Re: Ca dinosaur?

[howest@earthlink.net (Steven Howe)]

Here is the article from the Sacramento Bee about the fossils from Granite Bay.
Hope this helps. I retrieved it from sacbee.com.

Steven Howe

.....

Unlikely pair discover fossils in Granite Bay

                      By Peter Hecht
                      Bee Staff Writer 
                      (Published May 27, 1997) 

                        
Their partnership for the ages -- the prehistoric ages -- began with an
excited phone call three years ago.

Pat Antuzzi, a South Placer County firefighter and an amateur fossil
collector, called Sierra College geology Professor Dick Hilton to tell him
he'd found something remarkable. The professor figured it was some common
fossil shells -- until Antuzzi blurted out, "Petrified bones!"

"Tell me more," Hilton responded, suddenly energized.

What Antuzzi had found at a construction site for a Granite Bay  subdivision
turned out to be bones from a prehistoric sea turtle and teeth  from a giant
carnivorous fish called enchodus.

>From then on, the firefighter and the professor became geologic teammates --
searching for wonders of 80 million years ago in a Placer County region that
was once prime oceanfront property.

On Monday, Hilton and Antuzzi summoned the media to show off their  findings
from three years of searching on the construction site just off  Roseville
Parkway in Granite Bay.

Their collection includes partial jaw and skull bones from a mosasaur, a
20-foot-long seagoing lizard, a leg bone fragment from a meat-eating
theropod dinosaur, teeth from prehistoric sharks, petrified plants and
numerous sea urchins, clams and oysters.

The findings eventually will be displayed at the Sierra College Science
Center and Natural History Museum, which already showcases an  impressive
array of fossils and prehistoric skeletal remains from
numerous Western states.

But the findings from the Granite Bay construction site -- now built up with
houses, lawns, blacktop and concrete -- have provided a local story of the
past, 80 million years ago.

"There was an ocean all around here," Hilton said. "The beach would  have
been in Newcastle and the ocean would have stretched all the way to Asia. .
. . Without the construction in the area, we wouldn't have found these fossils."

Hilton said paleontologists from University of California at Berkeley, the
Los Angeles County Museum and the Canadian Geological Survey were consulted
to help identify the many dozens of bone fragments, shells, petrified plants
and other items they recovered.

Hilton declined to identify the name of the subdivision that now rests where
the fossils were found. He said he and Antuzzi spent "thousands of hours"
combing the site -- with permission of the building contractor  and Placer
County officials.

As they worked together, the professor developed an immense respect  for the
firefighter.

"He has an eye that's just incredible," Hilton said of Antuzzi. "I'd pick up
a rock and say, 'Nope, nothing.' He'd pick up the same rock and say,  'Hey,
look at this!' "

Antuzzi, who attended Sierra College but didn't know Hilton until he
contacted him about the fossil discovery, said he's learned immensely from
their relationship.

"Without his expertise and scientific reach this project wouldn't have come
together," said Antuzzi, who hopes someday to pursue university studies in
geology.

Hilton, a paleontologist and chairman of the Sierra College museum,  said
the Granite Bay fossils were from remains that settled in ocean  sediment
near the edge of the ancient Sierra during the Cretaceous Period -- which
followed the Jurassic Period.

Hilton said fossils were first collected in the region in the 1860s. A
building boom in recent years, requiring extensive grading and digging for
home construction, water lines and drainage, unearthed more prehistoric
treasures -- and the passion and curiosity of a professor and a firefighter.


>Is there any truth to the rumor that I recently heard about a dinosaur site 
>being discovered in California at a place called Granite Bay, on or near 
>Folsom Lake?  The story I heard was that dinosaur fossils (possibly a small 
>theropod) were found when the land was being prepared for a new subdivision, 
>and that a local Sacramento area college was involved in getting the bones out 
>of the ground before houses are built.  As far as I know, this would be the 
>third  dinosaur discovery in Ca., the first being a nodosaurian beast from the 
>San Diego area, and the second a possible hadrosaur from somewhere near Fresno.
> 
>  Does anybody have a list of confirmed Mesozoic vertebrate sites in 
>California? 
>
>Thanks, -Bruce
> Djadokhta here I come !