Re: Sauropods and Cycads??

["RAY STANFORD" <STARSONG@prodigy.net>]

My two bits worth concerning Sauropods and Cycads:


    At the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington,
D.C., there has for years been on display a magnificent, multi-trunk
specimen of Cycadiodea marylandica that unquestionably came out of the late
Early Cretaceous of Maryland.

    From the same Potomac group wherein the Cycadiodea marylandica was
found, numerous teeth and some dis-articulated bones of a Sauropod named
Astrodon have been recovered.   (Some consider Astrodon synonymous with
Pleurocoelus, which has long been called a Brachiosaurid, but I sometimes
suspicion it may be of Titanosaurid affinity.)

    Also, in my own work with Early Cretaceous tracks in Maryland, I find
surprising (to me, at least) numbers of Sauropod tracks (presumably made by
Astrodon) in the very same areas where I have recovered two specimens of
Cycadiodea marylandica, and from which a third nice specimen has just been
found by a personal friend.

    So, for what it is worth, we unquestionably had Sauropods and Cycadoidea
together at the same time period and geographic area in  Maryland.  There
was a much more temperate climate here, back in the Early Cretaceous.  I
have also recovered some fossilized palm (species unknown to me) in this
area.  The evidence indicates that 'fresh' water was widely present in the
area of the 'dinosaur corridor' that extends from well north-northeast of
Baltimore down into Washington D.C.

    Not responsible for errors or oversights in my writing after 12:20 AM,
so please forgive any.  It is now about 1:30 AM in dinosaur corridor.

    Ray Stanford