Tuesday, August 9, 2016

...And I'm gonna make it home tonight!

 Today was the long drive, and there's still a lot to see and do in Maryland.

A couple of months ago, I went to a conference and met some folks from Dinosaur Park, a county maintained site that is an active excavation. The park is run completely on citizen science, opening its doors to the public to help. No one can take anything home; everything is kept and eventually put aside for research, because everything tells a part of the story. A lot of the collection goes to the Smithsonian. They've found dinosaurs, and there's wood everywhere from it being swampy. It dates back to the early Cretaceous. It's not likely that the dinosaurs were local here; they're bones likely washed down from further inland because of their deposition. It's been excavated on and off since the days of Marsh, who found the state dinosaur, a sauropod, here. There was so little material that he lost interest and went west, but the finds are just frequent enough to keep the interest of the public-and more eyes means that more can be found.

We also stopped at the Marine museums, explored collections, and saw some beautifully done exhibits. The best part on display was the Megaladon. I'm used to just seeing a jaw, and maybe an outline to demonstrate their length. These guys decided to reconstruct the cartilage structures that have replaced the bones and very rarely preserve, giving you the idea that this thing could probably have actually lived.

So how long was he?

There's a wide variety of estimates, ranging from 30 to 65 feet.  A modern great white shark will hit about 15-20 feet, max. This particular group takes a more conservative estimate and built their shark to reflect the lower end of this spectrum, awaiting evidence that they were bigger. Biological models right now suggest that a shark any bigger would start to fall apart, assuming it was just a blown up version of the Great White Shark. That said, the Great White may also be closer to the mako's than to the Meg. So something was likely different.

We just don't have any evidence of what. And so we look and wait.

 Speaking of looking, Maryland is a great place to do a little beach hunting, and we happened to hit the museum during a rain. I don't recommend going near Calvert Cliffs after a big rain or storm, but the beaches a little further down from them are a great place to look for teeth and fossils at this point. There wasn't a lot this time, but I did find some ray plates and teeth.

Another summer ended at the beach. Perfect.





No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.