYa-VFYNG-fK7JUhHS8edW-Dsy6PPqUNNM94moJt7QdfI0mJwi-U6k/s1600/PaperDinos.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJQt8pEFMfjgfoAI9Ym7-l849TUkkYyh8r3VACW8oO2Db6TnNonOTAwoPzCUd7t8sugRV3aclfdQckGziTKXSw95YYa-VFYNG-fK7JUhHS8edW-Dsy6PPqUNNM94moJt7QdfI0mJwi-U6k/s320/PaperDinos.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539235565300977634" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">Kitschy dinosaur-inspired sculptures in the Flinders Discovery Centre, which I think are of an ornithopod (left) and sauropod (right). And if you don’t like them, make your own bloody dinosaurs!</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">And if that isn’t enough to satisfy any artistic yearnings, metal sculptures of a dinosaur and pterosaurs adorn public spaces outside the center, lending some whimsy along with the well-deserved local pride.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJi_9bKiKF_U17r_YUGtsc_wkxagBpYwp_bnBf5avy2H_3muBsD3nlZ-E6Eyrn3nzYB9xvsuwqK9jFoBJUWF58vtk2DcihZjxfuYP8BHbsnDWhoaxeQgbKAlaqURyszphBh0Cnb0GkDuwC/s1600/Junkasaurus.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 219px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJi_9bKiKF_U17r_YUGtsc_wkxagBpYwp_bnBf5avy2H_3muBsD3nlZ-E6Eyrn3nzYB9xvsuwqK9jFoBJUWF58vtk2DcihZjxfuYP8BHbsnDWhoaxeQgbKAlaqURyszphBh0Cnb0GkDuwC/s320/Junkasaurus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539235906450776754" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">It’s not <a href="http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Truckasaurus"><b style="">Truckasaurus</b></a>, but it’s pretty close. Nicknamed “Darby the Dinosaur,” this sculpture was inspired by </i>Muttaburrasaurus<i style="">, then conceived and made in 1998 by local artists Terry Lindsay and Sam Brown. They put together whatever spare parts they could find, set their creation in concrete, and garnished it with real Cretaceous fossils (below "Darby").</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggM5ZrikIbd6bydWsjSkcnIqCUjqq3tm_4_7ct2txM2zrSdg1C_WKw9wfr06MCy902HxB05W50DM9RVpFfUToAVtOdqtx8pFtqIHYqcR6x-fts492UBQRPEU0d0JU9S7Z7dnuXZrDI3QId/s1600/Leannesaurus.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggM5ZrikIbd6bydWsjSkcnIqCUjqq3tm_4_7ct2txM2zrSdg1C_WKw9wfr06MCy902HxB05W50DM9RVpFfUToAVtOdqtx8pFtqIHYqcR6x-fts492UBQRPEU0d0JU9S7Z7dnuXZrDI3QId/s320/Leannesaurus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539236177081011682" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style="">This would be the last thing you would see if a pterosaur became a Transformer. (Yes, I know, big “if.”) The sculpture is nicknamed “Leanneosaur," and coincidentally, one of the artists (Shane Rogers) who created this metallic menace has a wife named Leanne. The other artist was Terry Lindsay, also partially responsible for “Darby,” and the piece was completed in 2004.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i style=""><br /></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So Hughendgen is a great place to visit for paleo- and art-nerds alike (Ruth and I qualify as both). In fact, we liked Hughenden and the Discovery Centre so much, we made a point of stopping there on our way back to Townsville nearly a week later. That is when Ruth and I purchased a dinosaur hand puppet (a theropod, of course), which was put to good use in a dinner-theater performance only a few days later. (Digression? No, foreshadowing.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So Ruth and I spent one night in Hughenden, then were off in the morning to our next stop on the “<a href="http://www.australiasdinosaurtrail.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dinosaur Trail</span></a><b style=""></b>,” which was Winton, a town that lives off past lives of the Cretaceous, as well as the much more recent past. Why? Tune in next week, when I’ll talk about Winton and its connections to paleontology, the unofficial national anthem of Australia, <a href="http://www.bushverse.com/"><b style="">bush poetry</b></a>, and beer (and perhaps not in that order).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrIlHf-fghU0RPlkwczjl1J84GKUG0yEzyK3D79wAKPLOSJbkC7Tp3nJcfgq48r6AfD5hdXZ4E9-CMiQyoLpewqvV0N9-IyeGwQtisjCgTMkDRstHCRNjFtwp_Tu_Wx9Ld9OnB0jAKS2a/s1600/DinosaurTrailSign.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 58px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrIlHf-fghU0RPlkwczjl1J84GKUG0yEzyK3D79wAKPLOSJbkC7Tp3nJcfgq48r6AfD5hdXZ4E9-CMiQyoLpewqvV0N9-IyeGwQtisjCgTMkDRstHCRNjFtwp_Tu_Wx9Ld9OnB0jAKS2a/s320/DinosaurTrailSign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539236463863156002" border="0" /></a></span></p>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-15444857612492248062010-11-07T09:51:00.000-05:002010-11-07T10:32:37.248-05:00Cretaceous Worlds of Queensland, Part II: In Town in Townsville<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }@font-face { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }h1 { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 24pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.Heading1Char { font-family: Times; font-weight: bold; }span.BalloonTextChar { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; </style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">As loyal readers may already know (and new readers will learn in the remainder of this sentence), <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Great Cretaceous Walk</span> literally ended in late June 2010, but continues metaphorically as an exploration of the Cretaceous worlds of Australia: kind of a “walkabout through time.” The actual walking was done over Cretaceous rocks exposed in Victoria (such as <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html"><b style="">here</b></a>, <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/not-so-rotten-day-at-rotten-point-part.html"><b style="">here</b></a>, and <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html"><b style="">here</b></a>), but more inwardly directed ambulating in the Cretaceous past happened in Queensland, Australia and well north of Victoria.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">To see the Early Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Queensland, though, requires covering more than a few kilometers, bringing home the “variety show” that is Australia, well exemplified by just an easy day of travel in this expansive country. On such a day, my partner in paleontological pursuits (<a href="http://www.coffeewithhallelujah.blogspot.com"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ruth Truth</span></span></a>) and I flew from the modern metropolis of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney"><b style="">Sydney (New South Wales)</b></a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townsville,_Queensland"><b style="">Townsville, Queensland</b></a> in just a few hours.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSUpULOb44Sg9gxbZ0VawC8nIDrAadMcv9meZcPUFa5u__-X2YOT2b-iEE9DkUmMl1JM3DKBwopl6UY3F5jh7W_ieHNVIVzmcHxkxBRxsqUp7r0AgpbvubCZXiocq9EvqyjjduhE4J6tn/s1600/Sydney-Towsnville.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSUpULOb44Sg9gxbZ0VawC8nIDrAadMcv9meZcPUFa5u__-X2YOT2b-iEE9DkUmMl1JM3DKBwopl6UY3F5jh7W_ieHNVIVzmcHxkxBRxsqUp7r0AgpbvubCZXiocq9EvqyjjduhE4J6tn/s320/Sydney-Towsnville.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536823616464020050" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">We went from there to there, and all in just a few hours. However much we complain about airport security, long lines, and expenses, this is the miracle of modern jet travel. Show it a little wonder, and stop whinging so much.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvIUBQlAP8NdEG-WimmPzITdthG5vu5nxGt9R56MTWRVi_Xij824GTdrThhcENTeqDjGJ8pCKlaeum_V-b7Z5wrsv2cYHR1pIZiEIuEFhDgdliJl-SmvWGsuK74aFMTfrmkfOV_MK_Madr/s1600/Townsville.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvIUBQlAP8NdEG-WimmPzITdthG5vu5nxGt9R56MTWRVi_Xij824GTdrThhcENTeqDjGJ8pCKlaeum_V-b7Z5wrsv2cYHR1pIZiEIuEFhDgdliJl-SmvWGsuK74aFMTfrmkfOV_MK_Madr/s320/Townsville.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536823880401914370" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">Townsville, Queensland from the air, with its beautiful shoreline and prominent inselberg – Castle Hill – overlooking the city. What’s an inselberg? Read on.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Nonetheless, this short trip entails a considerable change in both latitude and attitude. Townsville is a thoroughly modern town on the Queensland coast, but ensconced in a semi-tropical setting that instantly seduces, rendering the most frenzied city-dweller to sluggard status as soon as you step outside of its charmingly small airport.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioLqdJvY8NsblMb6VNm8PWWoy9lpaKXn-iWuCtgwMzv2bkl4HgG65XKKeYRVHsp2nWGRVNh6PKtMQJj_HoozRE0x7D6H0CpRhR_nO0N_cGRW7wTnPQM4HLp2jFERdu5mqFhRrw5kxGiVxJ/s1600/WelcomeToTownsville.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioLqdJvY8NsblMb6VNm8PWWoy9lpaKXn-iWuCtgwMzv2bkl4HgG65XKKeYRVHsp2nWGRVNh6PKtMQJj_HoozRE0x7D6H0CpRhR_nO0N_cGRW7wTnPQM4HLp2jFERdu5mqFhRrw5kxGiVxJ/s320/WelcomeToTownsville.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536824214546623794" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">Accommodations in Townsville, Queensland are not in the Cretaceous, but some days it feels like it. And that’s a good thing.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Because we were traveling during Australia’s winter – thus neatly missing the record heat of a Georgia summer – the change from the colder (albeit lovely) environs of Sydney to the embracing warmth of Townsville, accentuated by its organic briny smells of the Coral Sea and the squawks of cockatoos, was like taking, a long, slow sip of a craft beer. <a href="http://www.townsvillebrewery.com.au/"><b style="">Which we did as soon as we arrived in downtown Townsville.</b> </a>(Who needs metaphor when you can have reality?)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Ruth and I had been in Townsville before, and have a fondness for it because I have spent more time here than any place else in Australia other than Melbourne. Why? In two previous visits, in 2006 and 2007, I co-taught <a href="http://www.emory.edu"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Emory University</span></a> study-abroad programs here, hosted on the lush and gorgeous campus of <a href="http://www.jcu.edu.au/"><b style="">James Cook University</b></a>. The courses offered in this program were evolutionary biology and ecology of invasions: invasive species, that is. Queensland is a fantastic place to learn natural history in general, and of Australia specifically, which is why I keep coming back to it, sometimes with students in tow, sometimes not.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3TOGSodFRynUJsqqnUVjOPakxiLE6kRk-CyjEXG4kmiJkm-wjRwonPzM9egX2EwgK1eh1jJ7TR9fyZ9nebuX_Kdq4U-KrwUK8wg08_5aYYDnjLwz9PCjFBQBhJ8Zpi7HmXotpwJedmimy/s1600/JCU-Jungle.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3TOGSodFRynUJsqqnUVjOPakxiLE6kRk-CyjEXG4kmiJkm-wjRwonPzM9egX2EwgK1eh1jJ7TR9fyZ9nebuX_Kdq4U-KrwUK8wg08_5aYYDnjLwz9PCjFBQBhJ8Zpi7HmXotpwJedmimy/s320/JCU-Jungle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536824376106058866" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">It’s a jungle out there whenever you take a stroll across James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville: a very nice place to teach American uni students and observe a little bit of Australian nature on the way to and from class.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitBt1djG513-oQuRILAhksalfIh1X1jxret6Xk3P_RlBAMRWwMpFO_HJD_HHIHTlQ5nKA0yZRKasv8Stj6bQWZnioy5LX325b6Ji8oMqU5pcvduGm5KxueVAV8hHQYEwzfGb0GumMQrGXe/s1600/Stone-BushCurlews.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 241px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitBt1djG513-oQuRILAhksalfIh1X1jxret6Xk3P_RlBAMRWwMpFO_HJD_HHIHTlQ5nKA0yZRKasv8Stj6bQWZnioy5LX325b6Ji8oMqU5pcvduGm5KxueVAV8hHQYEwzfGb0GumMQrGXe/s320/Stone-BushCurlews.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536824552240327106" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAB471elcJN5JB7APUz0LJemc3M_D-QYiRTqtla1sBnUHrO6cmCgrSQB8r0sGItL94US__UfaLyteqyyJWFp2IGEnMjiGPK8JkJ3JKggp2RECnD8yfCq9Hbamn4k555uiLs8xcxWveH_Hy/s1600/KookaburraInOldGumTree.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 290px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAB471elcJN5JB7APUz0LJemc3M_D-QYiRTqtla1sBnUHrO6cmCgrSQB8r0sGItL94US__UfaLyteqyyJWFp2IGEnMjiGPK8JkJ3JKggp2RECnD8yfCq9Hbamn4k555uiLs8xcxWveH_Hy/s320/KookaburraInOldGumTree.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536824681806185442" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">Modern theropods loose on the JCU campus! (Above) <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/tsd05bush-stone-curlew.html"><b style="">Stone-bush curlews</b></a> (</i>Burhinus grallarius<i style="">), which I have seen pack-hunting during the night, but sometimes are out during the day. Make sure you look for the one hiding behind the eucalyptus tree: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5wryDdEI0&feature=player_embedded"><b style="">clever girl</b></a>! (Below) A <a href="http://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/birds/facts/factsheets/fact-giantkingfisher.cfm"><b style="">laughing kookaburra</b> </a>(</i>Dacelo novaeguineae<i style="">), a fierce carnivore with a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0ZbykXlg6Q&feature=related"><b style="">raucous laughing call</b></a>. P.S. It’s not a bloody monkey, mates!</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">But what of the Cretaceous in Townsville? Alas, there are no outcrops of such rocks in the area, and the most prominent geologic feature in the area is an igneous intrusion (now evident as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock"><b style="">monadnock</b></a> or <span style="font-weight: bold;">inselberg</span>) called Castle Hill (see the photo of Townsville above, and taken from above).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">As a result, whatever Cretaceous rocks and fossils you might see there are in the <a href="http://www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au/"><b style="">Museum of Tropical Queensland</b></a>, a lovely regional museum that neatly summarizes the natural history of this part of Queensland, including the <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/00/earthpulse/reef/reef1_flash.html"><b style="">Great Barrier Reef</b></a>. To see the reef itself entails a 10-minute walk from the museum to a pier and a two-hour boat ride (or four-hours if you want to come back).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Among the displays is a fair-sized one about the Cretaceous rocks and fossils located a short drive west of Townsville. Did I say “fossils”? Yes, and best of all to an ichnologist, these included a few trace fossils along with the body fossils. Invertebrates are represented here, a few vertebrate remains, and even dinosaur tracks.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyzBBAKcHHgd7OaHWdwLnjxbmLN3d4bSr3vZtX4U2NtojM_SC64QVvkRlttA25LLjsLxl06adkq8tr1T55eBNeC0z9znwWJqzCVk2_NPL0644iEV4yrkveaEBxZlZ1yozhemZYoy_0RcAh/s1600/DinosaurTracks.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyzBBAKcHHgd7OaHWdwLnjxbmLN3d4bSr3vZtX4U2NtojM_SC64QVvkRlttA25LLjsLxl06adkq8tr1T55eBNeC0z9znwWJqzCVk2_NPL0644iEV4yrkveaEBxZlZ1yozhemZYoy_0RcAh/s320/DinosaurTracks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536824943885398754" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">Some dinosaur tracks on display in the Museum of Tropical Queensland, preserved in a sandstone bed as natural casts, and accompanied by frustratingly little scientific information. Locality? Geologic age? Interpretations of the trackmakers and their environment? My photo was taken in 2006, though, so maybe this display has been updated since. In the meantime, feast your eyes on those tasty looking trace fossils! How many tracks do you see? How many different types of dinosaurs made them? What were they doing? And an added bonus: stylish field sunglasses for scale.<br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">In recognition of the many small ornithopod (“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypsilophodont"><b style="">hypsilophodontid</b></a>”) dinosaurs whose bones keep popping up in the Cretaceous of Queensland and south of it in Victoria, the museum has a small reconstructed ornithopod on display for visitors to admire. I don’t recall which species it is supposed to represent, but it’s about the size of <i style="">Leaellynasaura amicagraphica</i> from Victoria, mentioned in some <a href="http://greatcretaceouswalk.blogspot.com/2010/06/return-to-dinosaur-cove.html"><b style="">previous entries</b></a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguAe1JYBI7SsWE0_PJZCcGB0Z9SRSGVzVTfqW6D4zoioQe2mIRLLEpjQ40SmHmwcROSOxzOX-hO_J0GjFepsXfXDQvldM4kjf8Ueg1YxnEkVqjozI5hmPl18Ypbj2rk5VNpwRpYw_rEReQ/s1600/Hypsilophodont.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguAe1JYBI7SsWE0_PJZCcGB0Z9SRSGVzVTfqW6D4zoioQe2mIRLLEpjQ40SmHmwcROSOxzOX-hO_J0GjFepsXfXDQvldM4kjf8Ueg1YxnEkVqjozI5hmPl18Ypbj2rk5VNpwRpYw_rEReQ/s320/Hypsilophodont.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536825136467490834" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">Aw, it’s such a cute little hypsilophodontid dinosaur! Can we take him home, mum? I promise I’ll feed him nothing but tree ferns and <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Petrified_Araucaria_cone.jpg"><b style="">araucarian cones</b></a>.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Body fossils include parts of former denizens from the Cretaceous seaway that cut through the eastern part of Australia about 100 million years ago. Cretaceous environments to the east and west of this seaway were where the dinosaurs roamed, but the Cretaceous sea was where dinosaurs had no say in how life was conducted.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_XKJFEMzl-It_HWgQQLAReXW-QFNICz_lYk2GFC7uxid01IUoB3TNgNoH1EkySC7O7M1kHSJDLeEJg6VTPY7oTKsi6lZyC7wufJY_Lt5p0t3lRp1TQpZlPqkbjYXjvuDKjnqHp0xdenK/s1600/CretaceousQueensland.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 276px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_XKJFEMzl-It_HWgQQLAReXW-QFNICz_lYk2GFC7uxid01IUoB3TNgNoH1EkySC7O7M1kHSJDLeEJg6VTPY7oTKsi6lZyC7wufJY_Lt5p0t3lRp1TQpZlPqkbjYXjvuDKjnqHp0xdenK/s320/CretaceousQueensland.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536825288762574578" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">The Cretaceous inland <span style=""> </span>seaway of Australia, a great place to be alive. That is, until you got eaten by something else sharing the same seaway. Start studying the place names on the map, because we’re going to be talking about them in future entries. And yes, there will be an exam later. Display is at the Museum of Tropical Queensland.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Although the Cretaceous dinosaurs of Queensland are all the rage right now (<a href="http://aaodl.com/"><b style="">understandably so</b></a>), some of the most spectacular vertebrate fossils coming out of the outback, and just as captivating as dinosaurs, are marine reptiles. Ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs were plentiful in the Cretaceous seas of Australia, and they likely preyed on abundant squid, fish, and each other.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pO5Q4hzlTJk7jnZNV3lQqyXkcoi7MzJuPVNXymY1XBjJlmlIWsujzQ7DVo1BaMuAap2-SRiLwrYFmYb8jlFSRcb6qdOPKtkCincwgvohyphenhyphenvEFZu-6QUAzV3w8Fps4EnOh_uIdYYgRfypW/s1600/Elasmosaur&Toothmarks.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pO5Q4hzlTJk7jnZNV3lQqyXkcoi7MzJuPVNXymY1XBjJlmlIWsujzQ7DVo1BaMuAap2-SRiLwrYFmYb8jlFSRcb6qdOPKtkCincwgvohyphenhyphenvEFZu-6QUAzV3w8Fps4EnOh_uIdYYgRfypW/s320/Elasmosaur&Toothmarks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536825462403893810" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">Skull of the Cretaceous elasmosaur </i>Woolungasaurus glendowerensis<i style=""> that probably ended up as lunch for something bigger, a supposition based on the puncture marks on its skull (arrow). This is a two-for-one special, paleontologically speaking: the skull is a body fossil, whereas the toothmarks are trace fossils of whichever sea monster chomped the elasmosaur’s face.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Also impressive are the recreations of these marine animals, which the museum has hung in aesthetically pleasing ways that give a sense of scale, and lends to imagining swimming in the same Cretaceous oceans (which would not last very long if you registered as “prey” in the search images of any of these animals).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWt-TQD1SSh5ikIItHzdX-c7DRfNt2BtHf6TjgHXMNGfr-kSso8XmnIBtMlt7TT3NsVzwe5J9MX6dHYk1bDj8_rDgO3Q9WfQGfZn_lX9tSi3Bnp_rk5lx0qR_yrGQfypj5rZwqBFhAINy4/s1600/KronosaurusHunting.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWt-TQD1SSh5ikIItHzdX-c7DRfNt2BtHf6TjgHXMNGfr-kSso8XmnIBtMlt7TT3NsVzwe5J9MX6dHYk1bDj8_rDgO3Q9WfQGfZn_lX9tSi3Bnp_rk5lx0qR_yrGQfypj5rZwqBFhAINy4/s320/KronosaurusHunting.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536825643214860786" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">The formidable Early Cretaceous pliosaur</i> Kronosaurus queenslandicus, <i style="">lurking above and waiting for tourists to come into view. Remember those toothmarks on the elasmosaur? We have a suspect in custody.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_akeNt0TXepj34O3J86R-uHkt_ShIQK4RP7oFZg1cKOl9kfQJnOhASv8vG-3KqtKQV7iAfLWs1YEZiu8Y31FGiMaxfvo_qJiRfE6QYSSig6KgJbJzrywMKjbQO1uddgeLr-rPgxcVXWHH/s1600/Elasmosaur.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_akeNt0TXepj34O3J86R-uHkt_ShIQK4RP7oFZg1cKOl9kfQJnOhASv8vG-3KqtKQV7iAfLWs1YEZiu8Y31FGiMaxfvo_qJiRfE6QYSSig6KgJbJzrywMKjbQO1uddgeLr-rPgxcVXWHH/s320/Elasmosaur.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536825913475748770" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMIpqqE0VRwlGtGQNlXuYLfmy95qIcdHpTjKw2fVFq6K4e77vNWfz_FTkebB1QeUmP0XqBCVUdSsFWUnRHuQrtOJ5Sg0fQFdzBRQt9Epm3c_2sg9aR30xHB0k5ti-J1DwSvTZo-ricnC1-/s1600/Elasmosaur-CloseUp.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMIpqqE0VRwlGtGQNlXuYLfmy95qIcdHpTjKw2fVFq6K4e77vNWfz_FTkebB1QeUmP0XqBCVUdSsFWUnRHuQrtOJ5Sg0fQFdzBRQt9Epm3c_2sg9aR30xHB0k5ti-J1DwSvTZo-ricnC1-/s320/Elasmosaur-CloseUp.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536826007754602866" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">The plesiosaur (elasmosaur) </i>Woolungasaurus glendowerensis, <i style="">recreated in full, fish-eating view, and with </i>Kronosaurus<i style=""> in the background (above), and ready for its close-up (below). She’s a beauty!</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxDDKQjAp_Ys2N4I9nobsyqX27m7Ol-1AdUUyfbLkkt3UIESS632QeFaDSoRh6UygxAodyR-N5EioD_EOBCVLyqs4UMHLebh44gnkuzom0jiUHgECQorJn3Ie73XHpQcmud6tNfo3YYai/s1600/Ichthyosaur&Ammonite.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 154px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxDDKQjAp_Ys2N4I9nobsyqX27m7Ol-1AdUUyfbLkkt3UIESS632QeFaDSoRh6UygxAodyR-N5EioD_EOBCVLyqs4UMHLebh44gnkuzom0jiUHgECQorJn3Ie73XHpQcmud6tNfo3YYai/s320/Ichthyosaur&Ammonite.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536826105130762802" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style="">An ammonite and ichthyosaur, swimming together in harmony. Suspend disbelief for a moment and forget that these are, er, suspended. Sorry to have no species information, but they are very nice to look at, aren’t they?</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i style=""><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">So with this intellectual and visual information properly lighting up your cerebral hemispheres, we will go west, to central Queensland and the former sites of those Early Cretaceous landscapes and seas that held those varied and wondrous lives. See you next week, and in the Cretaceous of Queensland, Australia!<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"> </p>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8897153876973964063.post-57622909959806464982010-10-31T10:03:00.000-04:002010-10-31T10:47:54.780-04:00Cretaceous Worlds of Queensland: Part I<span style="font-size:130%;">Way back in June 2010, after completing nearly a month of field excursions exploring the Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, Australia, I had adjusted to a daily routine of expectations. These were, in no particular order: difficult access, high coastal cliffs, thick brush, dangerous waves, slippery rocks, lots of walking (and looking), and only a few trace fossils at the end of each day to show for all of this effort. Here is an artistic rendering of what it felt like out there most days:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYGPmqmcZg6iHJzp99HYH3Tv0OhQW9p7YR1m_f6IdPfhu63GOGmRhqea69CVFUCafM7chKU0k7ONA7UMrpYSA-3yCawVA6qSUx3i-vMOAYzYeB9QXB_m_yDLM5ht7g1HRkCOjig52mweY/s1600/Monet&FieldWork.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYGPmqmcZg6iHJzp99HYH3Tv0OhQW9p7YR1m_f6IdPfhu63GOGmRhqea69CVFUCafM7chKU0k7ONA7UMrpYSA-3yCawVA6qSUx3i-vMOAYzYeB9QXB_m_yDLM5ht7g1HRkCOjig52mweY/s320/Monet&FieldWork.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534211217001378658" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Claude Monet’s </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Gros Temp à Étretat [Rough Weather at Étretat]</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >, 1883, in the National Gallery of Victoria, looking oddly familiar to me after lots of field work on the Victoria coast during their winter. I’m the one trying to hold onto my hat.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />Another realization gained from field work in Victoria is that fossil bones are rare there. In all of our walking along the coast and scrutinizing more than 100 km (60+ miles) of coastline, <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections-research/our-research/sciences/staff/thomas-h-rich/">Tom Rich (Museum of Victoria)</a> and I did not find a single piece of bone. This hard-earned insight made me appreciate all the more the exceptional nature of those places in the Victoria with abundant bones. Moreover, the bones that have been found came at a considerable cost, especially in terms of human labor (see <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/history/dinosaur.html">Dinosaur Cove</a> for an example).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF6blx4wSmasT0jXe8xPovDi0GyyBWUL_Gj-2upFe1yXcLzSDKlsVYzWKH-yiWNJk7iLJ0P0exhz6SNFN_HgE6LGtztcKRMxdkyTcJlpi0-YJ3kivXmn2fu6gjYdcfoLHVKgzckPiNysUQ/s1600/Dave&TinyBone.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF6blx4wSmasT0jXe8xPovDi0GyyBWUL_Gj-2upFe1yXcLzSDKlsVYzWKH-yiWNJk7iLJ0P0exhz6SNFN_HgE6LGtztcKRMxdkyTcJlpi0-YJ3kivXmn2fu6gjYdcfoLHVKgzckPiNysUQ/s320/Dave&TinyBone.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534211551757918594" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Dave Pickering, a curator and fossil preparator at the Museum of Victoria, who has a bone to pick with you. And as small as this bone is, it could have taken a few hundred hours of prospecting in the Cretaceous rocks of Victoria before someone found it, followed by yet more hours of preparation. Next time you see Dave or any volunteer who looks for fossils on the Victoria coast, please buy them a beer or its monetary equivalent</span><span style="font-size:130%;">.<br /><br />Now, for anyone who is used to literary tricks of the trade in journalism or other forms of story-telling, you probably see a set-up here, where I give you one premise – the Cretaceous of Victoria – then shatter it by wielding the exact opposite situation – the Cretaceous of Queensland. Yes, that’s right, the old “compare-and-contrast” device, which is right up there with the “overcoming incredible odds, only to succeed through hard work and moral fortitude” <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr.">Horatio Alger </a>story.<br /><br />(Incidentally, the realist in me enjoys puncturing such stories by pointing out that Horatio Alger was actually Horatio Alger, Jr., a second-generation Harvard man, who probably had the hired help pulling up his bootstraps for him. Fortunately for American literature, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain">Mark Twain</a>, a contemporary of Alger, had satirical responses to such stories: <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4935/">“Poor Little Stephen Girad”</a> and <a href="http://www.washburn.edu/sobu/broach/goodboy.html">“The Story of the Good Little Boy”</a>), when he wasn’t already writing about trace fossils (specifically, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=L_8lZWokILYC&pg=PA61&dq=Mark+Twain+Carson+fossil+footprints&hl=en&ei=PlzNTPf0N8WblgfC9_DmCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Mark%20Twain%20Carson%20fossil%20footprints&f=false">fossil tracks of giant ground sloths</a>).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fRN4HkyORssWegboAplYCT6Hlbi1XHDb03xChe6hl67cBhQ9YVummoSe8wGd0pvHy9517ZM_CAHiQL8qkKmYTPDwwN8nFB32nonkMOQWMzHs70vMQI-PsqHBt7pKkBe4vl0WjVbFpwa1/s1600/Mark-Twain-Brady-Handy-Photo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 204px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fRN4HkyORssWegboAplYCT6Hlbi1XHDb03xChe6hl67cBhQ9YVummoSe8wGd0pvHy9517ZM_CAHiQL8qkKmYTPDwwN8nFB32nonkMOQWMzHs70vMQI-PsqHBt7pKkBe4vl0WjVbFpwa1/s320/Mark-Twain-Brady-Handy-Photo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534211815546002914" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >American satirist Mark Twain, who had little tolerance for Horatio Alger, Jr.'s stories, and occasionally reported on possible trace fossils made by giant ground sloths, or, alternatively, Nevada legislators and Old Silurian asses, with the distinction purposefully blurred. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />So I plead guilty to falling into the cliché of contrasts, but only partially. As befits a continent that straddles three time zones and about 30° of latitude – from Tasmania to tropical Queensland – Australia is teeming with environmental and geological contrasts. When you travel from the southern part of mainland Australia (Victoria) to the northern part (Queensland), some differences are expected, and indeed there are many.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1EJBE4RteSI8emqE8YpajjGTLFGNXEtC-w9c_V1HIap3bGYjb8bYCjYu_WqrTMsTkeJ2sSmnvZf6Wh-BqHuVmUyZ7AAf0hD7Ujh7AMnpRgq5Weawp8rWE5WAzSssoz89JHJ5mHkGMk8SG/s1600/Australia-Map.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1EJBE4RteSI8emqE8YpajjGTLFGNXEtC-w9c_V1HIap3bGYjb8bYCjYu_WqrTMsTkeJ2sSmnvZf6Wh-BqHuVmUyZ7AAf0hD7Ujh7AMnpRgq5Weawp8rWE5WAzSssoz89JHJ5mHkGMk8SG/s320/Australia-Map.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534212086217395698" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Australia’s a country and a continent, mate. Image from Google Maps and modified by me.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />For example, the Cretaceous of Queensland is often represented by: wide, flat areas; deeply eroded rocks with few actual outcrops; and no nearby ocean waves. (Or at least, not now. Go back 100 million years, then yes.) So this is indeed remarkably different from paleontological explorations in the slightly older Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, and requires a bit of an attitude adjustment one going from one to the other.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKATIQaL2cWAqZDHBKOnBZ1QGt3W-xYA8ZuN8Q5KkzEyRsUiV5ihHEdmeZB27OnvaTNpD28OTfPMgeu1gKY5yIZ5vqbVvtF9cuCRXgxgk3n3kDOzycW0NEYCki94P38lwRaJFnjdc4Lsjo/s1600/QueenslandFieldWork.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 236px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKATIQaL2cWAqZDHBKOnBZ1QGt3W-xYA8ZuN8Q5KkzEyRsUiV5ihHEdmeZB27OnvaTNpD28OTfPMgeu1gKY5yIZ5vqbVvtF9cuCRXgxgk3n3kDOzycW0NEYCki94P38lwRaJFnjdc4Lsjo/s320/QueenslandFieldWork.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534212291936179330" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNB4FRJN9sew5sR0IWYFVgfI-X4S_yaYEfsNKYh8EvP3veRZcylLiwF71kLOTIOeCZba021w2n-JLtkPxd_Y3T5MadGezGLo4hoZYT8_2vum8KwdCKDj5p8ejQXTVCp9R1SeHRcyqBThM8/s1600/VictoriaFieldWork.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 236px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNB4FRJN9sew5sR0IWYFVgfI-X4S_yaYEfsNKYh8EvP3veRZcylLiwF71kLOTIOeCZba021w2n-JLtkPxd_Y3T5MadGezGLo4hoZYT8_2vum8KwdCKDj5p8ejQXTVCp9R1SeHRcyqBThM8/s320/VictoriaFieldWork.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534212480843404178" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >The outback of central Queensland (top) versus the Victoria coast (bottom). Spot any differences? Photo on top is by Ruth Schowalter, who was driving shotgun at the time.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />Nonetheless, the human-perceived differences of conducting field work in Queensland versus Victoria largely end there. Paleontologists still have to work very hard to find bones or trace fossils in the Cretaceous of Queensland, just like in Victoria, although it definitely requires a different kind of effort. And even though rocks in this region of Australia have yielded some significant fossils through the years (<a href="http://www.necn.com/Boston/SciTech/2009/07/03/Aussie-dinosaur/1246631774.html">especially in the past few years</a>), you still need to have the right search images for finding them, and lots of human labor to recover and prepare them. More about that aspect will be discussed in future entries, and we will especially the logistical differences between finding and handling a leg bone of a small juvenile ornithopod dinosaur, versus that of an adult sauropod.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AVBJiLG-K7oneYzfPyU-O3UZ2C6iZFaQYQYlB2vVsuWUBlBwRCmRy92TTZn4998jmGLXppcfn38FPTXx_6gMLi4Yojl-m-FGsLLeXiprDShmM474elJleUvSWaWZtiQ49ns_ZXTwn5_2/s1600/BloodyBigBones.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 234px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AVBJiLG-K7oneYzfPyU-O3UZ2C6iZFaQYQYlB2vVsuWUBlBwRCmRy92TTZn4998jmGLXppcfn38FPTXx_6gMLi4Yojl-m-FGsLLeXiprDShmM474elJleUvSWaWZtiQ49ns_ZXTwn5_2/s320/BloodyBigBones.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534213028518208914" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >No rugged individualism is allowed when you find sauropod limb bones in the Cretaceous of Queensland. Rather, mateship is encouraged and necessary. “Gorgeous George” of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Centre near Winton for scale (more about him and his mates at the AAOD later).</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />Perhaps what is most remarkable about paleontology in Queensland, though, is how much it has suffused into the outback culture there in just the past few decades. For example, despite more than 30 years of intensive research on dinosaurs and other fossils from the Cretaceous of Victoria, <a href="http://www.australiasdinosaurtrail.com/">Australia’s “Dinosaur Trail”</a> is located in Queensland. The three outback towns of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughenden,_Queensland">Hughenden</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winton,_Queensland">Winton</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Queensland">Richmond</a> roughly define a triangle containing rocks rich with Cretaceous fossils, marine and terrestrial, comprised of plants, invertebrate animals, and vertebrate animals. Another outback town with a good collection of Cretaceous fossils to see is in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulia,_Queensland">Boulia</a>. For younger fossils, hailing from the mere Cenozoic Era, there is also the city of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Isa">Mt. Isa</a>. These fossils are from the world-famous <a href="http://www.riversleigh.com/">Riversleigh deposit</a>, holding geologically younger and exquisitely preserved body fossils of marsupials from the Oligocene through the Miocene Epochs, from about 25-15 million years ago.<br /><br />So upcoming entries will be about those places in Queensland and their fossils, told from the perspective of a Yank paleontologist, a stranger in an even stranger land, yet one that was very friendly, had many fantastic fossils to see, and (most importantly) no shortage of beer.</span>Anthony Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419486642166941042noreply@blogger.com1