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  1. Oxytropidoceras

    How Many Dinosaurs Remain Undiscovered?

    How Many Dinosaurs Remain Undiscovered? Paleontologists say more non-avian dinos are waiting to be uncovered than have previously been found By Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, July 21, 2023 Yours, Paul H.
  2. Why Is the Isle of Wight Rich in Dinosaur Fossils? Some of the first-ever dinosaur bone finds occurred on this British island. Now, researchers are discovering even more. By Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover, July 14, 2023 Yours, Paul H.
  3. Please help! Did I find some Dinosaurs? Here are pictures
  4. Prehistoric party: Canada town breaks dancing dinosaur world record KCRA news, Sacremento California, July 8, 2023 Dance party for 1,000 dinosaurs follows Dundurn, Sask., challenge to world record CBC News, July 3, 2023 Dundurn celebrated Canada Day with large gathering of inflatable dinosaur costumes By Jeanelle Mandes Global News, July 2, 2023 Yours, Paul H.
  5. svcgoat

    Lance Formation Sediment Box 3

    I got another box of sediment will be going through it over the next week or so. If @Troodon or @jpc could help would be appreciated
  6. Oxytropidoceras

    Hunting Vertebrate Fossils with Drones

    Below are some miscellanous articles and publications about using drones to find vertebrate fossils. Surveyors use drone technology to map dinosaur footprints in Sunland Park By Jason McNabb, April 26, 2023 Earlham geologists use aerial technology, 3D mapping to discover fossils buried in desert Earlham College, August 26, 2022 Reinhart, J.A., 2020. Using drone mounted multispectral cameras to map fossil sites (Masters thesis). Beelders, T. and Dollman, G., 2021. Virtual Prospecting in Paleontology Using a Drone-Based Orthomosaic Map: An Eye Movement Analysis. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10(11), p.753. Automated laser-scanning ‘hunter drone’ seeks out fossils, minerals and biological targets, Hong Kong University Automated laser-scanning 'hunter drone' seeks out fossils, minerals and biological targets, The University of Hong Kong Yours, Paul H.
  7. Here by I want you to share my fossil dinosaur collection and keep updating it! So lets start off by showing my recently aquired Spinosaurus indet. tooth from the KemKem Basin, Taouz Morocco. It measures 4'51 inches. Really like the colors and detailed preservation. With serrations still visible.
  8. Hello! My name is Raúl Falcón, and I am a design student at the Rhode Island School of Design. I’m currently working on a research project focused on online paleontology resources for anyone interested in dinosaurs and paleontology. I would appreciate your feedback and input on this project, which can be accessed through the attached link here. This research project is part of my Design Principles class User Experience Final project. The goal of this study is to gain insight into how individuals learn about prehistoric life and engage with online learning resources. To achieve this, participants will be asked to complete a form with three questions related to their learning experiences and preferences for educational content. Please note that all responses will be kept confidential and used solely for research purposes. My ultimate objective is to develop online paleontology resources that cater to the needs and preferences of anyone interested in paleontology. I would be more than happy to respond to any questions or comments you may have. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me via email at rfalcon@risd.edu. Thank you for your time and assistance in this project. Best regards, Raúl
  9. Bone to pick: Is the dinosaur fossil investment craze over? Timothy Rooks, Deutsche Welle (DW), April 18, 2023 Yours, Paul
  10. Long Island Scientist Discovers Dinosaur Neck Longer Than a School Bus. The neck measured to roughly 49 and a half feet long, or big enough to stretch across five parking spots — and then some By Greg Cergol, 4 News, New York, March 16, 2023 New Fossil Analysis Reveals Dinosaur With 50-Foot Neck SciTechDaily, March 17, 2023 The open access paper is: Moore, A.J., Barrett, P.M., Upchurch, P., Liao, C.C., Ye, Y., Hao, B. and Xu, X., 2023. Re-assessment of the Late Jurassic eusauropod Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum Russell and Zheng, 1993, and the evolution of exceptionally long necks in mamenchisaurids. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 21(1), p.2171818. Yours, Paul H.
  11. Did horned dinosaurs, ceratopsians, use their horns in a defensive posture or did it matter at all and were really intended for other behavioral needs. Mark Witton tries to address this question, in his blog, with a new look using the behavior of modern animals. http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2023/02/horned-dinosaurs-vs-theropods-how-much.html
  12. okfossilcollector

    My little collection!

    Nothing too crazy in the collection yet just some theropod teeth mostly from HC MT. ID'd (when I bought them) as a nano, a Acheroraptor, Dromaeosaurs and a little bitty tooth I'm not sure of. I have a few ceratopsian bones and teeth, amber and such. There's a few Spino teeth and some low quality Carchardontosaurus teeth I want to get replaced with better ones.
  13. I don't think anyone has posted about this museum, but the Tokai University Museum of Natural History is a local museum near my family's hometown in Shimizu, Shizuoka, Japan. This is a museum that I visited a lot of a kid, but I was told that the museum as well as the aquarium here was going to close to the public sometime around March of this year? Haven't been here in like 15 years, so I figured I should go one last time before it closes down. You can also get a discount for tickets at convenience stores. It's not a huge museum, but there was some oddities. Also, some of the labels here are either outdated, or . . . a bit odd. Cetiosaurus statue Species: Pterichthyodes milleri and Pterichthys milleri Locale: Scotland, United Kingdom These are the same exact thing right? It's clear the labels for these were printed at different times. Species: Pleuracanthus sp. Locale: Germany Species: Scutosaurus karpinskii, Dicynodon amahtyku, Inostrancevia alezandri, Estemmenosuchus uralensis Casts from Russia. Species: Sauropoda indet. (?) Locale: Alberta, Canada (???) They refer to is as possibly being Apatosaurus but . . . You used to be able to touch this fossil, which is what that covered up section in on the information. Not sure if this is pandemic related, or they figured it wasn't a great idea somewhere down the line. Species: Tarbosaurus baatar (Cast) Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Original in Russia, which likely explains all the specimens after this one that aren't casts. Oospecies: Protoceratopsidovum fluxuosum Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Species: Protoceratops sp. Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Species: Gallimimus sp. Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Species: Protoceratops sp. and Psittacosaurus sp. Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Species: Deinodon tidoe (???) Locale: カプサイ (Kapusai?), Russia Good old Deinodon. Age is listed as 97-65 MYA. Not sure where Kapusai, Capsai, Capusai is. Everything about the label looks like a mess, but probably the most interesting piece I saw. I spent the longest time just looking at this specimen. I'm sure as a kid, I just walked right past it to look at all the big skeletons. But coming back here as a collector made me see this place in a new perspective. Species: Tarbosaurus baatar Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Species: Saurolophus angustirostris Locale: Gobi Desert, Mongolia Species: Arcuaeogeryon peruvianus Locale: Uruguay Nothing comes up for this species or genus other than this specific specimen, so it's probably way outdated or was not right from the start. Or it is a spelling mistake. I know a lot of obscure genera don't come up if you mess up even a single letter. Species: Coelacanthus banffensis Locale: Canada Species: Carcharocles Otodus megalodon Locale: Atacama Desert, Chili Species: Carcharodon carcharias (Great White Shark) Locale: Kakegawa, Shizuoka, Japan
  14. Man jailed, fined for using sledgehammer to dig up dinosaur fossils in B.C. CBC news, British Columbia, January 24, 2023 Jail time and hefty fine handed to man who helped dig out fossilized B.C. dinosaur tracks By Simon Little Global News, January 23, 2023 Yours, Paul H.
  15. Is the dinosaur, or so called dinosaur Deltadromeus Agilis an actual valid species of dinosaur. As some people claim it to be. Others do not. I do not have a clear view of the situation and I'd love someone to properly explain it.
  16. I have seen the truth in the net Dinosaurs are still alive, just on a journey. But, be careful, the are back next time
  17. This year in March we visited Bologna in Italy to go to the Bologna-show. After shopping we went in the fantastic town and visited Ice-Cream-Shops (fantastic...), Coffee-shops and the wonderful Museum for natural History, Giovanni Capellini (Collezione di Geologia "Giovanni Capellini" - Bologna Welcome) We were really impressed..., great museum, love to take more with me than we can store at home... (did not do, even some pics shows something other... ) What can I say to the museum? GO there, its great! I add some pics, enjoy..
  18. I had a pretty great birthday 11/09! Still young at 31! Cole woke me up the night before and said after work he is taking me out to Glen Rose Dino Valley State park in Glen Rose, TX and then going ammonite hunting for some decorations for Ruby’s vivarium. (Ruby is my pink morph western hognose snake) Of course I couldn’t go back to sleep before work after that! I know a lot of Texans probably went there during grade school and to some people dinosaurs are too “typical” but for someone who has lived in Indiana & Texas where it’s mostly marine fossils (and in Iceland there were pretty much none!) this was something new and exotic to me, albeit trace fossils. I worked my night shift super daydreamy and stargazy knowing it was going to be a fun day later on, clocked out, and we immediately drove out there! About good 2 hours away where I live and I couldn’t sleep on the way out there. When we finally got there they tried to charge me a child/teen ticket! The park ranger lady thought I was Cole’s teenage daughter. I immediately corrected the ranger and showed her my ID to prove I was 31 to charge me the correct amount (because thats the right thing to do!) and she gasped in shock, complimented my youth and my handmade ammonite earrings, gave me some free goodies along with a map. I haven’t eaten or slept in over a day and honestly it didn’t matter! I was so energetic and excited to be here I didn’t feel any fatigue at all! ^ If ya’ll don’t have the Rockd app- do so! So nifty especially when exploring a new place. We went to all the places on the map that had tracks, I waded in the water of course to see them up close! It was an incredible new intimacy with nature seeing them in person. You hear about them and think “yeah that sounds cool” but your eyes inches from them is whole other experience. The first one I spotted was an Acrocanthosaurus! I crawled immediately down the trail into the Paluxy river and splashed right into the water. After waiting a few minutes for the water to clear I was awarded with this: I reached down and touched it extremely delicately and it sent a jolt of adrenaline through my body like electricity I can’t describe! I got goosebumps like CRAZY. Cole knew I was having one of my “connection with nature moments” and watched me from the dry trail since he is hydrophobic as heck and didn’t want to join in. I’m the total opposite and if there’s enough water at a site- I go wading or swimming even in Texas! I just went on without him in the water and he followed me using the trail. Luckily he had my fanny pack but my phone is waterproof and stayed with me so I could take pictures. Roped off area: I want to share some odd prints I found that I dont think were marked on the map between Wildcat Hallow and the track site by the camping area. I don’t know if the map just needs updated or they are meant to be a “surprise” for the curious explorers but either way I’m sure the rangers know about them and it was fun to see them. Sorry for the finger and shoe marks, I actually tripped in one because I didn't expect any and wasn’t paying attention. (I was spying for any scaley babies at the river bank! Lots of turtles out that day, unfortunately I didn't spot any snakes.) I tried not to directly touch the dry prints. Hoooooly spit. My favorite part is “the ballroom site” where there are HUNDREDS of tracks! Lots of sauropod and predators prints here, the metatarsal tracks of the Acro were ADORABLE. Its amazing how if you look at a set and follow them you can imagine the walking behavior of the animal where they started walking and picking up speed to a sprint. SO. CUTE. My favorite prints were the rear- leg footprints of Sauroposeidon! You can just tell that it stood in thick, firm limy mud the way it was preserved and you can just “feel” it was a hefty animal by the look of the prints. I yelled out loud in awe it was so neat! (There were also just too many tracks to photograph) There were some lines in-between the series of sauropod tracks I was curious if that was the tip-end of its tail that may have left them? map of this track site: Blue is sauropod tracks; red is theropod tracks After this I went over to the deeper water by the swimming hole threw my boots & socks off and just dove right in with my clothes on. (We had pretty much that whole area of the park to ourselves and I brought extra pants & socks anyways!) It felt SO refreshing. I just relaxed enjoying the gorgeous weather ignoring Cole yelling at me (barely audible) worried about brain eating amoeba and wet car seat towels. (He shouldn’t be surprised being my best friend for 13 years now ) Sorry but the water was just… calling me! I was swimming over 100+mya dinosaur tracks and I felt so comfortable in my element. It felt so “right” and I was in full serotonin overload. Exhilarating! The only other fossil I saw besides oysters and dino tracks: Gift shop because I’m such a tourist in my own State. xD I can’t resist a signed book about paleontology! I have yet to read it as of this post but I know it’s about the history of the park and it came with a “dinosaur ballroom dance” CD. We went to Brookshires and then rewarded Cole with the biggest bag of jerky I could find, caffine, paid for a full tank of gas, and said thank you a billion times. This place was worth the visit no matter your age! The nature and hiking trail options itself are enough to visit if you like outdoors. *I have pictures and a few vids on my IG paleopastels as well! After spending most of the entire daylight there so I could dry off we went to my favorite spot in the Goodland Form and plucked out a few fast things on the way back home! I love the Oxytropidoceras the most Cole found me (Yay! So proud!) and I was happy to add another Heteraster to my shelf. I left the Pliotoxasters alone since I have a handful of them from last time. I got a few nice pieces of snake rocks to take home as well. Wet pants, dont care. What’s exciting is my zoic air pen from the UK + a few unique Dactylioceras fossils are coming in the mail soon! A little present to myself. What a great day! That day was the BEST present and best birthday to date! Hopefully this report helps others planning a visit to there! Thanks for reading!
  19. I thought you would be interested in this story I found on MSN: Chainsaw artist turns downed tree into dinosaur bench in Drumheller - https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/news/chainsaw-artist-turns-downed-tree-into-dinosaur-bench-in-drumheller/vi-AA12cLeL?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6dd1a134b523451a96ba4ac2210c3309 I am amazed at the talent of some people
  20. anna71

    Hill country Texas fossils ?

    Hello ! My name is Anna, I'm new here, I'm hoping someone can assist me with identifying what appears to be large bone ...or...rocks. They are very white, porous, and YES I did stick my tongue to one, lol, it stuck. I don't normally go around licking rocks, but these are pretty cool looking. i took pics yesterday. Found on my friends 180 acre hunting ranch, near Concan, Texas.(west of San Antonio, hill country)
  21. So this trip report is a little late in coming, but it's because the week before last was a lot to process! Just saying it was amazing would be an understatement. The Sunday before last I found the Xiphactinus with @Jared C that I've already posted about (and plan to provide an update on as soon as I'm done writing this). On Tuesday I had a job interview at the Waco Mammoth Site, and on Wednesday I got the job! Then I spent the weekend in Glen Rose, joining other volunteers from the Dallas Paleontological Society in helping Glen Kuban clean and map the dinosaur trackways recently uncovered by the horrible drought Texas has been experiencing this summer. Each of these three by themselves would be a huge highlight on my path to (hopefully) becoming a professional paleontologist, but to have all three happen in the same week? The stars must have aligned! I got more experience doing real paleo work in one week than I've had at any other point in my life, and with the new job and the fish excavation seeming like it'll be soon it looks like there's a lot more to come and I couldn't be happier about it. On to the trip report! As I said, last weekend I made the trip up to Dinosaur Valley State Park to help with the dinosaur footprints before the rain finally decided to make its way back to Texas and covered them up again. I left before sunrise on Saturday morning so I could arrive before noon while also leaving some extra time to make some stops along the way. I was hoping that I'd have some luck in the Glen Rose formation as my only experience with it before was in exposures of the lower half of the formation in Austin. Unfortunately, I didn't quite do enough research beforehand and ended up skunked - apparently the Upper Glen Rose is notoriously lacking in fossils aside from the famous dinosaur footprints. For once I was glad that I couldn't help myself when it came to making stops at every good-looking roadcut I saw. The slightly older and much more fossiliferous Comanche Peak formation is exposed almost everywhere you look closer to Waco and I had much better luck there. Here's a decent-sized Oxytropodiceras I found at one spot but ended up leaving behind since none of the fragments were very large on their own. I still want to find a complete one! By the time I got to Glen Rose I had a nice assortment of irregular echinoids (all Heteraster texanus I believe), gastropods (Tylostoma tumidum and Turritella seriatim-granulata, the latter represented by both external and internal casts), and one bivalve that could be Protocardia that I decided to keep because one side preserved both upper and lower valves and retained the original shell material which isn't very common. Of course, even though I told myself I wouldn't be tempted I did wind up taking home a different Oxytropidoceras fragment. What can I say? I'm a sucker for ammonites! I was hit with a flood of memories when I arrived in Glen Rose. I used to spend a week with my grandparents every summer at their house near Tyler when I was growing up, and they knew how much I liked all things dinosaur-related. When I was seven they took me to Glen Rose for the first time and it completely blew my mind. I liked it so much, in fact, that we went back every summer for the next five years. I hadn't been back to Dinosaur Valley State Park or the town it calls home in a while before last weekend. A lot was just as I remembered it: the Dairy Queen with its dinosaur mural, the Stone Hut Fossil Shop, and Dinosaur World with its array of concrete (and charmingly inaccurate) dinosaur statues. Even the woefully fossil-barren roadcut that I had begged my grandparents to let me explore once upon a time was right where I had last seen it. What I definitely didn't remember was the over half a mile long line of cars bumper-to-bumper trying to get into the park! It seemed like the national news coverage of the newly-exposed dinosaur tracks had been bringing people from all over - I saw more than a few license plates that were from out-of-state. As soon as I realized just how long of a wait I was in for I understood why the DPS had asked for people to begin arriving at 9 - both to beat the heat and the lines to get into the park. One fifty minute wait later and I was finally rolling up to the visitor's center. A sign out front that looked like it had just been set there said that the park was at capacity for the day, and unless visitors had prior reservations they would have to be turned away. I'm sure there were more than a few exhausted parents that were not at all looking forward to the difficult explanation they were going to have to give their dinosaur-obsessed children. After explaining to a ranger that I was there to help Glen Kuban and the DPS with the track clean-up a very friendly park ranger directed me where to go. On the way to the track site I passed the famous T. rex and Brontosaurus statues that the park was given after their debut at the 1964 New York World's Fair as part of an exhibition put on by the Sinclair Oil Corporation (their logo has been a sauropod for over 100 years!). While many of the tracks at the park are from theropods and sauropods, the park staff are keen to remind visitors that T. rex and Brontosaurus were not the trackmakers. Since their discovery the long-running theory has been that the theropod tracks were made by Acrocanthosaurus and the sauropod tracks by Sauroposeidon. The most famous tracksite is that first studied by American Museum of Natural History paleontologist R. T. Bird, showing a lone Acrocanthosaurus pursuing a herd of Sauroposeidon across the Early Cretaceous coastline. There are also other tracks made by an ornithopod similar to Iguanodon. Following the ranger's direction took me through a bumpy stretch of dirt road winding through a pasture on the western side of the park. The track site where I was headed, the Taylor Site, is easily accessible by hiking along the riverbed from the center of the park, but driving there was a lot more difficult. When I finally arrived I could already see crowds of people down in the river. I had never visited this spot before in my previous trips to the park since there were so many other track sites that were more well-advertised, but it seemed like the news coverage was drawing people out to the less-visited areas. As soon as I made my way down to the riverbed I was blown away. The DPS volunteers had clearly been busy the previous weekend. A huge pile of mud and sediment was stacked to one side, revealing a neat line of giant theropod tracks so pristine it looked like it could have been made only hours before. Thankfully there wasn't an Acrocanthosaurus lurking nearby! Ripple marks were also preserved alongside many of the tracks. I made my way over to the EZ-Up tent some DPS members had set up and introduced myself. It was surreal to meet Glen Kuban, as I remembered reading an article of his when I was only 12 and curious about the "human footprint" controversy. The Taylor Site is actually the exact spot where the misidentifed human trackway is located and so Mr. Kuban generously offered to give me a short guided tour. He was quite the character, full of obvious passion for the tracks he's spent over four decades studying and willing to answer any question asked of him by interested passerby. I asked him to set me to work and he directed me to the spot where you can see a bunch of people standing in the picture above. It turns out that there is a separate set of tracks preserved very differently from the rest at this location. The tracks were also made by a theropod, but instead of appearing as indentations in the limestone they are instead raised "casts" - the result of infilling with a sturdier sediment than the other tracks close by. When the river eroded away the layers of rock covering up the tracks it also eroded out the weak sediment that had filled many of them; however, the opposite happened to this particular set. The sediment that filled them in after they were first made over 113 million years ago is actually stronger than the limestone that makes up the river bed and is thus much more resistant to the Paluxy River's currents. As Mr. Kuban explained to me, the orange-ish coloring you can just barely see in the picture below is the result of iron present in the sediment that's slowly been oxidizing as it's exposed to the air. I joined several other DPS members who were diligently scrubbing the tracks so that Mr. Kuban could get better photos of them for the grid map he was planning on making of the site. I was told that that was the real reason the effect of the drought had been so significant: all of these footprints had been visible at some point or another, but it had been many decades since they had all been visible at the same time. No "new" tracks were discovered recently despite what the news had been saying. After several cycles of dumping buckets of river water on the tracks, then sponging them, then scrubbing them, the tracks were finally ready for their headshots, which was then followed by an hour's worth of measurement-taking and documentation. Below is a picture of the dream team at work! From left to right: Joe (a graduate student from Columbus who knew Mr. Kuban and who flew down just to work on the tracks), me, Murray (a DPS member and volunteer fossil preparer at the Perot Museum in Dallas), and Mr. Kuban, with grid paper and trusty clipboard in hand. I felt guilty not doing much more than scrubbing limestone and holding a tape measure for the rest of the day (not that I wasn't having the time of my life doing it!), as I could imagine just how much work had gone into shoveling and sweeping away all the mud that had been covering the main trackways. Major props to the hard-working members of the DPS that spent the weekend prior doing all that labor in the Texas heat! The tracksite looked amazing, and many of the visitors to the park passing through where we were working agreed. I had to deflect more than a couple of thank yous - what I was doing didn't hold a candle to the mini-excavation that had been done before I ever showed up. I ended up spending the night in town at the Comfort Inn (behind which forum member @LanceH actually did discover new dinosaur tracks). Although I tried to see them the next morning before I drove back to the park, it seems like the elements haven't been kind to Lance's discovery. The footprints are in a drainage ditch and were preserved in marl that is far weaker than the limestone in the river and so were probably only visible for a couple of years at most. Sunday was spent sweeping away some of the sediment that had already been moved just in case one of the dinosaur trackways extended to the area underneath it. As it turned out, it did! After that was done I went to another spot in the park with some other volunteers to see if the tracks there needed cleaning as well. This was the tracksite I remembered visiting with my grandparents. It's called the Ballroom because unlike the Taylor Site the tracks here are a mix of overlapping trails that don't form clear pathways. Maybe the Early Cretaceous was characterized by frequent dinosaur dance-offs. The scientific community may never know. Here's one of the largest Acrocanthosaurus tracks with my size 12 shoe for comparison. The clawmarks at the end of each toe where the theropod dug into the silty earth to keep its balance are still visible after all this time. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the sauropod tracks, but there were several nice ones at the Ballroom made by a juvenile that showed each of the strange curved toes very clearly. Speaking of sauropods, the last thing I did in town before I headed back to Waco was try some of the best good old Texas barbecue Glen Rose had to offer at a local joint named Hammond's (not a Jurassic Park reference, but I like to think it was ). Out front was a statue of a sauropod complete with horns, cowprint, and a brandmark that made me ask myself what they would have tasted like if they were still around. And that was it for my weekend! It was incredibly fun to visit one of my favorite places in the world again after so long away, and even more rewarding of an experience to get to do some real paleontology work with people that I was able to learn a lot from. Hopefully it won't be the last time- I think I'd like to make a habit of this sort of thing. Now to get to work on that fish update! - Graham
  22. Tidgy's Dad

    How Mammals Survived The Extinction.

    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220812-dinosaur-extinction-why-did-mammals-survive
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