Re: Mexican Dinosaurs

["Jim Kirkland Ph.D" <dis@gj.net>]

Paul E. Pettennude wrote:
> 
> Group,
> 
> I have been following the state threads on the subject, but what is the
> current state of dinosaur discovery in Mexico?
> 

        The original research on Dinosaurs in Mexico was in the Late 
Cretaceous of Baja California by the LA County Museum. In more recent 
years Rene Hernandez of Institute of Geology, UNAM has been conducting 
research at a number of sites. Rene working with Jim Clark of George 
Washington University has recovered very important material from the 
Early-Mid. jurassic a Tumelipis (sp.). They just finished a month locing 
in the Late Jurassic of Southern Mexico where a sauropod bone had been 
found and came up with nothing (yet).
        Rene has excavated and mounted a skeleton of cf. Gryposaurus 
from the Late Cret. of Coahuila. We have been working with Rene and the 
Coahuila Paleontological Commission for some years now and are the 
first non-Mexican organization to officially have a signed contract with 
INAH and CPC to help develop the Paleo resources of Mexico. We are 
working closely with Coahuila in the development of their new Museum of 
the Desert.  These sites are remarkable in being mostly associated with 
brackish water deposits and include abundant, diverse hadrosaurs, 
ceratopsians, dromaeosaurs, and tyrannosaurids. No skulls.

        There are other sites in Chihuahua (mostly by amatures). Dr. 
Carlos Gonzalas (Univ. of Hermosia) and Rene have started looking at 
Sonora and have found a partial ornithomimid in the Late Cret. I am 
hoping to start working with them on the early Cret. of Sonora before 
too long.

        So you can see there are lots of new discoveries being made. 
Many have been reported in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Jim Kirkland
Dinamation Int'l Society