Patagonia Dinosaur Discovery Adds Extra Dimension To Adventure Industry

From Press Release Rocket: Patagonia Dinosaur Discovery Adds Extra Dimension To Adventure Industry
The global scientific community is buzzing with news of a unique discovery in Argentinian Patagonia. Palaeontologists from Argentina and Sweden discovered two fossilised eggs and a set of bones that belonged to a little-known bird-like dinosaur that lived in the region over 70 million years ago.

The remains, of a species in the Alvarezsauridae group of dinosaurs, was found during an expedition to Patagonia in 2010 by party member Dr. J Powell of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales but has been named Bonapartenykus ultimus in honour of Dr. Jose Bonaparte, who discovered the very first specimen of an alvarezsaurid in the same area of South America in 1991.

In recent years Patagonia has exploded in popularity with holidaymakers seeking an alternative to lounging by the pool, this is evident by the sheer number of results you get if you search for a travel adventure website that serves the area. With cruises to Antarctica on offer as well as walking routes such as the infamous Torres del Paine w trek, it is not hard to see why tourists from around the globe are discovering the amazing landscapes that have enthralled scientists and provided valuable data about the history of our planet for decades.

The newly identified species is said to have measured 2.6 metres (8.5 feet) in length, making it one of the largest members of the Alvarezsauridae family to be discovered. The palaeontologists who discovered it believe it could be one the last survivors of its kind to live on Gondwana, the southern landmass during the Mesozoic Era.

As the eggs were found so close to the hind quarters of the fossil specimen, the experts have ruled out the skeleton and the eggs mixing after the dinosaur died and have suggested that the eggs may have been inside the oviducts of the animal when it met its end.

Martin Kundrat of Uppsala University said: “So it looks like we have indirect evidence for keeping two eggs in two oviducts. They were close to being laid, but the female didn’t make it.”

The scientists also found that there was fossilised fungus on pieces of egg shell they found. Kundrat explained that various fungi affect bird eggs today: “It looks like at the very late stage the eggs could suffer from the same contamination as in common birds,”

“It doesn’t mean it must kill the embryo, because usually in the embryonic space or inner space it’s still protected by a very dense network of organic fibres called the shell membrane.”

Dinosaur bone found by archaeological team in Md.

From HTR News:Dinosaur bone found by archaeological team in Md.

EDGEWATER, Md. (WTW) — The artifact-rich, multilayered Pig Point site being worked by Anne Arundel County's archaeological team for yet another season has turned up more unusual finds — a dinosaur bone and a dog burial site.

The dinosaur bone was found during last season's dig along the banks of the Patuxent River overlooking Jug Bay in south county, and later identified as technicians pored over the pickings at the county's archaeological lab at Historic London Town and Gardens.

The dog burial site was discovered just weeks ago as this season's dig got under way near the original upper tract. Three years ago, the team found evidence of a series of wigwams indicating a settlement over hundreds of years.

Al Luckenbach, the county's archaeologist, said he immediately identified the petrified dinosaur bone because he had seen similar bones years ago.

"They were building (in) an area northwest of BWI (Thurgood Marshall) Airport and were finding huge pieces of petrified wood and bone," he said. "I picked up a piece of dinosaur backbone, and more."

He said staff members sometimes do not realize what they have discovered until it's cleaned up in the lab.

"We dig up a lot of stuff over the (summer) season and then go into the lab over the winter and start washing it up. We didn't realize we had it until it turned up this winter," he said.

A lab worker showed it to him and Luckenbach said, "Oh, that is a ferruginous sandstone dinosaur backbone from the Arundel Formation" — only because he had seen one many years ago.

The Arundel Formation is a huge clay deposit stretching between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, running roughly along Route 1.

Part of the formation is made up of iron-bearing sandstone, which appears closest to the surface in the Laurel area off Route 1 in Prince George's County, where it is known as the Muirkirk Deposit. The deposit was the site of iron mining operations stretching back into the early 19th century, and troves of fossilized animal and plant remains have been found in it.

Some of the first dinosaur bones, believed to be 110 million years old, were found there. These include some of the earliest finds in the Smithsonian Institution's dinosaur collection.

In the Cretaceous Period, some 100 million years ago, the area was a delta, with rivers that meandered in wide bends. Scientists believe flooding deposits bones and plant matter in oxbow lakes formed when large bends in a river are cut off, creating a lake.

Luckenbach first thought a Native Americans had picked up the dinosaur bone near the Muirkirk area and brought it to Pig Point.

But after further investigation, he thinks the bone was picked up along with similar-sized rocks and used as a cobble, or pot boiler, for cooking.

"The Native Americans cooked in clay pots. But if you put a clay pot on the fire it would crack as it heated up," he said.

"So they would put their meat, vegetables and water in the pot, then heat up these small rocks in the fire and drop them in the pot to cook their food," Luckenbach said.

He said archaeologists find pot remnants with similar stones, or pot boilers, in them.

The dog skeleton was found on the upper tract of the Pig Point site.

"The dog was elderly, its teeth were quite worn," Luckenbach said. Many of the dog's bones could not be recovered, but most of the skull was preserved.

"We have not run a C14 (carbon isotope) test on it to determine its age, but we estimate the dog was buried in the Late Woodland Period, roughly from 1000 to 1300 A.D."

Dogs were the only domesticated animals Native American tribes had, but few dog burials from the period have been found in Maryland.

The animals were used for hunting and as guard dogs.

"Anything approaching the village, the dogs would provide a good warning," Luckenbach said.

Sometimes dogs were sacrificed, perhaps to go along with their masters into the afterlife.

"There was a lot of religious ritual and mythology associated with dogs," he added. "Dogs had a special place in the lives of Native Americans."

He doesn't know whether the dog died of old age or was sacrificed, but it was buried a few feet from a wigwam, "perhaps to guard the place from the next life," Luckenbach said.

He said it was heartening to see man's best friend from 900 years ago. "He had a special burial."

Where Dinosaurs Roar Back

From the New York Times: Where Dinosaurs Roar Back
YOU might not expect to find dinosaurs moving in the marshy wilderness between the Hackensack River and the New Jersey Turnpike.

But then, you would not have met Guy Gsell. The founding director of Discovery Times Square and a living example of what happens when that kid obsessed with dinosaurs grows up and doesn’t lose the obsession, Mr. Gsell, 51, wanted to build an outdoor dinosaur exhibition. Not the kind of cartoonish dinosaurs you might see at a mini-golf course, but life-size dinosaurs that move when you go near them. 

And because he wanted his dinosaurs near a train station and a highway, he decided to plunk them down on 20 acres in the Meadowlands here in New Jersey, under a looming 150 million-year-old rock face on the former site of an old mental hospital. 

The result is Field Station: Dinosaurs, which opens to school groups May 14 and the public on Memorial Day weekend. Mr. Gsell spent a year and a half exploring dinosaur shows in this country and abroad before contracting with a company in Zigong, China (“the dinosaur capital of China,” he said) to build 31 animatronic creatures with sensors and facial-recognition technology that make them move as visitors come close. A gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex will even recoil if the crowd around it gets big enough, and if you yell, Mr. Gsell promised, T. rex will roar back.

 Mr. Gsell said this would be the only permanent exhibition of its kind (though smaller shows of animatronic dinosaurs have toured this country). The dinosaurs were being unloaded this week with the help of five artists and engineers who had accompanied them from China. They will be set along a three-quarter-mile trail where the foliage has been left largely as it is, to give the sense that the dinosaurs are in their natural environment. The effect is more sculpture garden than theme park.

But Mr. Gsell has also worked with paleontologists at the New Jersey State Museum to set up other exhibits along the paths suitable for children from 2 to 11, including puppet shows, game shows and a dig site where groups can scrabble for fossils. (While dinosaurs did once roam New Jersey, the fossils are reproductions.)

Tents set up along the paths give the feeling of a base camp and exploration sites. At the highest point of the site is a 90-foot Argentinosaurus, with a view of the Empire State Building in the distance. Mr. Gsell said this dinosaur would be visible from Manhattan. Do not be alarmed.

PA: Dorney Park previews new dinosaurs exhibit and its latest roller coaster, the 55-mph Stinger

From the Morning Call: Dorney Park previews new dinosaurs exhibit and its latest roller coaster, the 55-mph Stinger 

After you enter Dinosaurs Alive!, a new attraction at Dorney Park, you head down a path marked with imprints of ferns and giant footprints. Animatronic dinosaurs loom among the trees in the distance. The sound of snapping tree branches — as if something huge is approaching — echoes through the woods. A 34-foot-tall meat-eater lets out a roar and turns its head. Nearby, an 80-foot-long plant-eater thrashes its tail. The 32 dinosaurs, which move continually, are fun to watch. And the exhibit is educational for families. For little ones, the beasts are realistic but not too scary because they stay safely behind fencing and don't jump out.

Reporters and photographers had a chance to experience Dinosaurs Alive! and a new coaster Tuesday before they open to the public Saturday at the South Whitehall Township park.

The new ride is Stinger, a scorpion-themed suspended boomerang steel roller coaster.

Stinger is the only coaster of its type with face¿to¿face seating on the East Coast, according to Dorney. Riders' legs dangle.

The train is pulled up a 138¿foot lift. Once at the top, the car is released and flies 55 mph down the hill and through a boomerang — a 180¿degree turn with double inversions — followed immediately by a 72¿foot¿high vertical loop. The train goes up the second lift and then the whole ride is repeated in reverse for a total of six inversions.

The ride is smooth, fast and breathtaking as you fly through the loops — and over in 90 seconds. If you like Dorney coasters Talon and Hydra, you'll like this ride.

Stinger is next to Possessed on the site of the old Laser looping coaster.

It's the eighth roller coaster for the park and the 12^th ride to earn Dorney's top thrill rating of 5 for "aggressive thrills." Other top thrill rides include Talon and Hydra as well as non-coaster rides such as Revolution and Hangtime.

"We are excited to be able to have two major new projects opening in the same season," said Jason McClure, Dorney Park's vice president and general manager.

Dorney is continuing to court the family audience with Dinosaurs Alive! Last year the park opened Planet Snoopy, a 31/2 -acre children's themed area with 16 children's rides.

"We hope to hit a family home run with Dinosaurs Alive!" McClure said.

The 3-acre dinosaur exhibit is behind the Steel Force coaster. It fills an area that Dorney had been unable to use for other rides, McClure said.

Dorney will charge $5 to tour Dinosaurs Alive!, in addition to regular park admission. McClure said the charge will ensure that only those who are interested in dinosaurs will visit, making it less crowded for families.

Families can easily spend 30 minutes or more in the exhibit.

The highlight is the world's largest animatronic dinosaur, the Ruyang Yellow River dinosaur, which measures 72 feet long and 30 feet high. It anchors the park's impressive opening scene, a re-creation ofChina'sDashanpu area. Also adding a huge presence is the 80-foot-long Mamenchisaurus.

Other features include Carnotaurus, a predator featured in the Dinosaur ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom; a Herrerasaurus, one of the oldest dinosaurs in the attraction at 231.4 million years old; and a final scene featuring familiar giants, a 30-foot-tall Triceratops and a 40-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus rex.

Visitors can use consoles to control three of the prehistoric giants, moving their arms, tails, necks, mouths and even make their sides rise and fall as if breathing.

Dorney's parent company, Cedar Fair LP, opened it first dinosaur park last year at King's Island near Cincinnati. With 60 dinosaurs, it is the world's largest animatronic dinosaur park. The venture was popular enough to prompt Cedar Fair to install the attraction at four other parks this year, including Dorney Park.

The dinosaurs are designed to be scientifically accurate. Signs explain what the dinosaurs ate, when and where they lived, how they protected themselves and how they adapted to their world.

Near the end of the exhibit, kids can take part in their own paleontological excavation and dig in the sand for dinosaur bones.

The park, off Hamilton Boulevard, is open weekends only through May 25, when Dorney and Wildwater Kingdom open daily for the season.

This weekend's hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Dinosaurs Alive! is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Info: http://www.dorneypark.com.

Adventurer hopes to find and capture a living dinosaur and dog-sized tarantula on expedition in the Congo

From the Daily Mail Online: Adventurer hopes to find and capture a living dinosaur and dog-sized tarantula on expedition in the Congo
An American explorer is hoping to find dog-sized tarantulas, man0eating fish, and a living dinosaur.

Stephen McCullah, a young zoology enthusiast based in Beaumont, Texas, is raising money for a multi-month expedition to the far-off parts of the Republic of Congo.

Mr McCullah hopes to head to Africa in order to find and capture a living sauropod, or water-dwelling dinosaur similar to the myth-like Mokèlé-mbèmbé.

The legend of the so-called Mokèlé-mbèmbé is a long one, which alleges that the animal has a long neck like an elephant's trunk, that is a brown-gray color, and has some uncertain similarities to a rhinoceros.

The creature, which is often likened to the Loch Ness monster, has been the prize of adventure seekers who have travelled to Lake Tele in the Congo repeatedly over the past two centuries but none have ever produced any true evidence of its existence.

Mr McCullah hopes to break that pattern. Prize: The team hopes to find the legendary Mokèlé-mbèmbé, an animal thought to have a long neck like an elephant's trunk

Having studied biology at Missouri State University and having been passionate about zoology since his teens, the adventurer has grand plans for the trip.

'Our hope is to discover a wide variety of new species along the way. The Congo Basin is a region of Central Africa larger than the state of Florida,' he writes on the Kickstarter page for the project.

All told, he is hoping to crowd source $26,700 to fund the project within the next 18 days and, to date, he has raised under half that amount.

The trip, which will be dubbed The Newmac Expedition, is planned to 'be a preliminary three month (or as long as our health allows) four man venture'.

Undeterred by failed attempts that date back as far as 1776 and as recently as 2011, he writes: 'We'll launch on June 26th and we anticipate discovering hundreds of new insect, plant, and fish species during the course of our research and work in the area.'

There is also the legitimate hope of discovering many reptile and mammalian species as well.'

In addition to potentially capturing the Mokèlé-mbèmbé once they find it- with the help of a tranquillizer gun according to Life's Little Mysteries- the group will also be filming a documentary about their search.

Dinosaurs come to Morris Museum in Morris Twp.

From Morris News Bee: Dinosaurs come to Morris Museum in Morris Twp.

MORRIS TWP. - The whole family will enjoy “boning up” on dinosaur fossils and learning about life in prehistoric New Jersey, at the Morris Museum’s Dino Day, Saturday, April 28, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. A special visit from Field Station: Dinosaurs brings a dinosaur extravaganza to the museum’s Bickford Theatre at 12:30 and 2:30 pm with performances by the Dinosaur Troubadour and the fifteen-foot long Mighty T-Rex. These performances and all dino-related activities are included with museum admission: $7/child; $10/adult; children under 3 free.

Activities all day:

Visit the permanent exhibition Digging Dinosaurs

Search for fossils in the dinosaur dig pit

Climb inside a model of a dinosaur nest

Touch an authentic Hadrosaur egg (NJ’s state dinosaur)

Reconstruct a dinosaur skeleton

Create a dinosaur puppet to take home

Examine real amber in the Fossil Lab

See dinosaur dung

Follow dinosaur footprints throughout the exhibition

About Digging Dinosaurs
In the museum’s permanent Digging Dinosaurs exhibition, hands-on interactive stations throughout the gallery encourage visitors to learn about the lives of dinosaurs, and characteristics such as their claw movements and crest trumpeting for communication. The exhibition focuses on dinosaur themes: Nesting and Growth, Tracks and Movement, Paleo-environmental Reconstruction (using paleontology to reconstruct the landscape of a specific time and place), Predator and Prey, and What’s for Dinner. In the laboratory area, children and families will have the opportunity to examine fossils and other specimens, using tools such as electric magnifiers and magnifying glasses. The exhibition features Hadrosaurus foulkii, the New Jersey State dinosaur.

About the Morris Museum
The Morris Museum is an award-winning, community-based arts and cultural institution which serves the public through the presentation of high caliber permanent and changing exhibitions in the arts, sciences and humanities. The Museum also offers educational programs, family events, and is home to the Bickford Theatre and its wide range of performing arts offerings. Continuously serving the public since 1913, the Morris Museum has been designated a Major Arts Institution and has received the New Jersey State Council on the Arts’ Citation of Excellence, among other awards. In 2013 the museum will celebrate its Centennial Anniversary.

The Morris Museum, located at 6 Normandy Heights Road (at the corner of Columbia Turnpike) in Morristown, NJ, is open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Admission to the museum is $10 for adults and $7 for children, students and senior citizens. Admission is free for museum members and is free to the public every Thursday between 5 and 8 p.m. For more information, call 973-971-3700, or visit www.morrismuseum.org.

The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt, by William Northdruft with Josh Smith

I recommend this book highly. It can be purchased at Amazon, or can be ordered, via interlibrary loan if your own library doesn't carry it.


Here's the table of contents:

MAP OF EGYPT

Prologue: Death and Ressurection
1. Reaping the Whirlwind
2. The Bone-hunting Aristocrat
3. Unearthing a Legend
4. Dragomen, Follsils and Fleas
5. The Road to Bahariya
6. Finds and Losses
7. Sand, Wind and Time
8. The Hill Near Death
9. Solving Stromer's Riddle
10. Lost World of the Lost Dinosaurs

Epilogue: Memorials
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

In 1911, German paleontologist Dr. Ernst Stromer found bones of 3 new dinosaurs in Egypt. The bones were excavated and sent to Germany. Irreplaceable, they were destroyed in 1944 when British bombers bombed Munich, and a stray bomb destroyed the museum where they were housed.

No casts of these bones had ever been sent anywhere else - so the bones were gone.

In 2000, a group of paleontologists traveled to Egypt to find the site where Stromer had dug, and try to see if they could find anything he had missed (which was possible, as there'd been only 3 excavating seasons before WWI, and after WWI Germany was too poor to sponsor any scientists to continue the work, and after WWII, they had other priorities.)

This book tells the story of that ultimately successful quest.



If I were to rank this on ascale of one to ten T-rex skulls, I'd give it a 7 and a half.

This is because the beginning chronology of the book irks me. I like things to be covered in chronological order, but the first few chapters alternate between 1911-14, and the 2000 expedition, as if the writer didn't trust his material to keep the reader fascinated all on its own.

Stromer is a tragic figure. A German aristocrat, he defied Hitler and the Nazis. To pay him back, when his 3 sons joined the army they were all sent to their deaths on the Russian front. (One did survive the war, and lived for five years in a Russian prison camp after war's end, as a few million German soldiers were also - used as slave labor in payback for how their compatriots had treated the Russians.)

Stromer lived to see his life's work destroyed, but also lived long enough to learn that his third son had indeed survived the war, gotten married, and presented him with a grand daughter.

Excavating in Egypt in 2000 was a difficult process (and worse now, no doubt), and we learn a great deal about excavating practices then and now, and about the world the Egyptian dinoasurs lived in back then. (No grass, just plants. And so on.)

Highl recommended.

Scientists claim to find dinosaur eggs

From THV11: Scientists claim to find dinosaur eggs
CHECHNYA, Russia (CBS) -- Scientists in Russia's mountainous Chechnya region say they have uncovered a large cache of dinosaur eggs, fossilized into the side of a cliff in the southern Russian republic.

The discovery, according to Russian media reports, was made by a team of geographers while on an expedition earlier this month to chart waterfalls in the region. The head of Chechnya State University's laboratory of landscape research said that scientists on the expedition believed the globe-shaped rock formations were fossilized dinosaur eggs.

"It creates a single opinion that these are fossilized dinosaur eggs. There's no other opinion because there are a lot (of the eggs) here, really a lot. In just one place there are a few dozen of varying sizes - from 9 inches to over three feet," said Sai-Emin Dzhabrailov , head of the Chechnya State University Laboratory of Landscape Research, standing near the site where the cache was uncovered.

Other scientists on the expedition, however, were hesitant to call the discovery a definite dinosaur egg find.

"In any case this is a unique object. What we see here are unique things that need to be researched," said Larissa Bitkaeva, head of Chechnya State University's Department of Physical Geography
The Chechen scientists said they believe the 'eggs' were laid by plant-eating dinosaurs approximately 60 million years ago.

A team of paleontologists from Moscow has been sent to study the 'egg' samples and conduct radiocarbon dating tests, according to Russian media reports.

Jurassic lark? Dino-seeking trip in Africa planned

From MSNBC.com: Jurassic lark? Dino-seeking trip in Africa planned
A young Missouri man has turned to the Internet in search of investors for his expedition into the remote jungles of Africa seeking to document undiscovered flora and fauna. That is not so unusual, but one of the creatures he hopes to find is: a living dinosaur.

The region Stephen McCullah, the organizer of the expedition, has chosen to explore is the reputed home of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé, a dinosaur-like creature said to be up to 35 feet long, with brownish-gray skin and a long, flexible neck. Many locals believe that it lives in the caves it digs in riverbanks, and that the beast feeds on elephants, hippos and crocodiles.

McCullah posted his pitch on Kickstarter.com asking for $27,000 in donations so that he and his friends can launch the Newmac Expedition, "one of the first expeditions in this century with the goal of categorizing plant and animal species in the vastly unexplored Republic of the Congo." The preliminary four-man venture is slated to launch June 26.

Though the team members largely lack formal education in biology or zoology, they "anticipate discovering hundreds of new insect, plant and fish species during the course of our research. There is also the legitimate hope of discovering many reptile and mammalian species. We have received reports...in the region of eyewitnesses seeing canine-sized tarantulas, large river dwelling sauropods [dinosaurs], and a species of man-eating fish," McCullah wrote on the website. ( Can We Make Jurassic Park Yet? )

Never mind dinosaurs, which have been extinct for millions of years, for a moment. Finding a spider the size of a dog would be remarkable enough, as the largest-known tarantula, the Goliath birdeater, lives in South America and has a leg span of "only" a foot.

When asked if he really expected to discover monster tarantulas and dinosaurs, McCullah told Life's Little Mysteries, “We don't necessarily expect to find concrete evidence of Mokèlé-mbèmbé (or any other creatures claimed to have been seen in the region) on the first expedition, but we believe there's a good chance during that initial three months that we will find hard evidence of its presence in the area if it is there."

Even if McCullah's team finds that evidence, most cryptozoologists (those who search for unknown or hidden animals) believe that only a live or dead specimen would convince mainstream scientists that animals such as Bigfoot or Mokèlé-mbèmbé exist — the blurry photos and videos, footprints and eyewitness reports that make up the vast majority of the evidence for these creatures are simply not enough. McCullah and his team will need specialized equipment to capture these animals — and a living dinosaur would require a pretty big net.

"We are in the process of looking at live methods for capture of large animals," McCullah said. "We will be attempting to bring a tranquilizer rifle, but there are many issues and unknowns we will have to overcome to subdue an animal like Mokèlé-mbèmbé with a tranquilizer gun."

In his Kickstarter pitch, McCullahnoted that there have been several previous expeditions to the Congolese jungles in search of large unknown animals (including Mokèlé-mbèmbé), and yet they all failed to find good evidence. He believes that his group's youth and enthusiasm will help them succeed where others have failed. The arsenal of cutting-edge technology they plan to bring should help as well: "We will be utilizing satellite images, trail cameras, a Thermal camera to track animals, and sonar to search through the murky waters."

Benjamin Radford, contributing writer for Discovery News, is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Shells made dinosaurs egg-stinct, scientists say

From FoxNews: Shells made dinosaurs egg-stinct, scientists say
The fact that land-bound dinosaurs laid eggs is what sealed their fate of mass extinction millions of years ago while live birthing mammals went on to thrive, scientists said Wednesday.

In a new explanation for mammals' evolutionary victory over dinosaurs, researchers said a mathematical model has shown that infant size was the clincher.

Given physical limitations to the size of egg shells, dinosaurs had comparatively small young. Some came out of the egg weighing as little as 4.4 to 22 pounds (2-10kg), yet had to bulk up to a hefty 33 or 55 tons (30 or 50 tonnes).

Growing up, the youngsters had to compete in several size categories with adults of other animal groups for food, University of Zurich scientist Marcus Clauss told AFP.

This meant that all the small and medium animal size categories supported by the natural environment were "occupied," leaving no room for smaller dinosaur species in which to thrive, according to the findings published in Biology Letters, a journal of Britain's Royal Society.

"There is a lot of room in the ecosystem for small species, but [in a dinosaur-era scenario] that room is taken up by the young ones of the large species," Clauss explained.

"That was not a problem for 150 million years but as soon as something happens that takes away all the large species so that only small species remain ... you are gone as a whole group."

The catastrophic event that wiped out all larger life forms some 65 million years ago meant the end for terrestrial dinosaurs.

Scientists disagree on whether the scaly reptiles died out before or after a meteorite smashed into Earth in what is known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary impact, causing billions of tons (tonnes) of wind-borne ash and dust to filter out light from the sun and triggering a "nuclear winter" that cooled the planet and withered vegetation.

Mammals did not have the same limitations in size spread, said Clauss, because their young were not born as comparatively small and did not need to compete with other species for food, instead suckling on their mothers.

This meant there were smaller mammal species able to cope with the new post-catastrophe environment and evolve into new species alongside birds, which are also descended from dinosaurs.

"The question that haunted some people including me is ... why did the mammals survive and why did the dinosaurs not. I think we have a very good answer for that," Clauss said.

The researchers said egg size is constricted by upper limits to the thickness of shells, which have to allow oxygen through to the embryo.

The average titanosaur, the largest type of vertebrate that ever lived, was 2,500 times heavier than its newborn. A modern-day elephant mother weighs 22 times more than her calf.

Scientists say all animals with a bodyweight of more than about 22 to 55 pounds (10-25kg) died in the mass extinction event.

'Walking With Dinosaurs': Tube Talk Gold

From DigitalSpy.com: 'Walking With Dinosaurs': Tube Talk Gold
Dinosaurs may have been wiped off the face of the earth 65 million years ago, but man's fascination with them only seems to be thriving in modern times. It was with this thought that on the verge of the millennium the BBC brought these great beasts to our humble living rooms in a way that TV had never done before.

The resulting documentary series Walking With Dinosaurs used state of the art effects to resurrect the dinosaurs and expand our minds by presenting them as more than just movie monsters. For that, it quickly became a truly groundbreaking phenomenon.

Walking With Dinosaurs: Originally broadcast from April 16, 1999 to December 25, 2000

One could be forgiven for thinking that the BBC had it easy creating a series around a subject that has fascinated for centuries. The uncovering of a tiny prehistoric bone is still enough to get the scientific community in a fluster and since the 1800s we have flocked to museums just to stand beneath reconstructions of grand skeletons.

But that didn't mean Walking With Dinosaurs creators Tim Haines, Jasper James, John Lynch and Andrew Wilks could snooze through the project. They needed to find a new angle to make them stand out in a saturated market. Dinosaurs were featured on screen since the dawn of cinema itself and it had been just six years since Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park raised the bar to Brachiosaurus heights.

Walking With Dinosaurs had to be fresh if it were to stand a chance of wowing an audience and become something more spellbinding than the countless other documentaries before. Yes, it had modern technology, but what it really needed was a modern approach too.

So the idea was that Walking With Dinosaurs would do away with beardy paleontologists pointing at fossils. Instead it took on the guise of a straight nature documentary with Kenneth Branagh as narrator, thereby creating the illusion that these incredible creatures were still roaming the earth.



To do this, real-world locations were used as a backdrop to the CGI and animatronics. Film crews dispersed across the globe to places like Chile, the Bahamas, New Zealand and California to create footprints in sandy beaches and rustle leaves as though a Stegosaurus was crashing through.

Resisting the temptation to recreate a prehistoric environment on a computer screen was a smart move, as part of the reason man is still craving knowledge about dinosaurs is that we know we will never be able to see them in the flesh. But this absolute truth disappeared when watching Walking With Dinosaurs. They were no longer lost to time, they were just in a different place - one far away, but accessible to a camera crew.

In order to keep up this sense of realism, it was imperative that the dinosaurs were seen behaving more like animals then legendary creatures. They mated, migrated and hunted. They were no longer invincible forces of nature towering over puny man, but vulnerable lifeforms. Droughts, typhoons and other disasters were frequently shown wiping out even the most dominant of predators.



Many episodes gave the dinosaurs a narrative - a trend again associated with contemporary nature programs. The second installment 'Time Of The Titans' follows a female Diplodocus from birth to adulthood as her siblngs are slowly picked off over the course of time. It ends with her being saved from an Allosaurs by another of her species - a feel-good ending that is of course as scripted as can be, but still feels genuine.

Another notable example is the Christmas 2000 special 'The Ballad of Big Al', which constructs a story for a real Allosaurus skeleton found in Wyoming in the 1990s. Again, the episode documents the dinosaur's entire life and depicts him as being tragically fallible - he dies from injuries sustained tripping over a log.

Like any documentary, Walking In Dinosaurs aims to educate and enlighten as well as entertain. Naturally, it makes plenty of time for the most prominent varieties like the Triceratops, Raptors and the T-Rex (the fact that the latter is kept to the final episode of the series is pretty telling), but it also shines a light on the lesser-known animals.

The show busts down the doors on Jurassic Park and ventures through time periods spanning 155 million years, introducing us to creatures we didn't even know existed. The first episode showcases the mammal-like reptiles and lizards that ruled supreme before dinosaurs came to prominence, while later ones explored the seas and skies.



Walking With Dinosaurs wasn't prepared to sacrifice scientific accuracy just to please the crowd either. For example, it presented the mighty T-Rex as a scavenger in keeping with evidence emerging at the time. A respectable decision, considering they probably could have given the casual fanbase the ultimate predator they were expecting and got away with it.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment about Walking With Dinosaurs is that there's not enough of it. It did spawn sequels like Walking With Beasts and Walking With Cavemen - as well as a movie that's currently in the works - but at the time there was so much more to explore. It easily could have warranted another couple of series.

But for six half-hour episodes and a sole sequel, it did pretty well at guiding us through the dinosaurs' time on Earth. So much so, that when that deadly asteroid hits in the final part of the series, there's a sense of genuine loss. To feel like that for animals that died out millennia before our earliest ancestors is not only bizarrely wonderful, but testament to the power of Walking With Dinosaurs.

T-Rex roams Newark Museum

From NJ.com: T-Rex roams Newark Museum
Jurassic Park comes to the Newark Museum when the “Mighty T-Rex” headlines a day of activities at the 5th annual Dinosaur Day on April 29 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Dinosaur Day engages children through hands-on experiences, games, performances and presentations. Children will meet and interact with the “Mighty T-Rex,” a 15-foot long mechanical dinosaur provided by Field Station: Dinosaurs that is accompanied by the Dinosaur Troubadour. Other activities include making fossil rubbings, digging for fossils, hunting for GEO treasures, creating dinosaur origami, joining in live animal presentations, and sluicing for gemstones. There will be a display of life size dinosaur fossils, a hurricane simulator with 70 mph winds, a fossil touch table and a Tsunami Tank.

Dinosaur Day performances include Bill Robinson’s Dinosaurs to Birds and Bill Boesenberg’s Snakes -n- Scales. The show The Dinosaur Prophecy will take place in the Dreyfus Planetarium. Times of these performances will be listed on newarkmuseum.org.

Geologists and engineers from Rutgers University, Kean University, NSF, Exxon Mobile, the New Jersey Paleontological Society and the US Geological Survey will also be on hand to share what modern geologists learn about dinosaurs and the history of the Earth.

Dinosaur Day is free with suggested Museum admission: $10for adults, $6 for seniors, children and students with valid ID. Admission price for the Planetarium is $5 for adults; and $3 for children under 12, seniors and college students with valid ID.

For more information, visit NewarkMuseum.org.

Book: The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt

Here's the description:

In 1911, Dr. Ernst Stromer led an expedition to Egypt's Bahariya Oasis in the Sahara and discovered four new species of dinosaurs, including the Tyrannosaurus-Rex sized predator, Spinnosaurus. But tragically, all his work was incinerated in 1944 during the Allied bombing of Munich

In 1999, Josh Smith, then a graduate student at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, took his brilliant, preccious team to Egypt under the direction of world-renowned paleontologist Dr. Peter Dodson and blundered onto an archaeological site that yielded awe-inspiring results: all of Dr. Stromer's early findings, and also an entirely new genus of dinosaur, Paralititan stromeri, one of the argest creatures ever to inhabit the planet.

I'll be reviewing it as soon as I've read it!

Explorers Club honours dinosaur hunter Phil Currie

From Vancouver Sun: Explorers Club honours dinosaur hunter Phil Currie
EDMONTON — Expeditions in Mongolia and Argentina, lectures in Australia, then back to his day job in Alberta: it’s all in a year’s work for paleontologist Phil Currie.

It’s fitting, then, that the University of Alberta’s resident dinosaur hunter has been recognized for his work and travels with the prestigious Explorers Club Medal.

Currie received the award at the club’s annual gala in New York City last month. In doing so, he joined the ranks of Sir Edmund Hillary, Neil Armstrong and Roy Chapman Andrews, the American explorer — and supposed inspiration for Indiana Jones — who first sparked Currie’s interest in dinosaurs.

“It’s shocking and overwhelming. To even be considered close is amazing,” Currie said.

The Explorers Club was founded by Arctic and Antarctic explorers in 1904, and eventually expanded to include mountain climbers, astronauts and biologists. Today, the professional society, which supports research in the physical, natural and biological sciences, has more than 30 international chapters, including one in Canada. One of its members nominated Currie for the medal for his contributions to paleontology, from naming his first newly discovered dinosaur in 1979 to helping create the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, and for decades of exploring fossil sites around the world.

Jason Schoonover, spokesman for Canada’s Explorers Club chapter, said the medal “represents the apex of recognition.”

“Nothing else comes close,” Schoonover wrote in an email.

While Currie’s work now takes him on regular expeditions to Mongolia’s Nemegt formation and the foothills of Argentina, it’s the science, not the travel, that drives him, he said.

“If you look at my habits, unless it’s work related and I can find a dinosaur there, I probably haven’t been there,” Currie said from his office at the University of Alberta, where he is a professor and Canada Research Chair of Dinosaur Paleobiology. “It’s definitely my science. And the inquisitive mind about where dinosaurs have been. What’s the significance of the dinosaurs of Argentina to the dinosaurs of Alberta, for instance. On the face you’d think nothing, but basically right before dinosaurs went extinct, Alberta-style dinosaurs started showing up in South America. Why was it so late? We can learn a lot from asking questions like that.”

Currie said he never imagined his career would take him where it has, not as a child reading Andrews’ book All About Dinosaurs, not even as a graduate student studying to become a paleontologist. And though he’s checked off six continents, including Antarctica, there’s one the 63-year-old hasn’t hit yet.

“Just to complete the cycle, I’d like to work in Africa at some point.”

Dinosaurs were surrounded by constant fires

from I09: Dinosaurs were surrounded by constant fires

Dinosaurs once ruled the Earth — but now it appears they ruled in Hell. Ancient charcoal deposits suggest wildfires ran rampant throughout the Cretaceous period, meaning dinosaurs had to spend 80 million years looking out for the next inferno.

So just why was the Cretaceous so fiery? According to researchers from London's Royal Holloway University and Chicago's Field Museum, there were two major reasons. First, the greenhouse effect was actually stronger back then than it is today, and this mean global temperatures were hotter. In such a world, random lightning strikes were much more likely to start fires than they are now. It also didn't help that there was actually more oxygen in the atmosphere in the Cretaceous than there is now, and that made the air itself more combustible.

Unlike today, where you generally need drought conditions to take hold before wildfires become a serious problem, the Cretaceous — which lasted from about 145 to 65 million years ago — was hot enough and had high enough oxygen levels that even very moist plants could easily burn. As Royal Holloway Professor Andrew C. Scott explains, these constant fires would have wrought havoc on the Cretaceous environment, "not only destroying the vegetation, but also exacerbating run-off and erosion and promoting subsequent flooding following storms."

The researchers were able to track the role of ancient fire through charcoal deposits in the fossil record. These signs of ancient fires are practically omnipresent in Cretaceous dinosaur deposits. Exactly how these fires would have affected the behavior of the dinosaurs is still an open question, but I think we do now know one thing for certain - Terra Nova would have been way more enjoyable if everything kept randomly catching on fire.

Southwestern’s Chadwick talks dinosaur bones, new museum

From Cleburne Times-Review: Southwestern’s Chadwick talks dinosaur bones, new museum
Members of the Cleburne Rotary Club studied dinosaur bones, shark teeth and other fossils during their Thursday luncheon at the Cleburne Conference Center and heard about a museum in the planning stages at Southwestern Adventist University.

Dr. Art Chadwick, professor of biology and geology, discussed Southwestern’s upcoming “Dinodig” in Wyoming, a summer course the school began in 1996.

This year’s Dinodig runs May 31 to June 29 and targets high school students who have completed their junior or senior year as of June, college students seeking lab science credit and teachers seeking professional development. In addition to those groups, the program is also open to anyone interested in dinosaurs.

The cost for four hours of college credit and site fees, which includes transportation from Southwestern, food, lodging and field fees, is $1,783. Other dig programs and cost options are available. For information, visit dinodig.swau.edu.

The site, near Newcastle, Wyo., contains a treasure trove of dinosaur bones and other fossils, Chadwick said, adding that participants excavated about 2,000 bones last year.

The dig affords participants opportunity for hands-on excavation of dinosaur and other carnivore bones and fossils and to attend casual setting lectures on paleontology, biology of dinosaurs, geology and taphonomy. Chadwick likened the last to “CSI” as it is basically the science of figuring out how the bones or fossils came to be the way they are by concentrating on what happened between the time the animal was alive and the discovery of its bone or fossil remains.

Chadwick also discussed computer data programs and GPS technology developed at Southwestern used to measure and position bone and fossil placement within the dig areas. Chadwick delved into irregularities within sedimentary formations throughout the area and other anomalies, such as the fact that while about 95 percent of the dinosaur bones found in the area come from duckbill dinosaurs, one site in the same area contained about 500 bones of numerous dinosaur breeds, but no duckbills.

Chadwick hypothesized that a single catastrophic event likely killed dinosaurs in the area and an encroaching sea subsequently deposited and buried their carcasses en masse deep beneath waters, which has long since receded. Being encased underground left bones relatively intact, Chadwick said, adding that had they been closer to the surface they would have disintegrated long ago.



Science Education Center

Most of the bones and fossils recovered from the Wyoming site over the years are stored in Southwestern’s Scales Hall. The hope for some time, Southwestern President Eric Anderson said, has been to create a display area for those and other artifacts. Those plans moved closer to reality recently thanks to an anonymous $250,000 gift to the university.

Southwestern alumna and Rotarian Julie Roberts, who has spearheaded fundraising and grant efforts on behalf of the city of Cleburne and other project efforts, has undertaken the effort to raise the remaining funding required.

“The next logical step is to exhibit [the artifacts] and show how the science works,” Roberts said. “The plan is for interactive displays, not just a dull, dead museum display.”

Exact plans and specifics remain in the planning at this point, Roberts said. Initial plans call for the museum area to occupy a renovated and perhaps expanded section of Scales Hall, she said.

Students unearth dinosaur

From the Commrercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee): Students unearth dinosaur
Far from the green wooded landscape of West Tennessee, 11 college geology students stared across a seemingly infinite expanse of plateau dotted with short spurts of grass. They were some of the same students who had worked at Coon Creek, an paleontological dig site in McNairy County owned by the Memphis Pink Palace Family of Museums.

It was May 2011 when the geology students from the University of Tennessee at Martin arrived at the Dighton, Kan., farmland, this time they were joined by two faculty members.

It was hot as they assessed the dry crumbly earth, their eyes were constantly tilted toward the ground, searching, searching -- and then there was the discovery.

"They uncovered fossils buried for millions of years, some of which are new and significant finds to science," said Dr. Michael Gibson, UT-Martin professor of geology.

He was referring to the mosasaur, a prehistoric marine lizard, and two prehistoric fish fossils from the Cretaceous period that the group found and excavated to be displayed in a museum (a similar fossil, the skull of a mosasaur, is on display at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum that was excavated by a former curator who worked for the museum).

"I mean, to walk along these weathered chalk layers and to find an ancient creature fossilized in time is really just awesome. To think that these specimens were from the Cretaceous period and would date at around 73 million years old; it's nuts!" said UT-Martin senior geoscience major Aaron Scott, who was part of the excavation group.

Ironically, and perhaps appropriately, the great prehistoric discovery was for and financed by Discovery Park of America, the large educational and entertainment complex being erected in Union City, Tenn. It is funded principally by the Robert E. and Jenny D. Kirkland Foundation, and upon its scheduled opening in 2013, will feature an expansive array of exhibits including an extensive natural history section where these fossils will be featured.

"Mr. Kirkland really wanted to be able to have some real fossil specimens," Gibson said. "So the idea I pitched to them was rather than go buy everything, why don't we go and collect some things that would then be on display, and they would own the originals."

By the following spring the trip was a go and the hunt on.

"The first day, I couldn't even see the dig site from where we stopped. We were all set up on a ridge that overlooked a lower valley, but there were plants covering most of what I could see, so I assumed the site was somewhere else," said senior geoscience major Angela Reddick.

Gibson chose the site in Kansas, rented by Triebold Paleontology Inc., for its reputation as a large fossil hot spot. Still, the first two days of the dig were slow as the students only came across small insignificant fossils.

"I believe it was on the third day we were out there, everyone was starting to feel a little let down because we hadn't found very much," Reddick said. She then described the excitement she felt when she found out that other members of her group found the first large specimen, a huge fish. "It was so exciting then. I just wanted to be a part of digging it out."

Scott, however, was lucky enough to be one who originally spotted a large fossil.

"As I was topping a rise in the chalk I saw jaws sticking out of the ground, called over our group leader, and we began the excavation process.

The three fossils are worth roughly $250,000 in their jacketed form but will be worth more after they are finally prepped, which is the second part of the project. In March 2013, Discovery Park will pay for several of the same geology students to fly to Triebold's laboratory in Colorado to finish readying the fossil samples.

"A vast majority of paleontologists will go through their entire career and never find these," Gibson said.

"The difference of a trip like this and a classroom experience, it is huge," Scott said.

The ocean-way for the group's fish finds is the same time frame and ocean as that of Coon Creek, and the University of Tennessee at Martin's Selmer Center and ECOS (extended campus and online studies) is UT Martin is currently negotiating a partnership with them regarding the site.

If you are interested in trying your luck at unearthing a fossilized treasure, you can stake your claim at Coon Creek by becoming a member of the Memphis Pink Palace Museum this month. Once a year, the museum offers members a full-day visit to the site. Guidance from museum staff is available to assist with digging, collecting, cleaning, and preserving any found fossils. This year's event is going to take place at the end of April.

For more information, call the museum's membership office at (901) 636-2406.

Biggest Dinosaur Skull in Europe Found in Spain

From Fox News Latinio: Biggest Dinosaur Skull in Europe Found in Spain
Madrid – A Spanish paleontology foundation presented Tuesday the fossilized skull of the biggest dinosaur yet found in Europe, Turiasaurus riodevensis, a sauropod that lived 145 million years ago, measured more than 30 meters (100 feet) long and weighed some 40 tons.

The more than 35 bones of the skull and seven teeth, presented last Wednesday at the Paleontological Laboratory of Teruel's Dinopolis Foundation, were found during the 2005 excavation campaign in the Barrihonda-El Humero deposits in the Riodeva municipality.

According to researchers, skulls of this species of dinosaur are rarely found intact because of their extreme fragility - four out of every five sauropods whose remains have been found are missing the skull - but this time 70 percent of the fossil record was recovered.

"Turiasaurus riodevensis - some 30 to 35 meters (100 to 115 feet) long - thus becomes the most complete sauropod found on the Iberian Peninsula," the team wrote for an article in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.

Researcher Rafael Royo said that the team of paleontologists took two years to prepare "meticulously," bone by bone, the material presented Tuesday and that it has been compared with other known fossils.

Royo said that, besides the fossil remains of the cranium, they have fragments from the neck, shoulder-level vertebrae, front and back feet, hips and shoulder blades.

The giant sauropods found up to now include Argentinosaurus in South America, Seismosaurus in North America, Giraffatitan and Paralititan in Africa, Mamenchisaurus in Asia, and Turiasaurus in Europe.

Of those, the only ones for which information about the skull has been found are Giraffatitan, Mamenchisaurus and now Turiasaurus.

Dinosaurs lived underwater, British scientist claims

From Fox News: Dinosaurs lived underwater, British scientist claims
LONDON – Dinosaurs were too big to have roamed the earth and must have lived in water, a British scientist controversially claimed Tuesday.

Professor Brian J. Ford, an independent research biologist, told scientific magazine Laboratory News that the prehistoric creatures could not have supported their own huge frame and cumbersome tails on two legs alone.

Ford believes that the prehistoric creatures evolved in shallow water and lived in an aquatic environment to support their weight.

"Every time you see these images, they are always the same," Ford wrote at Laboratory News. "These huge dinosaurs crunching across arid deserts holding these huge tails erect as they are looking around for prey. It makes no sense."

'These huge dinosaurs crunching across arid deserts holding these huge tails erect ... it makes no sense.'

- Biologist Brian J. Ford

"Just imagine that the landscape was water -- it suddenly makes sense," he added. "This huge tail is buoyant, floating in the water. It becomes a swimming aid. Suddenly his environment is sympathetic to him."

Ford said the fact that archaeologists rarely find tail marks along with dinosaur footprints supports his theory, because the creatures' muscular tails were aiding their movement through water, rather than being dragged along the ground.

Dr. Paul Barrett, Dinosaur Researcher at London's Natural History Museum, disputed the idea that dinosaurs ruled the waters, rather than the earth.

"Decades of research have shown conclusively that dinosaurs were exceptionally well-adapted for life on dry land," Barrett told NewsCore.

He added, "Many features, such as footprints, the structure of the legs, arms, and backbone, dinosaur nests, and dinosaur gut contents, all show that they spent most of their time on land and could hold their colossal bodies up without the need for them to be bobbing about in prehistoric swamps."

Two small beaked, frilled dinosaur species are identified

From Examiner.com: Two small beaked, frilled dinosaur species are identified
Two new species of beaked and frilled dinosaur were identified earlier this month by paleontologists who re-examined fossil remains discovered in Canada years ago.

The Cretaceous period animals, which have named Unescoceratops koppelhusae and Gryphoceratops morrisoni, lived between 75 million and 83 million years ago.

Both animals were relatively small. Unescoceratops was between one and two meters long, weighing no more than about 91 kilograms, while Gryphoceratops was, according to researchers, unlikely to have been longer than about one-half meter. An adult Gryphoceratops would have weighed less than an adult Unescoceratops.

The dinosaurs' diminutive size makes their fossilized remains a somewhat unusual paleontological artifact.

"Small-bodied dinosaurs are typically poorly represented in the fossil record, which is why fragmentary remains like these new leptoceratopsids can make a big contribution to our understanding of dinosaur ecology and evolution," Dr. David C. Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum, one of the authors of a study documenting the discovery, said.

Neither animal had large horns or extensive frills, such as those sported by more famous contemporary dinosaurs such as Triceratops horribilis, though both had relatively small frill-like structures atop their skulls.

They did, however, have some unusual skull features.

Unescoceratops had bone projecting from below the jaw, giving it a facial feature that may have somewhat resembled a chin, while Gryphoceratops had a jaw that was both shorter and deeper than any other animal within the same family of dinosaurs.

The family to which Unescoceratops and Gryphoceratops belonged was the leptoceratopsians, which is a taxon within the clade of dinosaurs known as ceratopsians.

Leptoceratopsians were native to land that is known today as Asia and North America.

The fossil that allowed identification of Unescoceratops, a lower left jaw fragment, was found in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1995. Researchers identified it as a fossilized remnant of an animal called Leptoceratops gracilis, but further study by paleontologists Michael Ryan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Evans led to a conclusion that it is an example of a previously unknown animal.

The genus name Unescoceratops honors the designation of the area in which remains of the animal was found as a United Nations World Heritage Site. The species name honors the wife of the scientist who found the fossil of the animal in 1995.

The Gryphoceratops remains were originally found in 1950, also in Alberta. Its species name honors the man who found that fossil, Levi Sternberg.

A study that announces the discovery of the two new Leptoceratopsians appears in the Jan. 24, 2012 issue of Cretaceous Research.

When Dinosaurs Roamed, Wildfire Was a Foe

Fron LiveScience.com: When Dinosaurs Roamed, Wildfire Was a Foe

Fierce dinosaurs may not have had to contend with many predators, but intense and frequent wildfires may have been a real threat during their reign, new research suggests. Wildfires seem to have left their mark on the archeological record in the form of charcoal deposits.

The researchers discovered these abundant and widespread fires by analyzing the amount of charcoal in the fossil record. They created a global database of charcoal deposits during the Cretaceous Period (the period from 145 million to 65 million years ago). Many of these charcoal deposits were associated with beds of dinosaur fossils.

"Charcoal is the remnant of the plants that were burnt and is easily preserved in the fossil record," study researcher Andrew C. Scott, a professor from Royal Holloway University of London, said in a statement.

Multiple factors would have fueled these wildfires, which were likely started by lightning strikes. Global temperatures were in general higher than they are today, because of a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. Higher levels of oxygen filled the ancient atmosphere, and oxygen fuels fires.

This "was why fires were so widespread," study researcher Ian Glasspool, a curator at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, said in a statement. "As at such periods — unlike today — plants with higher moisture contents could burn."

Wildfires have a huge impact ecologically, stripping landscapes of their plants. The widespread fires would have disturbed the environment in which the dinosaurs and other ancient creatures, like reptiles, mammals and birds, lived, and would have meant higher levels of plant turnover as plants were burned and their nutrients returned to the soil.

"Until now, few have taken into account the impact that fires would have had on the environment, not only destroying the vegetation but also exacerbating runoff and erosion and promoting subsequent flooding following storms," Scott said. (Heat from wildfires can reduce the stability of soils, something that would have boosted erosion of those soils.)

The researchers are now assessing the impact that these fires would have had upon dinosaur communities.

The study was published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

Dinosaur National Monument Rafting Tours Help Support Mission of Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Station

From PRWeb: Dinosaur National Monument Rafting Tours Help Support Mission of Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Station
Adrift Adventures, an expedition rafting company operating seasonally in Dinosaur National Monument, has teamed up with Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Station(RMPBS) for the third consecutive year to host two four-day rafting tours through Gates of Lodore on the Green River, set to launch July 27 and August 16 (sold out), 2012, with a portion of the proceeds going back to the station.

Dr. Pat Tierney, professor and chair of the recreation, parks and tourism department at San Francisco State University and co-founder and former owner of Adrift Adventures, will be the keynote interpreter and guest guide for the July 27 Green River rafting trip.

“Dinosaur National Monument is unique and special in many regards,” Dr. Tierney explained. “The area’s diverse natural and environmental history really epitomizes the canyons of the west…it may be lesser known than the Grand Canyon, but in a lot of ways it’s just as beautiful.”

Dr. Tierney said he has been exploring Dinosaur National Monument for 34 years – starting out as a kayak-based river ranger for the National Park Service, then conducting research on boater impacts of the area and eventually founding Colorado Canyons Whitewater (later expanding to include Adrift Adventures) with his wife in 1980. They sold Adrift Adventures to River Runners in 2006, but he still works as a guest guide and interpreter for the Utah rafting company and the Sierra Club in Alaska.

“Dinosaur is a convergence of ecosystems and past Native American cultures,” Dr. Tierney explained. “With its beautiful 2,000 foot deep canyons, 800-year-old Indian rock art, exciting rapids and optional hiking – every day is different and has something new to enjoy.”

Adrift Adventures will donate a portion of the trip cost back to RMPBS. This amount is based on participant levels and will reach $200 per adult with a full trip of 25 participants. Both rafting trips sold out in 2010 and 2011.

Penny Mitchell, general manager at KRMJ in Grand Junction, is responsible for coordinating the two Gates of Lodore whitewater rafting fundraisers with Adrift Adventures. She said she is excited to again partner with the Utah rafting company.

“In addition to being a fundraiser, our hope with these trips is that the participants – who already appreciate what we do – become even more involved with RMPBS,” Mitchell said.

The keynote interpreter for the August 16 rafting tour will be Dr. Andrew Gulliford, professor of southwest studies and history at Ft. Lewis College in Durango, who will participate for the third consecutive year.

“I have been involved with interpretive programs in and around Dinosaur National Monument for twenty years, and by far the best way to experience it is from a raft,” Gulliford said. “The geology is spectacular and it has such a unique history…not only the pre-history and that of Native Americans, but also the stories of cowboys, outlaws and famous explorers like John Wesley Powell.”

According to Adrift Adventures, limited space is still available for the July 27 launch, but the August 16 date is sold out (call to get on a waiting list). Both Green River rafting trips are open to the public and are capped at 25 participants by the National Park Service. Cost is $765 for adults and $250 for children between six and 12 years old. A $200 deposit is required at time of booking. To make reservations contact Adrift Adventures at 800-824-0150 or learn more about these and other rafting expeditions at http://www.adrift.com.

Four-day Gates of Lodore rafting trips on the Green River cover 44 river miles in the heart of Dinosaur National Monument. These wilderness rafting trips launch at Gates of Lodore in Colorado and take out at Split Mountain Campground in Utah. Intermediate class III and class IV rapids will be encountered on both trips, but no prior rafting experience is necessary. Camps are remote and accessible only by watercraft. These Utah and Colorado whitewater rafting tours are professionally guided, all-inclusive and self-contained.

Adrift Adventures is an authorized concessionaire of the National Park Service that offers fully guided whitewater rafting trips on the Green River and Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument – May 1 through the first week of September. To learn more about these and other family-friendly Utah and Colorado whitewater rafting tours log on to http://www.adrift.com or call 800-824-0150.