Glen Rose, Texas - New Dinosaur Tracks?

[LanceH]

Pretty sure that the trespassing issue in not relative to the matter at hand.

Correct.

This still doesn't stop people making the claim that it somehow under "SVP rules" nullifies Me and Roz's discovery or claim to early discovery. Even if someone had just escaped prison and was hiding out on the property and found the tracks that doesn't nullify their claim.

The other side evidently now has to use the preposterous notion that the ditch diggers found the tracks first even though they had been gone for at least a year. The tracks are in SOFT marl layers (with clay above) NOT thick limestone beds and could not have even been seen even IF they scraped off the layers directly above the tracks. It was only till massive erosion by late 2009 they could have been exposed by water washing out the clay from the impressions in the harder layer. The tracks are at the very most sothern lowest part of the ditch where it turns to the west and goes behind the Hotel. The dino tracks are in the area off to the SIDE, not even where the initial trench was dug. The initial ditch and later water run-off caused the LATERAL erosion of a large area to the SIDE where the clay marl layers were covering the tracks which is many feet from the inital trench.

Everyone that has been there knows exactly what I just explained but that doesn't stop Jerry from telling Kris to say what he did.

Edited August 4, 2012 by LanceH

[LanceH]

Here is sattelite picture again to help see the area:

The actual track layer is maybe 3 feet below grade.

Edited August 4, 2012 by LanceH

[KansasFossilHunter]

Chill out, I was only pointing out what I was told (and know). There is NO reason to flip out and write 10 paragraphs about how " you are wrong!! I am right, right, right!!"

I will choose to write no further now, as everything I saw will be denied regardless of validity.

-Kris

[Auspex]

Kris, Lance was there, remember, and has documented everything. It is up to you to draw your own conclusions, but please consider all the available information with an open mind.

[KansasFossilHunter]

Kris, Lance was there, remember, and has documented everything. It is up to you to draw your own conclusions, but please consider all the available information with an open mind.

Oh, I know. That holds true for others as well.

Just know I'm not alone in my conclusions...

Edited August 5, 2012 by NiobraraFossilHunter

[fossiladdict]

Correct.

This still doesn't stop people making the claim that it somehow under "SVP rules" nullifies Me and Roz's discovery or claim to early discovery. Even if someone had just escaped prison and was hiding out on the property and found the tracks that doesn't nullify their claim.

Interesting at how "trespassing" is an attempt to provide fame to another, but as you and I said, it has no relevance to the matter.

I did a little bit of research about this man who "claims" he found these tracks. Interesting at what is said about this individual just by doing a google search. It's also interesting to note that there are different stories about how he found the tracks too.

Greed can overtake anyone and cause them to be dishonest. Lance, I wish you the best of luck in getting the credit YOU deserve.

[Foshunter]

Lance, a real injustice has been done to you and the others. Strange that Jerry, who lives hundreds of miles from the trackway found them on his on without prior knowledge of their location. I hunted fossils in Texas for many years, saw nice collections from the Dallas area and wanted to add to my collection, but I lived a hundred miles away and didn't have a clue where to go, how did he. The track area isn't huge, saying that, he could only have info. from a prior discovery to lay his claim. Maybe he was staying at the motel while on vacation, walking his dog and SHAZAM, the clouds opened up and there they were. Members, Lance has positive proof of the find, there is no doubt about that. Look at the documentation, common sense reveals the truth, how ever this turns out, honesty will prevail. I say to the DINODIVA, truth and honesty will set you free. You can have your excavation of the site but give credit where credit is due---Tom

[ghost1066]

Just a quick note. When Jerry had a museum here I contacted him about helping out with the displays and was told he was so good at what he does he didn't need help from anyone. I was told to come over and take a look but not to bother him about working with him. Fine by me. And if anyone is wondering I have displays in more places than I can remember and over 100 awards to back them up and this guy treated me like well you know.

[LanceH]

I've never claimed we were the first to see them. All I can say is that we saw them very very early and when I was able to get photographs I went to the professionals and not the newspaper unlike Jerry Jacene 10 months later. Jerry claimed the (only) professionals he tried to contact was the Dallas Musem and he couldn't get any contact (maybe so because they were moving). Well the Dallas Museum (Tykoski & Fiorillo) probably already knew of prior discovery through other people (Tommy Diamond?) anyways I have been told 2nd hand. As of August 2012 nobody else has came forward with earlier documentation or evidence of reporting to anyone.

Jerry KNOWS the discovery issue is important because somebody's name is gonna be attached to the discovery in the scientific literature. Get it? This is why 2 years later "trespassing" still pops up because WE have to be dismissed. I'm more than happy to be referenced (if at all) as a "local fossil hunter" BUT Jerry's name should NOT be mentioned regarding "discovery" in my opinion. This is not Cope/Marsh lite, I had my stuff on internet and in front of professionals a full 10 months before Jerry found the tracks. We all know fi you are going forward with a *new* whatever you can't already have prior discovery or examples *out there*. I have had a possible new species of an echinoid on my website and I was asked by the palentologist writing the paper to remove certain information and photos because it would be problematic to the paper and I assume SVP. Surely Jerry understands these things??

I can certainly tell you that at the time I was getting photographs (Jan. 13 2010) the receptionist at the Hotel was surpised to learn they were back there.

I CAN tell you the Visitor's Bureau director didn't seem interested in the tracks and his 2 replies after sending him my pictures were "I'm not sure what you want me to do with these" and "maybe we can use some of the pictures on our website". You'd think the freakin' Visitor Bureau would want to follow it up but he didn't. Keep in mind this was around the same time we were lobbying the Mineral Wells city council to develop a "Fossil Park" so that WAS my motivation.

I can also tell you there are direct personal connections between all the principals in the project such as the Visitor's Bureau director, the newspaper editor, the land owner and the hotel manager and that when I started reporting ALL these people would have quickly known a new tracks site had been found.

I can also tell you there are descrepencies in the other guy's "discovery" story and bizarre things surrounding WHY he came to Glen Rose and how he acted after learning of our prior discovery.

The land owner is evidently very trusting of strangers because after only knowing Jerry Jacene 2 weeks they have a development deal and talk about the project in the newspaper.

I'm NOT against the development of the track site since that's actually what I was hoping to get started myself. I will say Jerry Jacene actually is knowlegable and experienced with museums and displays and with his fincancial backer Glen Rose may have a great new tourist spot in a few years. But, I would have much preferred it to be a University driven thing instead of a commercial driven thing.

As for me, I have no desire to ever step foot in Glen Rose again.

Edited August 5, 2012 by LanceH

[bone2stone]

Well this has all been very intresting.

I was born in Granbury and have had the pleasure of living in GR as an adult.

As the Power Plant was being built I had the disspleasure of covering up hundreds of footprints.

A friend of mine who worked the techtonics crew saw and destroyed more tracks than you can

stick a shake at.

Three distinct dinos were found there as well and as to species and the articulation is UK.

He was told to keep the information under his hat, they did not want to slow down the excavation.

There is a dino find in the Cresson area as well. Unfortunately the owner of the property figured it was more important

to put down his race track.

I know of others because I have traversed every creek and wash in the Granbury and Glen Rose area for years.

Most not distinct some just one or two tracks that leads into some massive overburdon.

(On Fall creek)(a Golf course)(Some private property on Squaw Creek) the list goes on............

Track ways were not one of the things that I felt any need to preserve, after I covered up so many.

Bone2stone

[Brian Worley]

We'll, we know who found it

[tmaier]

I'm new here and hadn't read this old thread before. Sounds like you got shafted.

I've worked most of my life in R&D in academic and commercial environments and here's some advice... keeping your eye on the horizon, keep rowing, and don't look back.

When you go out and do things, and accomplish things, there is always the post-mortem analysis of what happened and the result is often based on politics, chance and ignorance. The dice are rolled and it ends up being:

1.) You get credit for what you really did.
2.) You get blamed for what you didn't do.
3.) You get credit for something somebody else did (even if you deny it).

4.) They get credit for what you did.

Then there is a short period of handshaking, kudos and bad feelings, and life goes on.

Here are two extreme examples of this...

I designed a do-hickey for a scientist and all went well. After a few months he asked me to write the documentation of how it worked. A month later he hands me a review form from a peer reviewed journal, listing me as lead author on the paper I wrote. He had taken what I wrote, added a lot of stuff and submitted it. It was rated "highly significant" and to be published immediately.

Another lab, another story. I designed a data acq system for a scientist with a large research support group. He didn't like the results of the data and got mad at everybody, fired a bunch of them, I quit, he had no paper, and his funding dropped. The data was accurate and indicated something new had been discovered, but he didn't understand that, he wanted data showing nothing new was discovered. Finally he published the paper with the new results and it was highly significant. The people he fired and I never even got mentioned, even though we knew that it was significant from the beginning. It ruined the careers for some of the crew.

In the long run, if you keep accomplishing things, it all evens out, because rewards are a probability driven system. You only lose when you don't play. After a project is done and while all the monkey-shines are going on, you should be looking ahead to the next thing.

Edited October 1, 2014 by tmaier

[Ramo]

Any news on what is going on with this site? I thought that they were building a museum there. I can't find anything on-line about this place that isn't a couple years old. I'm guessing it didn't come together, or maybe it just isn't done yet.

I find this a very interesting story, and I wish it had an ending!

Ramo

[LanceH]

I read a couple years ago he had a gas company (Arkona?) putting in some money. The owner's father had a big fossil collection and they wanted to house some of it there. They set up a 503c or something for this development which includes Jacene, the land owner, the company and couple others as the board. The information is online as Joanna's Tracks something corp.

Then more recently I saw a different company attached to the project so I don't know if things changed or they signed on also.

Edited October 1, 2014 by LanceH

[JustPlainPetrified]

Wow! Very nice indeed.

[LanceH]

The land has been sold to the Creation Science Museum in Glen Rose and a Corky Underwood of Glen Rose has some involvement.

I don't know if Jacene is even involved anymore.

[cthomp50]

Just visited this site last weekend for a Valentine's weekend.  I was looking around the Comfort Inn waiting for my wife to get ready for the day.  I saw the stream and a tarp covered in dirt and it your story flashed in my mind from reading it years ago!

 

I just walked around and saw the "new" development dino sign.  Up on top of the hill they are clearing out for housing.

 

Couldn't believe this happened years ago and it still just sits there next to the parking lot.

 

Anyway, felt like I was visiting with a celebrity after all the drama and reading your posts!

[LanceH]

They orginally wanted the City to get more involved and help fund development of something but the City declined.  I don't blame them because it would essentially mean they were building a new museum or work space that would at least tangentially benefit the people pushing for it.  That would raise my ethics concerns.  

It's my understanding Jacene is NOT a poor man thanks to his main business of building dinosaur models and bone casts of what he finds on those ranches he's given access to and whatever else he does (he's not an academic or paleo educated anything) but I think I can confidently (and legally say) he was certainly not offering up any of his own money even as a starter.   Several years ago he had to give up his Kingston, TN museum (and it's displays) to the city because it wasn't making rent money (not his fault I know) which was reported at the time.  It seems to me the loss of one facility/museum would lead to the need of a new facility/museum. The lady that now runs the Kingsport building told me they were going to have to sort out what Jerry made and what God made which I found funny.  I would bet any legit important material (the molds and real bones) were NOT left behind.  Dinosaur bone molds can in fact be copyrighted and there have been serious high dollar court cases over bootlegged or suspicious casts. If you are someone that's running a private museum and have access to real dinosaur bones on private land you can take the bones you find, make molds of them and sale the casts to museums around the world and you only have to spend money for the plaster/plastic and paint.  Nice gig.

[LanceH]

One of the problems besides just building a building on the tracks is how do you expose the tracks for viewing and protect them from erosion.  There is a large drainage ditch that runs right along the site and the tracks are in soft marl layers not hard limestone.   This is where we found the first exposed track in October 2009 and the other few tracks were not exposed until later when I came back in January 2010 and reported them HERE and to the academics.  The whole area is surrounded on three sides by higher land.  Somehow you would have to address the drainage and build something substantial to keep ground water from leaching laterally under the building.  I suppose you could deepen the drainage but then you would lose those tracks and they also put in new electrical lines or something there.

 

It would be a much bigger project than just building a building and it would have to be a quality building to serve as an interpretive center. 

My idea would be a smaller interpretive building near the street and then the rest of the area entirely covered with a warehouse type building so no rain would fall on what was excavated.  You could excavate down to the tracks and have a cement pathway next to some track or keep narrow ditches where you look down the 4 feet or so to the tracks.  The entire area is no doubt criss-crossed with tracks.   With a warehouse type enclosure you could then host regular university and museum digs.  If there was budget for a larger interpretive building I would actually have part of the floor be see-though to any tracks below.  

Maybe this Corky Underwood who is in the construction business can do it. 

Doing something that protects the site is the number one concern not publicity or community "digs".  This is not the "Mineral Wells Fossil Park" this is a seriously, seriously important site.  I was kinda aghast when I saw all that happening via their Facebook.  The tracks were re-buried like 4 or 5 years ago since the initial excavations. Jacene got some great silicone track way molds out of all their hard work and Farlow got to do some actual science.  There was apparently no plan after that.