Unearthing Fossils (Explorer Library: Science Explorer)
Elis Riebow
Mary Anning
The 19th-century British fossil collector Mary Anning proved you don't have to be a paleontologist to contribute to science. Anning was one of the first people to collect, display, and correctly identify the fossils of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs. Her contributions to the understanding of Jurassic life were so impressive that in 2010, Anning was named among the 10 British women who have most influenced the history of science.
I think one of the best things a teacher can do for students is to model lifelong learning. I have a bulletin board behind my desk that is filled with a collage of pictures showing me learning science by exploring the world: holding a giant isopod from the bottom of the ocean as a NOAA Teacher at Sea; unearthing dinosaur bones in Wyoming (I finally went on that dig!); snorkeling in a mangrove swamp; standing in steam from Kilauea volcano; and serving as a Science Communication Fellow on the E/V Nautilus with Titanic discoverer Dr. Robert Ballard. I want students to know that there is an amazing world out there just waiting to be explored; there are so many things still waiting to be discovered.
Sue[a] is the nickname given to FMNH PR 2081, which is one of the largest,[b] most extensive, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found, at over 90 percent recovered by bulk.[4] FMNH PR 2081 was discovered on August 12, 1990,[5] by American explorer and fossil collector Sue Hendrickson, and was named after her.
As president of the United States, Jefferson established the same objective for the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's expedition to the Northwest as that held by the American Philosophical Society: Learn more about all aspects of America. One of Meriwether Lewis's stops on the westward journey was at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he sent a group of Big Bone Lick fossils to Jefferson (which were lost in transit) and wrote a detailed report of Dr. William Goforth's excavation of the Lick.[2] The return of the explorers in 1808 provided another opportunity for gathering fossils for the Society. Jefferson financed William Clark's return to Big Bone Lick in 1807 to collect mostly head and foot bones missing from the Society's "mammoth" skeleton that Charles Willson Peale was assembling.[3]
In the summer of 1868, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh boarded a Union Pacific train for a sight-seeing excursion through the heart of the newly-opened American West. While most passengers simply saw magnificent landscapes, Marsh soon realized he was traveling through the greatest dinosaur burial ground of all time. Ruthless, jealous and insanely competitive, Marsh would wrestle over the discovery with the other leading paleontologist of his generation -- Edward Drinker Cope. Over time, the two rivals would uncover the remains of dozens of prehistoric animals, including over 130 dinosaur species, collect thousands of specimens, provide ample evidence to prove Charles Darwin's hotly disputed theory of evolution and put American science on the world stage. But their professional rivalry eventually spiraled out of control. What began with denigrating comments in scientific publications led to espionage, the destruction of fossils and political maneuvering that ultimately left both men alone and almost penniless.
Cope wrote to geologist and explorer Ferdinand Hayden, who now led one of the government survey crews mapping the West. In 1872, Hayden offered to outfit a fossil hunting trip for Cope if he could get himself to Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Marsh had been there the year before and published papers on his discoveries -- a trove of fossils from the early age of mammals. Cope was sure he could do better.
But it quickly escalated to personal attacks in scientific journals -- accusations of fraud, false dates on papers, even theft of fossils -- a war of words like nothing ever seen before in the staid world of American science.
Narrator: Cope had long been linked to the Hayden survey, best known for the exploration of what recently had been named Yellowstone National Park. Marsh joined forces with John Wesley Powell, the explorer of the Colorado River, and a leading advocate of government-sponsored scientific planning in the settlement of the West.
Beginning in the 1860s, French missionary P.A. David started to collect fossil fish from the Mesozoic lake deposits in western Liaoning. These fossils were later named as Lycoptera and are regarded as one of the typical elements of the Jehol Biota, which is now best known for producing many exceptional feathered dinosaurs, birds, and mammals. American geologist and explorer R. Pumpelly was one of the first western scientists to carry out geological surveys in China. He collected many fossils from China from 18631865 and proposed the lacustrine facies of the Chinese loess [4]. German scientist F. Richthofen made extensive geographic and geological explorations in China during 1868 and 1872. He also collected many invertebrate fossils as well as recorded their stratigraphic data in the majority of Chinese provinces.
During the late 19th century and early 20th century, western explorers and scholars also made many scientific expeditions to China. Swedish geographer and explorer S.A. Hedin made several expeditions to western China starting in 1890, and the ancient city of Loulan (Kroraina) in Xinjiang was one of his major discoveries during his voyage across the Taklamakan Desert. Also notable is the Central Asian Expeditions organized by the American Museum of Natural History in 1916 and 1919, which resulted in the discovery of many fossil mammals in Inner Mongolia. In the early 20th century, Russian geologists collected many dinosaur fossils from Heilongjiang, northeastern China, including some duck-billed dinosaurs.
Gurtov and nearly 60 other people who were both relatively small and inordinately skilled archaeologists and excavators answered a plea sent over Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in October from Lee Berger, a professor of human evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and a National Geographic Society explorer in residence.
George Young, a Scottish minister and geologist, died May 8, 1848, at the age of 70. Young spent most of his life in Whitby, a port town in Yorkshire, in northern England, notable as the home of whaler William Scoresby and explorer James Cook. Young was a talented...
The group happened to get a flat tire as they were leaving, so, American explorer and fossil collector Sue Hendrickson decided to stay behind and keep looking around while the rest of the group went into town to fix the truck.
Richard Edmonds, Dorset County Council's earth science manager for the Jurassic Coast, said: "This part of the coastline is eroding really rapidly and that means the fossils that are trapped and buried are constantly tumbling out on to the beach.
Humans have been finding dinosaur fossils for millennia. It took a long time however for us to understand the age of the ground beneath our feet and to develop the epistemological tools to imagine timescales that our creation myths did not leave room to conceptualize. The science historian Adrienne Mayor has painstakingly connected the sites where certain ancient myths arose with the fossil beds of both dinosaurs and of more recent mega-sized mammals. In so doing she has revealed some of the very interesting ways that the fossil remains of the extinct reptiles came into the collective human consciousness.
Shawnee legend tells of a herd of huge bison rampaging through the Ohio Valley, laying waste to all in their path. To protect the tribe, a deity slew these great beasts with lightning bolts, finally chasing the last giant buffalo into exile across the Wabash River, never to trouble the Shawnee again. The source of this legend was a peculiar salt lick in present-day northern Kentucky, where giant fossilized skeletons had for centuries lain undisturbed by the Shawnee and other natives of the region. In 1739, the first Europeans encountered this fossil site, which eventually came to be known as Big Bone Lick. The site drew the attention of all who heard of it, including George Washington, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and especially Thomas Jefferson. The giant bones immediately cast many scientific and philosophical assumptions of the day into doubt, and they eventually gave rise to the study of fossils for biological and historical purposes. Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology recounts the rich history of the fossil site that gave the world the first evidence of the extinction of several mammalian species, including the American mastodon. Big Bone Lick has played many roles: nutrient source, hallowed ground, salt mine, health spa, and a rich trove of archaeological and paleontological wonders. Natural historian Stanley Hedeen presents a comprehensive narrative of Big Bone Lick from its geological formation forward, explaining why the site attracted animals, regional tribespeople, European explorers and scientists, and eventually American pioneers and presidents. Big Bone Lick is the history of both a place and a scientific discipline: it explores the infancy and adolescence of paleontology from its humble and sometimes humorous beginnings. Hedeen combines elements of history, geology, politics, and biology to make Big Bone Lick a valuable historical resource as well as the compelling tale of how a collection of fossilized bones captivated a young nation.
In July 1923, 100 years ago this month, scientists and explorers made an extraordinary discovery that forever changed our view of dinosaurs. An expedition to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia unearthed fossilized dinosaur eggs, in a nest, confirming that dinosaurs laid eggs like the reptiles that scientists at the time thought dinosaurs were.
Schoolbooks typically present explorers as intrepid individuals who, at the behest of colonizing leaders, sail wooden ships to new lands, ride on horseback across uncharted mountains or slash their way through the jungle. But today most explorers who are making fundamental discoveries are scientists. And whether the frontiers are minuscule, like the human genome, or massive, like our deepest oceans, we still have much left to learn about planet Earth. The quests that modern scientists pursue rival anything in a history book or an adventure novel.
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