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My favorite find of the day. It's a plate of what appear to be Cycadeoidea sp., a cycad plant. The Potomac Group is actually fairly well known for it's cycad fossils, and the Smithsonian even displayed a specimen from PG County, Maryland before they renovated their fossil exhibit. 

potomac group 19.jpg

potomac group 21.jpg

potomac group 20.jpg

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My biggest disappointment with Dinosaur Park, is that none of the "curators" knew anything about the relatively abundant plant fossils that were there. 

 

The information is available in the Maryland Geological Survey Systemic Report on the Lower Cretaceous rocks of Maryland. Either they didn't know or didn't care.

 

Paleontologist Peter Kranz, instrumental in bringing about the existence of Dinosaur Park, has said, "The Potomac Group, therefore, is far more important for its plant fossils than its limited dinosaur fauna."

24152401_10-cropped.jpg

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4 hours ago, George-the Other said:

My biggest disappointment with Dinosaur Park, is that none of the "curators" knew anything about the relatively abundant plant fossils that were there. 

 

The information is available in the Maryland Geological Survey Systemic Report on the Lower Cretaceous rocks of Maryland. Either they didn't know or didn't care.

 

Paleontologist Peter Kranz, instrumental in bringing about the existence of Dinosaur Park, has said, "The Potomac Group, therefore, is far more important for its plant fossils than its limited dinosaur fauna."

24152401_10-cropped.jpg

It's too bad that these people don't seem to care about the plant fossils in the Potomac group. I thought it would be interesting to know that plant fossils can be found at the door step of our nations capitol. Complete logs of petrified wood are not rare to find in Prince George's county streams. 

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On 1/18/2022 at 12:54 PM, George-the Other said:

My biggest disappointment with Dinosaur Park, is that none of the "curators" knew anything about the relatively abundant plant fossils that were there. 

 

The information is available in the Maryland Geological Survey Systemic Report on the Lower Cretaceous rocks of Maryland. Either they didn't know or didn't care.

 

Paleontologist Peter Kranz, instrumental in bringing about the existence of Dinosaur Park, has said, "The Potomac Group, therefore, is far more important for its plant fossils than its limited dinosaur fauna."

24152401_10-cropped.jpg

 

A lot of the plant remains you find at the park can't be readily identified, unfortunately. I do agree the plant fauna is more important, and the park could do a better job with it. All my years collecting and I think I've only found a couple of bone fragments from the Potomac, but dinosaurs are what's popular with the public/county commissioners, so that will remain the focus. 

 

If you like plants the good news is there are a lot of exposures throughout the B-W area. I've found lots of petrified logs, branches, pyritized wood, etc. Leafs are a lot rarer but they are reported, too. 

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Can't edit the posts, and since this thread has generated some discussion about other Mesozoic fossils, I figure it'd be good to give some updates:

 

1. The "footprint" from the Triassic isn't a footprint, at least I don't think it is. 

 

2. The "plant" fragment in the second photo of the first April 29 post isn't from the Cretaceous. It was from my Calvert Cliffs stuff that I mislabeled. It's probably a shell fragment. 

 

3. The big, white piece of petrified wood may not be Cretaceous in age, either. Pleistocene aged wood has been found in the area and given the wildly different mode of preservation between it and the other wood specimens from the Cretaceous I don't think I can totally rule out Pleistocene. Someone more knowledgeable in fossil wood would have to give a positive ID one way or the other.  

 

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