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NAPC : Abstract of Abstract
I am doing a "show and tell" session. A sort of 3-d-poster presentation where
the fossils are the "posters'' and I of course do some talking about the
Arundel fossils. With few exceptions, I do not attempt to diagnose any
material and will be using this forum (as is intended) to present new and
enigmatic material to the assembled mind of paleontolgy for help in diagnosis
and to 1) increase quantitatively and qualitatively to the existing
collection housed at the Smithsonian, 2) to remove the Arundel dinosaurs
from historical obscurity, and 3) to begin reconstruction of Arundel
paleoecology with the hope of integrating all contemporaneous Lower
Cretaceous deposits and paleoecologies in North America to better understand
the mode an tempo of origination and extinction that occurred after the
isolation of eastern and western North America by the Western Intereior
Seaway of the Late Cretaceous.
Of course this is just the first step...
Begin:
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RECOVERY OF NEW DINOSAUR AND OTHER FOSSILS FROM THE EARLY CRETATCEOUS ARUNDEL
CLAY FACIES (POTOMAC GROUP) OF CENTRAL MARYLAND, U.S.A.
The first dinosaurinan remains (teeth) to be discovered in Maryland were
found by Dr. Christopher Johnson only a year after Professor Joseph Leidy
(1858) described the first dinosaur discovered in North America form New
Jersey. By 1865, it was Leidy again who had the honor of describing these
teeth which he named after Johnson, _Astordon johnstoni_ (Cf. Pleurocoelus).
During the 1880's O. C. Marsh became interested in Astrodon and dispached
John Bell Hatcher to Maryland (1887-88) to secure more material for study.
The vast majority of the fossils known from the Arundel are due to Hatcher's
efforts and the material is now housed at the Smithsonian Institution. Other
noted paleontologists such as A. B. Bibbins (1894), R. S. Lull (1911) and
Charles Gilmore (1920) either supplemented the collection with "newer' finds
and/or contributed to our current knowledge of the Arundel dinosaurs.
With the exception of recent palynological and paleobotanical studeis of the
Arundel facies, there have been no major attempts in nearly 100 years to
obtain new dinosaurian fossils for study. This is mostly due to the fact the
overwhelming majority of vertebrate fossil material recovered are fragmentary
and disarticulated and thusare not as "interesting" as the major bone beds of
the the American West or the Gobi etc. are. I will be presenting some of the
more interesting and enigmatic dinosaur, plant, and other fossils recovered
by me over the past 6 years. This represents a renewed effort to bring
Maryland's dinosaurs back into the limelight of modern paleontology. Major
dinosaur clades such as theropods, sauropods, and nodosaurs are represented
and possibly an ornithopod. Also, the apparent teeth and spine of a
Hybodont shark will be presented as will some major plant macrofossils.
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Regards,
Thomas R. Lipka
Paleontological/Geological Studies