Keeping Track of Fossil Tracks

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.

Nice dinosaur track you got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it. Track is from a large theropod dinosaur, preserved in Early Cretaceous sandstone of Western Australia. Please don’t take it, legally or otherwise.

Fossil Collectors and Academic Paleontologists: Grudge Match, Love Fest, or a Little of Both?

In July of 2010, while in the small outback-Queensland (Australia) town of Boulia – mentioned in a previous entry – 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 Dick Suter, 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.”

Here I am, having a cordial conversation with fossil collector Dick Suter (right) of Boulia (Queensland, Australia) at the Stone House Museum. 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 Ruth Schowalter.

Dreaming of Dinosaur Dreaming

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 (yakuza excluded). These numbers are a result of our having descended from synapsids (“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 was more than 300 million years ago. Humans and most other mammals don’t lay eggs (albeit, some placental mammals like to hatch from eggs), but a few still do – monotremes, such as platypuses and echindnas – thus demonstrating a lingering trait of this reptilian ancestry.

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 Dinosaur Dreaming dig site in Victoria, Australia.

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 Dinosaur Dreaming dig site in coastal Victoria, Australia; looking for fossils of Cretaceous dinosaurs, mammals, turtles, and other animals; and very much enjoy doing this. Really.

Of Min Min Lights and Ichthyosaurs

As loyal readers know from previous entries, following field work in Victoria, my wife Ruth and I went on a paleontologically themed “drive-about” (as opposed to walkabout) in western Queensland last July 2010. We started in Townsville, and went west from there (after all, going east would have put us in the Coral Sea). We then paused for a fun day and night in Hughenden, followed by three glorious days and nights in Winton. 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 Boulia?

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 convergent evolution influences art: mural by Rona Thoragood (1997). For more about intersections between paleontology and art in outback Queensland, check out Ruth Schowalter’s (Hallelujah Truth’s) musings here and here.

Diving Down Under in the Cretaceous Sea

Cyclone Yasi - 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 Mission Beach, then Tully, places I have visited twice with study-abroad students from Emory University. The cyclone continued inland, bringing high winds and heaps of rain to communities inland that normally stay dry: Hughenden, Winton, 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.

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 Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville, Australia, a place that was hit hard by Yasi just last week.

Why Eat a Rock? Gastroliths (‘Stomach Stones’) as Trace Fossils

During the past 30 years or so, trace fossils – such as tracks, burrows, nests, toothmarks, coprolites (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 The Great Unwashed who fail to see the paleontological truth inherent to trace fossils, but the world of paleontology is much bigger than the Church of Ichnology (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 gastroliths, otherwise known as “stomach stones.”

Gastroliths extracted from the interior of a Cretaceous elasmosaur (a large, long-necked marine reptile) in central Queensland, Australia. Specimens are at the Stonehouse Museum and collected by “Dinosaur” Dick Suter in Boulia, Queensland. I know, they just look like a bunch of rocks, not trace fossils. Please read on, and prepare to learn.

A Trace Fossil by Any Other Name

Seemingly everyone – but especially five-year-olds – can enthusiastically rattle off the genus or species name of their favorite dinosaur or other prehistoric animal. “Tyrannosaurus rex!” “Triceratops!” “Dimetrodon!” 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? “Ophiomorpha nodosa!” “Eubrontes! “Celliforma!”

Wow, look! It’s Thalassinoides in Early Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, Australia! I absolutely love that trace fossil! Wait, come back – where are you going? Was it something I said?