RE: St. George dinosaur sit site

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Phil Bigelow
>
> A stop-work order could have been made by a judge within a day of the
> discovery of the unique ("squatting") print, but someone first has to
> contact a judge ;-).

I wish there were some photos of this to see how unique it is, compared to
the Newark Supergroup sitting tracks (more on that later, when I have a
chance to write up the GSA meeting notes).

> And this really bothered me:  why are molds/casts of the tracks being
> made?  The unique tracks should instead have been dug up and placed in a
> museum.

That's not always possible. Sometimes the units are too friable to come out
as a reasonable few blocks.  Of course, not having seen the particulars,
that still might be a workable idea (and would allow future generations to
have a crack at the original specimen).

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796