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Castle Valley Vol. No. 10 |
Utah
Friends of Paleontology P. O. Box 5984 CEU Campus Price, Utah 84501 |
Byron Ray : President Duane Taylor: Pres. Elect Carol Michael: Secretary Rodger Crowe: Treasurer Barbara Warren: Historian |
AND: Many willing volunteers who help make this chapter the greatest by arranging for speakers, field trips, bringing refreshments to meetings and, in general, keeping the organization going.
Contents
(Click
one for more information)
| UFOP Members Attend SVP Meetings 1 | Moab Fossils |
| October Chapter Meeting | T-Rex Needs Facelift |
| SVP Articles | More on SVP Next Month |
UFOP Members Attend SVP Meetings
Several members of the Castle Valley UFOP chapter attended the SVP meetings which were recently held at Snowbird Resort. Those attending were John Bird, Brian McClelland, Duane Taylor, Clark Warren, Don Burge, Byron Ray and Ken and Michelle Fleck.
A wealth of information was presented and our chapter members were involved in a variety of activities. One event that was especially exciting was to see the newly completed Utah raptor and the Gastonia Burgei on exhibit in the exhibition room. They were beautifully mounted and received a lot of favorable comment.
October
Chapter Meeting
TUES. 13th
We have the privilege of having Dave Gillette as our speaker for the month of October. As you know, Dave, who has been the state Paleontologist is leaving to take a new position in Arizona and will be leaving the state soon. This will be one of Dave=s last Public appearances@ in the state before his departure. In addition to his many other accomplishments, Dave has done a lot to further the role and standing of amateur paleontologists in the state.
We hope you will all come this Tuesday to hear Dave speak, and to say farewell as he leaves for Arizona.
You may have noticed some of the numerous articles about the SVP ;meetings that appeared recently in both the local and national newspapers. It seems that whenever dinosaurs are mentioned there is a great deal of interest that is generated. Following are two articles that appeared in local papers regarding papers that were presented at the SVP meetings.
Huge Dinosaur Fossils Found in Moab
SNOWBIRD (AP) -
Fossils of 14 lumbering titanosaurs that died in a volcanic eruption near Moab at least 100 million years ago cast doubt on the origin of the species.The fossils of the 40-foot-long, 12-foot-tall plant eaters are the oldest ever found in North America. Earlier samples, dating back 98 million years, had been found in South America, Africa and India.
That made scientists believe the Titanosauridae family migrated to Utah and New Mexico from South America. Now, said Brooks Britt, speaking Friday during the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting, that theory is in doubt.
The new find of the 100 million to 120 million-year-old titanosaurs at Dalton Wells quarry near Moab means there were titanosaurs living in North America at the same time they were in the Southern Hemisphere, Britt said.
"That calls into question this theory titanosaurs invaded from the Southern Hemisphere," he said. "We can say equally well they came from North America and went south."
Paleontologist Catherine Forster of the State University of New York-Stony Brook, said the Utah finds could be the base of the titanosaur family tree.
"Once we figure out how titanosaurs are related, we can tell which way the migration went," she said.
Britt dug and studied the titanosaurs with Rod Scheetz from the Grand Junction museum, Kenneth Stadtman from Brigham Young University and John McIntosh of Connecticut's Wesleyan University.
So far, 2,900 bones have been excavated representing eight species, five of which are new, including the titanosaur species.
Other plant eaters at Dalton Wells include the armored Gastonia, iguanodontid and new species of camarasaurid and brachiosaur, Britt said. Meat eaters include Utah raptors and two new species of small carnivore. Most were announced last year, but Britt gave many new details of titanosaurs on Friday. Less than a tenth of the quarry has been excavated.
Titanosaur fossils found at the site include 8- to 10-inch-long brain cases - the back part of the skull that housed the dinosaur's small brain - and most other bones. There is no complete skull, but a nearly complete skeleton could be built from the 14 individuals.
The Utah titanosaurs were among a dozen dinosaur fossil discoveries highlighted during the Snowbird meeting. Others included titanosaurs from Madagascar and Malawi, the first duckbilled dinosaur fossils found in Antarctica, the first occurrence of an African meat eater in South America and beautiful Veloci-raptors from Mongolia with bird-like features.
T-Rex Needs A Face Lift -- Lip Removal, Scientist Says
By Joseph B. Verrengia
AP science writer
SNOWBIRD - After 65 million years, Lawrence Witmer believes it's time tyrannosaurus rex got a
face lift.The big beast is plenty scary in "Jurassic Park," but the anatomy researcher from Ohio University said its lips aren't backed up by scientific fact. And Witmer said T-rex isn't the only dinosaur to have its face spruced up by movie makers.
"People want dinosaurs to sneer and snarl, but I can find no scientifically justifiable reason to put lips on a dinosaur," he said Thursday at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting.
"Lips or no lips, T-rex was ferocious," said Witmer, whose T-rex model has every dagger-sized tooth exposed along a 4-foot-long jaw.
The meeting also was highlighted by new studies that show dinosaurs walked the Earth from Alaska to Antarctica, not just a couple of continents.
Witmer compared hundreds of dinosaur fossils with some of the ancient reptiles' closest living relatives, including crocodiles, birds and turtles. None of the bones showed the structural features necessary to make lips work.
He said he would also strip the muscular cheeks off triceratops and its smaller cousin, leptoceratops, and replace them with a large horny beak similar to turtles - an arrangement more conducive to munching on trees.
Other researchers are also reconsidering dinosaur appearance.
Philip Currie of the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada , revealed more details of a pair of feathered, turkey-sized meat eaters discovered in China. He said the theropods are transition creatures in the link between dinosaurs and birds, with serrated teeth, short arms and sporting thick plumage for insulation.
We will have some more information about the SVP meetings in the next issue of the Newsletter.
