-----Original Message-----
From: owner-VRTPALEO@usc.edu [mailto:owner-VRTPALEO@usc.edu] On Behalf Of
Patti Kane-Vanni
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 3:27 AM
To: vrtpaleo@usc.edu; Dinosaur Mailing List
Subject: Re: Fossil Hunters Told to" Dig Deeper"
Yet another article on dinosaur diversity from the Sydney Morning Herald:
(If anyone wants pdfs of the paper, email me or download a copy from Steve
Wang's website at:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/swang1/Publications/ -
Patti)
Dinosaurs in abundance, no bones about it
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/09/05/1157222134888.html
September 6, 2006
Good news for dinosaur fans: there are probably a lot more waiting to be
discovered. At least, their fossils are.
Peter Dodson, of the University of Pennsylvania, and Steve Wang, of
Swarthmore College, also in Pennsylvania, estimate that 71 per cent of all
Dinosaur genera - groups of dinosaur species - have yet to be unearthed.
"It's a safe bet that a child born today could expect a very fruitful
career
in dinosaur paleontology," Professor Dodson said.
The estimate appears in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Professor Dodson first estimated the potential number of dinosaur genera
in
1990 and now is revising that upward.
The estimates are based on the rates of discovery - about 10 to 20 a
year -
and the recent increase in finds of fossils in China, Mongolia and South
Americae.
Professor Dodson suggests 1850 genera will eventually be discovered. So
far
527 have been found.
Fossilisation is rare, he and Professor Wang note, and up to half the
dinosaur genera that ever existed may have left no fossilised remains.
Associated Press <<
I think another 'problem' is the lack of either people to actually go look
or the desire to look. There are plenty of areas that just hasn't been
explored. I remember more than a decade ago riding in a van with Dr.
Carpenter and Dr. Kirkland and they looked off into the distance in Utah.
They thought there would be lots of finds in the Cedar Mountain Formation,
but no one looked in those beds of the Cedar Mountain Formation. Now they
have and have found lots of fossils (ok, it may have been another
formation,
it was a looonnnnggg time ago). But it goes to show you that there are
areas
unexplored.
Also, there are areas that have produced fossils but haven't been gone
back
to for decades. I've been wanting some Californian Museum/University to go
back to the Fresno area and look for fossils in the bad lands. There have
been Mosasaurus, Plesiosaurs, and Hadrosaur dinosaurs (new genera that
haven't been studied, but I'm glad to see at the LACM The Dinosaur
Institute, the material has been cleaned up and ready for study). Why not
go
back there and look to see if other fossils can be found.
Tracy