An incredible collection of dinosaur trackways on display at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane. Part of the display (toward the front of the picture) is real rock and part is a replica (toward the back).
This week I’m sharing a few pictures of an incredible display at the Queensland Museum of a dinosaur stampede – the only known record of a dinosaur stampede. The display shows an area in Queensland, Australia, where there are thousands of dinosaur footprints (more than 3,000) of more than 130 different dinosaurs, all in an area about the size of a tennis court! Recently, there has been some debate about whether or not the footprints actually represent a stampede, but regardless there is a very high density of dinosaur footprints at the site.
The dinosaur footprints – or trackways – were discovered in the 1970s in western Queensland near the town of Winton. Today, you can visit the trackways at a place called Dinosaur Stampede National Monument. In the museum in Brisbane, there is a small section of the actual trackways that was brought to the museum in the 1970s. The rest of the display is a replica.
I hope that I have a chance to visit the monument in person at some point – until then, the museum display is pretty neat to see!
A closer view of the real section of rock.An informational sign about the trackways display. Click to enlarge.
Dinosaur mobile hanging over the crib in our nursery.
Since my baby boy is likely to arrive this week, I thought that I would share a picture from our dinosaur-themed nursery for this week’s picture. This picture shows the lovely dinosaur mobile that we’ve hung over the crib. This mobile was hand-made by women in South Africa (providing key local employment). I ordered it from a South African website. However, it is also available on Etsy for international customers.
I think that a dinosaur-themed nursery is perfect for the child of two geologists. However, neither myself nor my husband know much about dinosaurs… and much of the nursery decor that we’ve found is likely not so scientifically accurate. So, we have some reading to do in order teach our son properly about dinosaurs. Does anyone have suggestions of good dinosaur books, including for children?
Kirstenbosch Dinosaur – Picture #1. I shared this picture yesterday in my “Monday Geology Picture” post. Cycad plants are located in front of the sculpture.
For my “Monday Geology Picture” post yesterday I shared a picture of a dinosaur sculpture that is currently on display at Kirstenbosch Gardens here in Cape Town, South Africa. This sculpture is one of several dinosaur sculptures on display in the gardens. Today, as I promised, I’m sharing a few more pictures of the sculptures. These large metal dinosaurs were installed in the gardens in 2015 to raise awareness about cycads, which are plants that grew in abundance when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Today, however, many cycad species are critically endangered and may soon, like the dinosaurs, become extinct. The beautiful dinosaur sculptures are the work of Zimbabwean artist David Huni.
Walking amongst the dinosaur sculptures, which are reasonably scientifically accurate, in the beautiful gardens is a real treat. If you find yourself in Cape Town, please do go visit the sculptures – you won’t regret it! The sculptures will be on display in the gardens through 2017.
Kirstenbosch Dinosaur – Picture #2.Kirstenbosch Dinosaur – Picture #3.Kirstenbosch Dinosaur – Picture #4.Kirstenbosch Dinosaur – Picture #5. You can see a couple of dinosaur sculptures in the background of this image.Kirstenbosch Dinosaur – Picture #6.
Those are all of the dinosaur sculpture pictures that I have to share today. I didn’t take pictures of all of the sculptures (there are nine of them), so I’ll try to visit Kirstenbosch Gardens again sometime soon to take some more pictures of these lovely sculptures. The pictures in this post were taken back in May, shortly after the exhibit opened.
Dinosaur sculpture in the background, cycads in the foreground. Kirstenbosch Gardens, 2015.
This week’s Monday Geology Picture features a dinosaur in a botanical garden. Specifically, it features a giant metal sculpture of a dinosaur that is part of an exhibit in Kirstenbosch Gardens here in Cape Town, South Africa. The sculpture is one of several dinosaur sculptures that have been installed in the gardens as part of an exhibit to raise awareness about cycads, which are ancient plants that have been around for several hundred million years. Currently endangered, cycads were common millions of years ago, during the same time period when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. However, if cycads are not carefully conserved they could join the dinosaurs and become extinct.
Tomorrow, I’ll share some more pictures of dinosaur sculptures in Kirstenbosch Gardens. For now, enjoy this one picture as a “sneak peak”.
Today I’m going to share some pictures from our visit to the SAAO Visitor Centre, which has several museum-like displays. We started our official tour of SAAO / SALT by visiting the Visitor Centre and watching a 20 minute or so video about the universe. Then we went and toured several of the telescopes, which I’ll write about in my next post in this series. After touring the telescopes, we had an opportunity to look around the Visitor Centre displays, which included several astronomy displays and also a geology display that included a meteorite (I believe) and many interesting fossils. I spent some time looking through the astronomy displays, but I spent most of my time checking out the geology display. Thus, most of my pictures are of the geology display! Don’t worry, though… there will be plenty of astronomical telescope pictures in the next blog post in this series.
A pretty quilt– with a telescope on it!– in the lobby of the SAAO museum.
In the entrance to the geology display, there was a fairly big iron meteorite– at least, I assume that’s what it was, since I didn’t see any explanation card. I took a picture with the presumed meteorite:
Posing with a presumed meteorite.
The geology display had many fossils and bits and pieces of information organized by geologic time. The display included this neat poster showing continental reconstructions (“continental drift”) over the past 900 million years:
A poster of continental reconstructions over the past 900 million years. Click to enlarge.
Many of the other geologic information signs had a little continental reconstruction on the bottom of them, reminding the viewers of the state of the continents at that particular geologic time. The display highlighted various fossils, primarily from the nearby Karoo region, from different geologic times. The oldest of these fossils were the stromatolite fossils:
Informational sign about the stromatolite fossils on display at the SAAO Visitor Centre. These stromatolites are from Gauteng (a province of South Africa; the city of Johannesburg is located in this province).Stromatolite fossils!
Stromatalites are pretty neat. They are layered, accretionary, sedimentary structures formed by biofilms of micro-organisms, such as blue-green algae. Stromatalites were formed billions of years ago by some of the earliest lifeforms on Earth, and they are still formed by micro-organisms at several places on Earth today. Stromatalite fossils may not look like much, but as a geologist I find myself awestruck every time I see them.
Here are a few other informational signs and fossils for different periods of geologic time:
Informational sign for 400 million years ago… it was a trilobite world!Some trilobite and other fossils.Informational sign for 280 million years ago… Mesosaurus roams.I think that this is a Mesosaurus fossil? Well, it was near the Mesosaurus geological sign 🙂Informational sign for the Anteosaurus, a large reptile that was a top Karoo predator 280 million years ago.Anteosaurus skull. Pretty neat!Neat painitng… I think this painting shows Anteosaurus roaming the ancient Karoo.Informational sign for 235 million years ago… the time of the “red crocodile” in the Karoo.“Red crocodile” skull.Informational sign for 120 million years before present… ammonites are found in the oceans.A stunning ammonite fossil. Just beautiful!Informational sign for 70-80 million years ago… some clams died out.Gorgeous clam fossils.More gorgeous clam fossils.Informational sign for a sudden extinction event approximately 70 million years ago that created some stunning frog fossils.Frog fossils!Informational sign for more recent geological time a mere 5 million years ago… the time of the megatooth shark!Megatooth shark tooth. That’s quite a big tooth!
Last but not least, I want to share two pictures of a plaque titled “Pangea Reunited”. I really liked this little plaque. The inscriptions on the plaque read:
PANGEA REUNITED
Pangea is the name given to the single continent which existed about 200 million years ago. Evidence for this has been discovered in rocks and fossils in Africa and other continents of the world. Sediments and rocks associated with Pangea have been assembled from all continents of the world, symbolically reuniting Pangea at the beginning of the African Renaissance and the dawn of a new millennium.
and:
KAROO ROCK
This Permian rock, representing part of the Pangean super-continent, was excavated a the groundbreaking ceremony associated with the Southern African Large Telescope on September 1, 2000.
Pangea reunited.
I think it’s really wonderful that the SAAO museum contains so much geology information and that the SALT ground-breaking ceremony paid tribute to Pangea. The SAAO telescopes, including SALT, are located in a remarkable geological location– I’ll be sharing some more information and pictures about the geology of the Karoo region in future posts in this series. I think that it is wonderful, and very important, that the researchers using the SAAO telescopes to study other interesting parts of the universe– perhaps other little rocky planets where, perhaps, there may also be life– are reminded of the wonderful little rocky planet on which their telescopes are perched. At Sutherland, there is much to see by looking up into the sky… but there is also much to see by looking down toward one’s feet.
Speaking of looking up into the sky, stay tuned for the next post in this series… I’ll be sharing some pictures of some of the SAAO telescopes!
A giant dinosaur along the road in Cabazon, California. Picture courtesy of my friend Aimee.
For this week’s Monday Geology Picture I’m featuring another picture from my friend Aimee, who provided last week’s picture as well. This picture shows one of the Cabazon Dinosaurs, giant dinosaur sculptures standing along Interstate 10 in California near Palm Springs. Originally built starting in the 1960s to attract visitors to a roadside cafe, the dinosaurs are now part of an extensive roadside attraction and a museum that, unfortunately, promotes Young Earth Creationism and the denial of evolution.
Thanks for sharing this neat picture, Aimee! It’s a pity that the Cabazon Dinosaurs are now used to promote geological nonsense.
Here’s a fun picture of a giant pink dinosaur named Dinah, who now holds a sign welcoming visitors to Vernal, Utah. In the past Dinah held up a sign for the Dine-A-Ville Motel and Cafe.
The front of the Rock, Fossil, & Dinosaur Shop, complete with naked (non-feathered) velociraptor.
Note: I convinced my Geokittehs co-author Dana Hunter to fly from Seattle to New Hampshire to visit me for a few days. I handed in the final version of my PhD thesis last Friday afternoon, and Dana arrived last Saturday to help me celebrate. This is Part II of my description of the fun georneys we had together during Dana’s visit.
After our visit to the dinosaur footprints, Dana and I headed to a place called The Rock, Fossil, & Dinosaur Shop in Deerfield, Massachusetts. I have fond memories of visiting this shop as a child. The shop has many interesting minerals, fossils, and other geology-themed items for sale, which are advertised with a general focus on science and with a minimum focus on the crystal healing, energy balancing, totem stone, etc. woo-woo that is sadly promoted at many otherwise excellent rock shops. The shop also offers a number of other cheesy, geology-themed activities. You can “pan for minerals” in a water sluice located out front. The shop attendant tried to sell us on panning, but Dana and I were not very interested in panning bags of sand spiked with amethyst crystals and small ammonite fossils. We told the shopkeeper we liked to pan in real dirt for our geological treasures. However, I do remember enjoying the fake panning as a child. The shop also features a mining adventure and a backyard full of fake dinosaurs.
One of the fossils (or maybe a cast?) for sale. Giant ammonites from Morocco. Moar fossils. Dana, about to be eaten by a velociraptor.
Dana and I enjoyed our visit to the shop, but I was very sad to see that the shop is now very poorly maintained compared to my memory of it. At first I wondered if I was just remembering the shop through memories glorified by the glow of childhood delight. However, looking at the shop website pictures— which are clearly dated by several years– it’s apparent that the shop has deteriorated. The paint on the shop sign is cracked and peeling, the shop merchandise quantity and quality are declined (parts of the shop seem half-empty now), and the dinosaurs are in a sorry state of disrepair. Sadly, the shop attendant (who I hope was not the owner) didn’t seem to know even basic geology and mineralogy. I’m not sure what happened to the shop– perhaps it has changed ownership or been hit hard by the economic decline.
A sign of the shop's decline #1: a duct taped dinosaur.A closer view of the duct tape repair. A sign of the shop's decline #2: Willy mammoth bone? Hmmm...
Nevertheless, Dana and I had a good time during our visit. We had great fun taking pictures of the dinosaurs:
Dinosaur heads.Stegosaurus in the woods.Jurassic Park? Ankylosaurus. Pachycephalosaurus.
I made a triceratops friend:
My new friend.
And Dana found a new boyfriend:
I really hope this doesn't mean the shop is promoting the whole man-with-dinos thing.
While we skipped the panning and the mine tour, Dana did buy a few mineral samples, and I bought three stuffed animal dinosaurs: a velociraptor, a Utahraptor, and a triceratops. The velociraptor and Utahraptor even have a bit of fluff on them– I’m not sure if they’re quite feathery enough, but at least they have some feathers.
My new dinosaur friends. I think they need to become friends with Paleontologist Barbie.
I convinced my Geokittehs co-author Dana Hunter to fly from Seattle to New Hampshire to visit me for a few days. I handed in the final version of my PhD thesis on Friday afternoon, and Dana arrived last night to help me celebrate. So far, we’ve been having a ball. You can expect several forthcoming posts about Dana’s visit, both here on Georneys and over at Dana’s blogs Rosetta Stones and En Tequila Es Verdad. For now, I thought I would share just a few pictures from the first full day of our adventures.
In this post, I’ll share some pictures from our visit to the dinosaur footprints, which were quite impressive. In the photos below, I’ve indicated the locations of the dinosaur footprints with green markers (glass beads from the dollar store) since the footprints are sometimes difficult to see.
Dinosaur footrpint #1Dinosaur footprint, with my foot for scale. A trackway of footprints. If you look closely, you can see the green markers indicating the footprints.Footprints near ripple marks. More ripple marks.
Dana and I aren’t paleontologists, but we think we have some idea how the tracks were made. We think it went something like this:
A scientifically accurate reconstruction of the events leading to track formation (we are joking, obviously 🙂 )Yummy. Epic dinosaur-army battle.
Alternatively, the tracks could have been formed by a Danaraptor:
Researchers believe these prints were left by small groups of two-legged, carnivorous dinosaurs, up to 15’ tall. The entire Connecticut River Valley – which scientists believe was a sub-tropical swamp a “mere” 190 million years ago – has long been recognized for its wealth of prehistoric footprints.
The first dinosaur prints to be scientifically described are still here to be seen, preserved in sandstone* since this valley was a sub-tropical mix of wetlands and shallow lakes, 190 million years ago. The larger Eubrontes prints were likely made by ancestors of the great Tyrannosaurus rex, standing up to 15’ tall and 20’ long. You can see hundreds of fossils not only from the four distinct two-legged dinosaurs, but also stromatolites, fish, plants and other ancient beings. Finally, look for the 20+ dinosaurs trackways, which formed the basis for the novel theory that dinosaurs travelled in packs or groups.
*Note: I’m not convinced the rock is sandstone– it looked more like siltstone or mudstone to me. Can anyone confirm the rock type? When I have the time, I’ll track down some scientific references.
The dinosaur footprints are located along a beautiful section of the Connecticut River. After we had our fun looking at the tracks and doing our “scientific reconstructions,” we went down next to the river edge for awhile.
A pretty house along the CT River. On the tilted riverbank. Another view of the tilted rocks along the riverbank. Sedimentary, my dear Watson.
This past weekend during some post-thesis retail therapy, I made a wonderful discovery in the local $1 store: origami dinosaurs! Since the box only cost $1 and my origami skills are lacking, I bought 5 boxes.
Tonight my friend Dan and I attempted our first origami dinosaurs. We started with T-Rex since the instructions looked simpler than the other dinosaurs.
So many origami dinosaurs. How many PhD students (and recent PhD graduates) does it take to figure out the origami instructions?
After some struggling along, our T-Rex creations look *almost* like the one on the box:
Georneys 