Re: A Dinosaur for the Mantle

["Allan Edels" <edels@email.msn.com>]

    I saw the article, and the stegosaur fossil is beautiful.  (The price is
a staggering $375,000!!!).
The problem with the sales of fossils is the loss of information to science,
both from the loss of information about the location, time, and other
situational details about the fossil; and from the destruction and/or
discarding of associated, but not so 'pretty-looking' fossils and fossil
fauna.

    The problem with stopping the sales, is the fact that many people would
love to have their own beautifully preserved fossil.  I'd love to be able to
afford a well preserved _T. rex_ skull - with as much scientific information
as possible attached to it.  I would make the skull available to therapod
workers.  Of course, I don't have the money - nor is there a skull that fits
the bill (or the miniscule area I have :-)  ).

    I think, in lieu of being able to stop the collection of these fossils,
we should try to put together a collection kit for the collectors.  This
would include location, maps and photos of the fossil in situ, collection of
microfauna, damaged fossils, and volcanic tufts (if available), and
collection of the matrix as well.  This information could be transfered from
owner to owner, and could be examined by museums and by scientists.  I can
see problems with that idea, but I can see it as a selling point - the
fossil is worth more because it is valuable to science, not just as a
collector's piece.

    Allan Edels

-----Original Message-----
From: Jaime A. Headden <qilongia@yahoo.com>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Cc: Jeffrey Martz <martz@holly.ColoState.EDU>
Date: Friday, September 25, 1998 3:02 AM
Subject: Re: A Dinosaur for the Mantle


>I wrote:
>
><<What's incredible is that there is a whole swath of the ossicles
>found on the throat, running from the jowls to the chest, thicker and
>more concentrated up north, that suggests that the entire throat was
>armored, which certainly makes more sense to me than just an armored
>gular pouch.>>
>
>Jeffrey Martz wrote:
>
><The Denver Museum of Natural History _Stegosaurus_ mount has the
>ossicles running all the way down the throat.>
>
>  Ah. Hadn't seen the specimen, so I didn't know. But it is an
>incredible sight.
>
>==
>Jaime A. Headden
>
>Qilong, the website, at:
>http://members.tripod.com/~Qilong/qilong.html
>---
>All comments and criticisms are welcome!
>
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