Sunday, August 9, 2015

Trackways Along the Way


After leaving Arches, we had to stop to see some dinosaur footprints. Moab is littered with them. We stopped at the Jurassic rocks holding the Copper Ridge Sauropod trail and at the Poison Spider trail. It was honestly sort of sad at Poison Spider, because there was a family that saw the two pale tracks, got bored, and left after only a few minutes. In the mean time, I had seen a third track on the same rock, dad found an entire trackway on the rock below where it sort of looked like one of the dinosaurs had been limping, and I was starting to hunt around for the same kind of rock for more tracks. In addition, it just so happened that there were also petroglyphs near by that weren't really marked but were easy to climb to. 

 The moral of the story, kids, is to take a few extra minutes and always look a little closer.


Afterward, at the Copper Ridge track site, there was as track way of allosaur and sauropod footprints. The allosaur track was so detailed that you could see the toes in the rock. Dad and I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the tracks and looking for more. The longer you stared at the ground, the more the rocks had to reveal. Again, patience is a virtue. And so worth it.

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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.