Re: Re: Gastric stones of dinosaurs were not for milling food !

["franklin e. bliss" <frank@blissnet.com>]

Denver et al,

Other papers aside....... all geology is local though the  
applicability of any particular situation may be universal.

What I call "gastroliths" are found in the middle of Hell Creek  
sandstone country.  They were found in affiliation (some insitu) of a  
bone bed and several microsites I have been working.  I have actually  
looked at hundreds of square miles of Hell Creek and am beginning to  
know this country pretty well (I own 5 square miles of Hell Creek)  
and actually live on it all year round.  I spend a great deal of time  
hunting fossils.  I will tell you that this kind of stone doesn't  
occur anywhere close to here except in affiliation with dinosaur bone  
deposits. I do find them in mixed assemblages so I am not attributing  
their origin to anybody in particular.  I am just telling you that I  
do attribute them to being transported biologically back in the  
Cretaceous.

 After 4 years of diligent prospecting and "walking hills", I have  
learned many things and can tell you that if you came to my ranch and  
spent a great deal of time, you might find one or two isolated  
"gastroliths" away from the bone site affiliations.  There are  
localized strata that these will come out of but mostly they are  
absent.  Bone deposits are quite rare as well.  They just aren't  
everywhere (I don't know if you have ever worked Hell Creek).  The  
nearest source for this kind of "pebble" is over 100 miles from our  
highland ranch.  The ONLY way they got here is by being carried here  
by some mechanism.  (Remember I have found these insitu so later  
deposition is out of the discussion.) If you did a Hell Creek  
sediment size analysis to determine the carrying capacity of the  
rivers here, you would find the average grain size to be medium  
sand.  I have NEVER seen any indication that the rivers here were  
carrying anything so dense and large.  I do find rare local larger  
rip up clasts but the ability of the Hell Creek Rivers to carry this  
size material to this location down the paleoslope is not really in  
doubt (they couldn't).  I would put the affinity at nearly 100  
percent, as in, when I find these stones, I always find fossils, and  
when I find fossil sites, I always find these stones (I might have to  
work at it but they are there.).  I seldom find one without the other  
and when that does occur, I didn't look long enough at that site  
(since all sites are not created equal and deserve the same attention.).

When I talk about a semi-gloss polish,  very few of the stones  
actually have what I would call a polish (some do).  Most have a  
matte surface that unlike cobble sized quartzitic stone found in  
Wyoming streams (where there is a source of cobble sized material),  
these seldom have percussion marks on them.  Some do have remnants of  
percussion marks that have been obliterated by what ever process the  
stone was subject to.  This really is highly indicative of not having  
suffered stream saltation and the corresponding rough handling that  
is affiliated with such travel.

There is almost always a reddish stain on the surface of these stones  
locally. (I can't speak for many other locations outside of my area).  
Here, they are always smooth(ed) as if from a rock tumbler.  Some do  
have a semi-gloss surface (no matter what you may have read).  Call  
them "Gastromyths" if you will but until you can explain their  
presence in original Cretaceous sediment far from their original  
source material almost always being in affiliation with bone  
deposits, I would ask what to appropriately label them.

I included a photo of a "pile of around 60 Hell Creek Gastroliths  
collected from my ranch in the original email I sent directly to  
several participants in this discussion.  If anybody wants me to send  
that photo to them, email me at frank@blissnet.com and I will send it  
to you.

The scale in the photo has squares that are one inch on a side.  Not  
the semi-gloss on some of the material and not on others.

Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming
www.wyomingdinosaurs.com
frank@blissnet.com