I recall a talk at last year's DPP symposium by Ian Campbell in which he predicted that the increasing sediment supply from the growing Red Deer River badlands will one day overwhelm the transport capacity of the river. The result would be increased residence time of sediment, and decreased fossil yeild as the valleys fill faster than they can be emptied. "Sediment gridlock", he called it. Moral of the story: get out there while the pickings are still good!
-- Jordan Mallon
MSc Student - Vertebrate Palaeontology Faculty of Veterinary Medicine University of Calgary 3330 Hospital Dr. NW Calgary, AB CANADA T2N 4N1
Now is a good time to be a paleontologist, apparently:
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060904_unknown_dinos.html
But aren't new fossils continuously being brought to the surface? What's "unrecoverable" now might become recoverable, given enough time.
-- Nicholas J. Pharris, Ph. D. Lecturer, Department of Linguistics University of Michigan
"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity." --Edwin H. Land
-- Jordan Mallon
MSc Student - Palaeoecology Faculty of Veterinary Medicine University of Calgary 3330 Hospital Dr. NW Calgary, AB CANADA T2N 4N1