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.

Bone Lab Still Open

Don't forget that there are still opportunities to work in the bone lab. John is there Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to ??? Give him a call at the lab or at the CEU Museum to let him know you are coming.

Call for Help at CLDQ

UFOP member Mike Leschin reports that the Cleveland Lloyd Quarry is opening soon and the help of UFOP members would be appreciated in helping get it ready for the new year. Traditionally, we have gone to the quarry to help clean up the dust and mud that has accumulated during the winter months.

This year, the quarry will be opening on Easter weekend and Mike expects some large crowds to visit the quarry. In addition to helping clean up, UFOP members have helped greet guests, talk about the quarry and answer questions for visitors.

Any and all members or guests are invited to meet at the quarry on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, (April 2-4) to assist in the preparation of the quarry, to work in the visitors center, and to dig a few bones from the quarry.

It is always fun to work at the quarry on the opening weekend and to mingle with the visitors and to make sure they have an enjoyable experience. Hopefully we can also pick up a few new members on the opening weekend.

Mike says that the hours will be from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and that the more members who can come, the more fun it will be for all. See you there!!!

(We realize that for some, seeing this in the newsletter will give a rather short notice, so we hope that you were contacted by the phone prior to getting the newsletter.)

Pre-history week Plans are Being Finalized!

At the present time, it looks like our local Pre-History Week plans are a follows:

Brooks Britt will be the speaker at the annual dinofest. This will be held in the new CEU student center on Friday, April 30^th at 6:30 p.m. Brooks has spoken to our group before and those of you who know him know that he will give a great talk.

Saturday events will be tours of Nine Mile Canyon and a Fremont Stew dinner in the canyon.

Tuesday May 4^th, our regular UFOP meeting (which will be moved up to the first Tuesday) will begin at the regular time of 7:00 p.m. in the CEU Museum classroom. Arrangements for a speaker are currently being finalized. There will also be tours of the CLDQ that day.

Thursday, May 6^th, the USAS (archaeology) group will feature a talk by Stan McDonald on Ancient Heritage as Risk.@ There will also be tours of Ferron Canyon and the San Rafael Swell that day.

The week will end with the annual Family Day at the Museum. Speaking of which, we will need a group of volunteers to work at the UFOP table and some people to work in the lab area. Pam Miller from the museum has also asked if we can provide some people to work with the children's activities throughout the day.

We will be passing around some volunteer sheets to get names. This is also a fun activity and if you don't see a sign up sheet, don't worry someone will call you !!!

When all of these plans are finalized, we will send out a flyer giving all of the details. In the mean time, be sure to mark the week of April 30 through May 8^th for this event on your calendar.

If anyone knows the name of a flintknapper who might be interested in coming to the Family Day activities, please call or e-mail Byron with the name and a phone number. We already have the names of Duane Taylor and Gregg Nunn, but there is also one in Lehi and one in Tooele. If you know their names, let us know.

April UFOP Meeting

The second class in our two part series on rock and mineral identification will be held on Tuesday, April 13 at the CEU Museum classroom. This class will be taught by Ken Fleck.

(There was something about if he taught the class Michelle would do the dishes for him.)

Last month Michelle helped us learn about rocks and minerals and some of the methods used to identify them. (Hardness, color, crystal shape, cleavage, etc.) Ken will continue with additional information that will help meet some of the requirements for certification.

If any members have rocks they would like to bring, part of the class time will be devoted to using the skills we have learned in identifying these rocks.

Final Dues Reminder!

For those of you who have not yet paid their 1999 dues, this is the final notice. We will not be able to send Newsletters to anyone in May who has not paid their dues by the last week of April. Don't let your membership lapse. Get out that checkbook and send your dues to Roger at the UFOP address at the top of the newsletter. We would hate to lose you, and we hope your membership in UFOP is valuable enough that you will renew today. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact one of the officers.

For those of you who have already renewed your memberships, thanks and happy digging in 1999.

Thank You from Joan and Duane Taylor

We received a thank you card from Joan and Duane thanking the group for the flowers sent at the recent passing of Joan's father. Thank you Joan and Duane for the card, and know that you are still in our thoughts and prayers.

Dino Adventure

UFOP members who have their certification are needed to assist in the Dino Adventure being held this summer by the museum. They are expecting a number of people to register and help will be needed in both the field and the lab. If you are interested in participating in this, call Pam Miller at the Museum. 637-5060.

There will be two sessions July 18 - 24 and August 1 - 7

Paleontologists Dream

The following is an article from Springfield, MA Daily Newspaper.March 16, 1988.

The Connecticut Valley has long been known as one of the richest grounds on earth for fossilized dinosaur footprints. By STAN FREEMAN

HOLYOKE - All Gary Gaulin wanted in his back yard was fish. Instead, he got dinosaurs.

Hoping to construct a small catfish pond behind his home here in May, Gaulin began chiseling at layers of shale beneath a mound of grass and found what he quickly recognized were ancient footprints embedded in the rock.

Now, along with slabs bearing anchisauripus and grallator footprints, his home is filled with books about paleontology and dinosaurs.

"It's close to have consumed me. I'm a pathetic science-head. I go from one science project to another. All of my life I've been doing it. It's how I have fun. Radio, chemistry, biology," he said.

The Connecticut River Valley is known as one of the world's richest grounds for unearthing dinosaur tracks. Some 200 million years ago, conditions in the valley were ripe for creating fossilized prints. And as early as 1802, footprints were being found in rock nearby South Hadley.

Linda Thomas, curator of the Pratt Museum at Amherst College, where some of the best of the valley's fossilized prints are exhibited, has examined what Gaulin has been recovering behind his home near Holyoke Community College.

"They're pretty good prints," she said. "Finding something like that is not uncommon in this area, but it is still pretty interesting to find it in your own backyard."

"Maybe the most amazing thing about it is his interest and dedication. Some other person might have ignored them or chopped them up and lost the scientific knowledge in them. But Gary is very respectful of that," she said.

Gaulin, 40, who graduated from South Hadley High School and works at Hitchcock Printing in Holyoke, has been using a diamond - tipped saw to remove some of the tracks. He's excavated the top two layers in a 25-by-25-foot area and believes the tracks go down at least another dozen layers.

He plans to save those layers for the paleontologists he's contacted to examine over the summer, so they can extract any scientific information from them before he removes the slabs.

The prints he's found are from smaller dinosaurs that roamed the valley from about 220 million to 180 million years ago, the early days of dinosaur development. The largest of their breed, the brachiosaurus and diplodocus did not appear for another 20 million to 30 million years.

The largest valley dinosaurs, during the age when footprints were formed here, may have been 10 to 15 feet in height.

What made the valley of that era so ideal for the creation of fossilized tracks was that it was a deep rift valley that had formed as North America and Europe were pulling apart from each other. And it was rapidly filling with mud and sediment that flowed down the valley walls.

A dinosaur would step in fresh mud by a lake or river, the track would harden in the sun and before it could be eroded away by the elements, a new layer of mud would wash over it. Over centuries, these layers and layers of hardened mud bearing tracks turned into shale.

By 180 million years ago, the valley had filled and new tracks were no longer being created.

Gaulin and his wife, Laurie, eventually plan to donate some of the tracks to museums or universities, but they also plan to sell some. The prints are common enough that they aren't worth a fortune, but they are worth enough to pay some of the couple's expenses.