Re: I'm back(hehehe)

["Mike Styzen Shelf Expl, 588-4308" <mstyzen@shellus.com>]

Jessica Wagar said:

>Dinosaur National Monument-
>Expecting something somehow grand, I approached this place with high 
>hopes, only to find that most of it was dull, and unorganized. The slab 
>of stone protected by the building is neat, and so are the displays, I 
>guess...but nothing about the area really perked my interest except for 
>the shuttle ride back to the car where I learned that they're digging 
>this one new dinosaur up on a certain hillside.

When I was there in July I happened to be there on a Friday.  Turns out,
as luck would have it, that on Fridays and Saturdays they were taking
small groups up to see the excavation of the new dinosaur.  It is a
Early Cretaceous brachiosaurid.  I spoke to the paleontologist (Sorry
can't remember her name, I'm bad with people seems that every time I
add one a nannofossil popps out.  Does anyone know the paleontologists
working for the national park service out there?)  and she was quite
excited as Cretaceous sauropods are not well known from North America. 
She also said that it looked like the whole skeleton was there.  The
matrix is a hard sandstone so it will probably take a few seasons to
get the whole thing out.  Taking folks out to see is a new tack for
them.  They are hoping that by educating the public they can prevent
what happend last time they were excavating a new find.  That time they
were all hush- hush and someone came out and wrecked it (this was a
number of years ago).  
Mike
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|      Michael J. Styzen               Phone: (504) 728-4308            |
|      Shell Offshore Inc.             Room:  OSS-3202                  |
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