LAND OF THE DEAD

IS THIS THE FIRST NEANDERTAL CAVE ART?

2012-02-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

1. Three of the recently discovered seal drawings in Nerja Cave.

A story appeared in today’s news proclaiming that the firstexamples of Neandertal cave art have been discovered in the Nerja Caves alongthe south coast of Spain. These caves started forming 5 million yearsago. Human occupation of the cave begins about 25,000 years ago and the oldestcave art in the cave is about 21,000years old.

The newly discovered paintings consist of a series of sixfigures drawn in red pigment on a stalactite. These relatively crude images are interpreted as being of seals, whichwould have been a food source available at that time along that Nerjacoast. Unspecified organic residue foundnext to the paintings has been tested and yields a date of 42,3000 to45,300. If this date is correct, itpredates the oldest cave art at Chauvet Cave by over 10,000years.

This date is older than the otherwise oldest human remainsor artifacts in the Nerja cave and is within the time frame of the existence ofNeandertals. Thus, the claim is being made that this is Neandertal artwork, thefirst such found anywhere in the world. Itwould suggest Neandertals had more complex intellectual abilities thanpreviously thought. So this might be avery important discovery. Might be.


2. A powerfully built Neandertal skeleton.

Who Were The Neandertals?

Neandertals are fossil humans that ranged across Europe andthe Middle East, eastward possibly as far as the Ural Mountains. Geologically, they lasted about 100,000 years (135,000– 30,000 years ago). Their skeletonswere more robust than those of modern humans. Neandertals reached an adult height of between 60 and 66 inches. They werenot the caveman brutes of popular imagery. Neandertals are known to have made stonetools and weapons, build structures, control fire, and skin animals. They lived in complex social groups. The morphology of the hyoid bone inNeandertals, the bone that anchors tongue muscles to the larynx, is nearlyidentical to that in modern humans, suggesting that they may have been able toproduce a wide range of sounds. AlthoughNeandertals built dwellings out of mammoth skulls, tusks, and bones, they alsofrequently lived in caves.

Neandertals are often classified as their own species, Homo neanderthalensis. However, recent sequencing of the neandertalmitochondrial genome indicates that between 1-4% ofmodern human genes are inherited from neandertals, suggesting that there waslimited interbreeding between H. neanderthalensisand H. sapiens.

The Nerja Cave And The Artwork InQuestion

Although the Nerja caves were occupied by primitive humans,their modern rediscovery occurred in 1959. The caves have since been extensively developed for tourism. One area, the Hall of the Ballet ,has 100seats permanently installed in the cave floor and is the site for concerts anddance performances. Much of the cave artis in other areas of the cave that requires specialized caving techniques to get to,although “spelunking tourism” goes to those areas. The news stories do not say where in the cavethe new artwork was found.

3. No caving skills required! Stairs, lights, and concrete walkways make a visit to Nerja Cave easy and convenient.

Although the image of artwork is striking, there are sometroubling questions about the discovery. First, the date is for unspecified “organic material” found near theartwork, not of the artwork itself. Theorganics may well be 43,000 years old but they may have no relationship to theartwork. Second, the artwork is done inred pigment, which is the iron oxide hematite, a naturally occuring mineralfrequently used in cave art (as we have seen for Lascaux). Hematite is not an “organic substance” whichfurther suggests that the organics dated have nothing to do the artwork. Although the story says that dating of theartwork is a future goal, there is nothing in hematite that can be dated.

Most telling however is the appearance of the artwork on thesurface of the stalactite. It is astrong red color and appears to be on the surface. However, stalactites grow as water drips inthe cave, runs down the stalactite, and deposits calcium carbonate minerals asthe water evaporates. The crispness ofthe seal drawings suggests that there has been no stalagtite growth for thelast 40,000 years. While this isremotely possible, it is not likely. Moisture can be seen on other stalagtites in the photo, so growth isstill going on in that very part of the cage. One would expect artwork as old as claimed to be less distinct because of overgrowth by calcite. Finally, the story appears to bebased on a press release and there is no indication that the find has beenthrough rigorous peer review and publication in a scientific journal, wheresome of these questions would be raised and answered.

The discovery of incontrovertible Neandertal cave art wouldbe both fascinating and important. Are the seals of Nerja Caveneandertal paintings? It seems theevidence presented to date is equivocal and the jury is still out. Hopefully future work will provide adefinitive answer.

Photos

1 and 3: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2097869/The-oldest-work-art-42-000-year-old-paintings-seals-Spanish-cave.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Sources

1. Tim Worden. Theoldest work of art ever: 42,000-year-old paintings of seals found in Spanishcaves. The Mail OnLine.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2097869/The-oldest-work-art-42-000-year-old-paintings-seals-Spanish-cave.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

LA TRAGEDIE DE LASCAUX: TROISIEME PARTIE

2012-02-07T06:01:00.000-08:00

1. The Great Hall of the Bulls.

Thedamage and degradation of the fantastic cave art of Lascaux is a long,complicated, and depressing tale. Caves systems are remarkably fragileenvironments that are easily disturbed, often irreparably. Ignorance, greed,good intentions, poor oversight, denial of problems, organizational rivalries,cover ups, actions taken with no scientific evaluation, public fascination anddesire to see this great human legacy -- all contributed to what happened in the cave.

Howto tell this story in a reasonably short post is a challenge. I decided that a long narrative piece wouldactually reduce the impact of what transpired. I have opted for a more telegraphic, chronological approach because thatis simpler and makes it easier to see and understand the cascade ofevents. It also emphasizes the compexityof the problems Lascaux faces and the difficulty in preserving the cave and itsartwork. It seems that in spite of allthe efforts, heroic and otherwise, the future of the Lascaux artwork remains,unfortunately, somewhat uncertain.

What is clear is that the environment of Lascauxthat preserved the artwork is irretrievably gone. The enlarging of the cave opening, the high public visitation, and other factors ensured that. Efforts to try and recreate that original environment are futile. The goal now is to stabilize the cave environment and to avoid the massive shifts that have occurred since 2001. That will end the repeated microbial outbreaks that threaten the artwork and allow a program to be developed andimplemented that will ensure the long-term preservation of Lascaux.

Finally, the cave paintings and etchings do not exist inisolation. They must be preserved intheir context, in this case the cave and its environment. The walls andceilings are the canvas for the art. Isthose are damaged or destroyed some part of the artwork is lost, as well assome of the potential to understand this priceless heritage. The problem is not to just to prevent damageto the art, it is to preserve the cave in its entirety.

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1940

On 12 September, the dog Robot, accompanied by four Frenchteenagers, discovers the cave of Lascaux and itspaintings. For 18,000 years thesepaintings had been sitting in a stabilized cave environment, in an equilibriumthat preserved them. That had now cometo an end.

In December of that year the French government designatesthe cave a Historic Monument.

2. Some of the first visitors in 1940 shortly after discovery.

1947

3. Building the entrance, 1947.

The cave is developedfor public access. The entrance is widened, a concrete entrance ramp built, a bronzedoor installed, electricity is run into the cave for lighting, and the floor ofthe cave lowered for steps leading directly down to the Hall of the Bulls. Todo this work, some 600 cubic meters (22,000 cubic feet) of rock and sedimentwas dug out and removed.

That work removed thecone of soil and rock that buffered the cave. The cave and its environment had nowbeen completely disturbed. Cave development was spurred on by both the intensepublic interest in seeing the cave paintings and the desire for economicdevelopment in a rural part of post-war France.

1948

Lascauxopens to the public on July 14 and receives as many as 1700 visitors a day. Thisis an impressive visitation number given the remoteness of the cave and generaltransportation at the time.

1949

First signs of moldseen.

1950

Two airlocks are installedat cave entrance.

1955

Visitation reaches30,000 people per year.

The first signs of deteriorationappear in the cave due to excess carbon dioxide, elevated temperatures, andintermittent condensation of water on the walls. This is the result of the large number of visitors.

1957-1958

The firstair-conditioning system is installed. Some 440 cubic meters of earth and rockare removed for the project.

1960

Visitation reaches over100,000 per year.

The changes in humidityand carbon dioxide cause the growth of algae (Bracteacoccus minor) on the walls of the cave. This is given the name“The Green Sickness”.

At the same time, the mineralcalcite begins to form over the paintings due to condensation on the surfaces. This is given the name “The White Sickness”.

4. The White Disease, calcite encrusting the walls.

1962

The growth of the greenalgae is such that it is now observed growing next to, and threatening, some ofthe paintings.

1963

Because of the negativeeffects of high visitation on the cave and the artwork , the owner of the cave,Count de la Rochefoucald-Montbel, closes the cave in January. The governmentforbids the April reopening planned by the owner.

In addition theair-conditioning system is turned off. It is hoped that these actions will stop the cave degradation.

In March a Committee forthe Study and Preservation of the Lascaux Cave (CSPLC) is established. It includes prehistorians, hydrologists,physicists, microbiologists, and curators and works to develop an interventionstrategy for the cave’s problems. It meets regularly until 1976.

1963-1965

A program of sprayingantibiotics (streptomycin and penicillin) directly on the walls to killbacteria begins. This is intended tokill the microbes, but after the second application the treatment provesineffective.

Following therecommendation of The Pasteur Institute, formalin is applied to affected areasin the cave. This successfully eliminates The Green Sickness but does nothing tostop The White Sickness. Formalin is a40 per cent solution of formaldehyde (a known carcinogen in humans) mixed inwater, which is used as a disinfectant, preservative for biological specimens,etc.

1965 – 1967

A new cooling system isinstalled based on the recommendation and study of the CSPLC. This system isdesigned to reduce condensation and have less impact on the cave environmentbecause it works by convection with cave’s natural air currents.

1976

Declaring Lascaux stabilized, the CSPLC disbands. The cave remains closed to the public.

1995

A White Paper by thecave’s curator notes the failures of the cooling system installed in 1967. Itunderscores the need to limit cave visitation and installation of a new climatecontrol system.

1998

Researchscientists notice lichens growing inside the cave.

1999

Adecision is made to replace the air conditioning system installed in 1965-1967. Although that older system used thenatural air currents of the cave to stabilize the cave’s climate, the newsystem will use a totally different method, that of forced air.

2000

Theinstallation of the new air conditioning system begins. Teams of workersinstalling the system work unsupervised in the cave on a daily basis.

5. The air unit installed in 1999-2000.

Weeks after theinstallation begins mold (fungi) appears on the walls of the engine room insidethe cave. Because of the appearance offungi, the thermal insulation is removed from the system, which alters itseffectiveness. It is thought that the cave was contaminated with the mold bythe unsupervised workers who did not sterilize their boots when entering thecave.

It is now generallyagreed that the new air system, because it worked via forced air, was thecatastrophic act that destabilized the cave’s environment and disrupted thenatural air currents within the cave. This led to the explosive microbial infestations and other disastersover the following decade.

2001

Thenew air condition system is completely installed.

Ina second major microbial crisis, the fungus Fusariumsolani and its associated bacterium Pseudomonas flourescens has colonizedand spread across the cave, forming a white coating over the floor and ledges.This fungus is common in agricultural areas, such as those surrounding Lascaux Cave, further suggesting it was broughtin on the unsterilized boots of the workers.

Massive amounts ofantibiotics and fungicides (streptomycin, polymyxin, benzalkonium chloride) aresprayed on the affected areas, but this proves ineffective. The applicationleaves large spots, up to six inches across, on the walls. Within weeks afterthe spraying the fungus reappears and quickly develops a resistance to theantibiotics being applied.

Cloth compresses soakedin fungicides and antibiotics are applied directly to the cave’s walls.

6. Biocide soaked sheets on unpainted cave walls.

When it is realized that the biocide and fungicideapplications are not working, an emergency effort is implemented. Quicklime isspread all over the cave floor. The intent is to sterilize the ground and stopmold growth.

7. Quicklime on the floor near the entrance to the Hall of the Bulls.

Quicklimeis a caustic calcium oxide and releases significant heat when reacting withwater. As a result, the application of the large amounts of quicklime causesthe cave’s interior temperature to rise. Because of its strong reaction with water, quicklime can cause severeirritation when inhaled if it is in contact with moist skin or eyes.

Recognizing that thejust installed forced air system is not appropriate to thecave environment, authorities shut most of it down.

2002

Dark spots now begin toappear on the ceilings of the decorated chambers. The decision is made to start invasivemechanical removal of the fungus, scraping and pulling fungal “roots” (hypae)out of the rock by hand. This workrequires bright lights, which affects the cave’s temperature.

The massive spraying ofantibiotics is terminated.

The French Ministry ofCulture appoints a new scientific commission which is to examine the impacts ofprevious emergency measures on the paintings and develop a strategy tostabilize the cave environment.

2003

Mechanical removal offungal hyphae continues, resulting in teams of workers continually inside thecave.

The problems at Lascaux captures the attention of the press, with exposésappearing in La Recherche, Le Point andThe Wall Street Journal.

2004

The new scientificcommittee releases its plan with short, medium, and long term components.

A 3D survey of the cavebegins. This is intended to document baseline conditions so that changes andeffectiveness of actions can be evaluated.

8. Scaffolding erected as part of the cave survey.

2005

Although the growth offungi is slowed by the program of mechanical removal, the fungi are not eliminated. Teams continue to work inside the cave.

The 3D survey of thecave is completed.

An exhaustive anddetailed survey begins to document artwork and etchings throughout thecave. Work is carried out by artrestorers with assistance from geologists.

A digital simulation ofthe cave is developed to model how the addition of equipment, changes in airflow, etc. will affect the cave environment. This will help decide what kind of air regulation system should be installedin Lascaux.

Hydrologists begin astudy of condensation and groundwater movements to understand what role theymay have played in growth of white mold and black stains.

The InternationalCommittee for the Preservation of Lascaux is established. Its goal is topreserve the prehistoric paintings in the cave of Lascaux.It also works to raise public awareness about the deterioration of the cave andthe art and stimulate public action to safeguard Lascaux’s artwork and interestscientists from diverse disciplines in Lascaux’spreservation. This organization is notpart of the French government and is suspect of much of what the Frenchgovernment is doing at Lascaux. This relationship becomes increasingly confrontational over time, withthe ICPL charging the French government of a cover-up of the threats and damageto the paintings and etchings.

2006

In what is the thirdmajor microbial crisis, large numbers of new clusters of black spots appearnear the cave entrance? Although reported, they are not analyzed. By the end ofthe year they have spread throughout the cave. They begin to cover paintings.Biologists cannot identify what species of mold makes the black spots, do notknow what made them appear and grow explosively, and cannot recommend atreatment strategy.

9. Microbiological sampling of a black, discolored area.

Removal of fungus bymechanical means continues. This work isbeing done by unsupervised teams of three to four people working all day threetimes a week. Teams consist of art restorers, scientists are not part of theteams. The art restorer work requires additional lighting that raises thetemperature. The number of people andthe amount of time they are in the cave are well above the levels known to haveimpacts on cave environment.

Small meteorologicalstations are set up in the cave to monitor microenvironment to investigatechanges in microorganisms and changes in environment.

There is littlescientific follow up. Scientific specialists, such as microbiologists, comeonly twice a year to the cave.

The workers lean laddersagainst unpainted parts of the wall. Laddersof the workers lean against the walls (un-painted) breaking off some ledges.Prehistoric paint drippings on ledges in the Hall of the Bulls are lost whenthe ledges are accidentally broken off.

The decision is made toremove the quicklime put in the cave in 2001 to control fungal growth. Thisrequires digging up the quicklime. Insome areas the cave floor itself is excavated.

Calcite mineral depositsare appearing on the paintings themselves, as well as the walls.

Color tones on somepaintings are beginning to fade.

The ill-fitted airmachine is operating on a partial basis but is not able to stabilize the caveenvironment.

The May 16 edition ofTIME runs the Lascaux crisis as its coverstory: http://www.savelascaux.org/TIMEMagazine.pdf

2007

The black spots, some as large as human hands, continue to groweverywhere in the cave. The number of spots triples in late summer 2007. They are still unidentified. Even so, adebate erupts over what to do about them. Some want to start to again spray antibiotics on the cave walls. Othersoppose that because of problems caused by the previous spraying. The decisionis made to spray the cave and then close it to all human access.

10. Spraying biocides on part of the cave roof with no artwork on it.

Lab work reveals that the black spots contain melanin whichis triggered by light. There is a strong suspicion that the invasion andexplosive growth of the black spots is the result of extensive use of lights bythe survey and restoration teams that have been working in the cave for thelast four years.

The head of the famous Black Cow painting is now threatened and surrounded by the black spots.

Six additional genera of fungi are reported in the cave (Chrysosporium, Gliocladium, Gliomastix,Paecilomyces, Trichoderma, Verticilium).

The air conditioning system is finally completely shut down.

A new study is launched to analyze historic data and draw upspecifications for a new climate regulation system.

A temporary roof set up in 2000to aid in the installation of the air system is exposing the cave to suddenvariations in exterior climate and precipitation.

The cave has become very wet. Water is observed running downmany of the paintings.

The white calcite which forms the bright canvas for the Lascaux paintings is turning gray.

Because of the worsening conditions, Lascaux Cave in placedon the World Heritage in Danger list bythe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

2008

Fifty percent of the cavewalls are infested with the black dots, including areas such as The Nave andthe Passage which contain much artwork as well as the area with 1600prehistoric engravings (the highest concentration in the world).

The melanin produced bythe bacteria stains the walls and remains even after the bacteria are killed. Themelanin might be a permanent alteration to the cave and the artwork.

An experimental approachto remove the melanin is undertaken. This involves physically scraping thewalls affected. This scrapping removes the melanin but also the outer surfaceof the wall, painted or not. New biocide treatments are also started.

After mechanicaltreatment is completed, a Gregomatic is used to remove residual organicdeposits from undecorated areas. AGregomatic injects pure cold water onto a stone surface and immediately vacuumsup the water and the loosened material, and cleans the pores of the rocksurface. The Gregomatic is designed to remove dust, dirt, grease, bacteria andpoisonous substance from the surfaces.

French National Televisionclaims that the Lascaux crisis is solved. The International Commission for thePreservation of Lascaux (ICPL) disagrees and condemns the process of scrapingthe melanin.

Although French officials claim that the cave is reaching amicrobiological equilibrium, scientists dispute that. Antibiotic sprays killsome of the bacteria, but the spray contains chemicals that are nutrients forother microorganisms. This further disrupts the microbial community which mustreach another state of equilibrium. The problem is that no one can predict ifthis new equilibrium will be favorable or unfavorable to the cave art.

The magazine Archaeology runs a story Who’s Killing Lascaux? http://www.savelascaux.org/Archaeology%20May%202008.pdf

2009

In January 2009, concernedscientists and citizens establish Lascaux International Scientific Thinktank.This organizations purpose is based on the belief that :

“a multidisciplinary approach involving "hard sciences" likemicrobiology (bacteriology, mycology, biofilms), physics, chemistry,climatology and physical-chemistry, conducted independently from theadministration which remains responsible for making the decisions and implementingthem, is the only way to identify the real causes of microorganismproliferation in the cave and to propose the most adapted curative measures totreat it.”

Based on analysis of data,human presence in the cave is restricted to 800 hours per year. This includesmaintenance activity as well as scientific research. New restrictions requireall visitors to the cave to wear sterile white coveralls, a plastic hair caps,latex gloves, and two pairs of slip on shoe covers. The shoe covers replace the previous practiceof having visitors step into an antibacterial liquid bath. That bath was later determined to havefurther disturbed the cave’s microbial community.

Entering the cave is nowmade through two airlocks. These are designed to keep out the external humiditybut still allow for the natural air currents that enter the cave throughnatural crack systems.

In February the FrenchMinistry of Culture convenes an international symposium “Lascauxand Preservation Issues in Subterranean Environments”. Attended by threehundred participants from seventeen countries, the symposium brought experienceelsewhere in the world in the area of cave preservation to bear on the problemsof Lascaux. Participants included specialistsfrom diverse disciplines (biology, biochemistry, botany, hydrology,climatology, geology, fluid mechanics, archaeology, anthropology, restorationand conservation). However, by Novemberthe International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux is publiclyclaiming that the French government is willfully ignoring critical conclusionsof the symposium, to the detriment of Lascaux.

2010

Ten genera of bacteriaare reported present in Lascaux (Ralstonia, Psudomonas, Exherichia,Achromobacter, Afipia, Ochrobactrum, Legionella, Alcaligenes, Stenotrophomonas,Symbiobacterium). No studies had been done on the bacteria of Lascaux before the benzalkonium chloride treatments, sothere is no way to know what the original bacterial community was and how ithas been changed by the treatments. However, there two of the bacteria in thecave (Ralstonia and Pseudomonas) are biocide resistantstrains and might have evolved that resistance as a result of the treatments. Legionella is pathenogenic to humans andis the infectious agent causing Legionnaire’s disease.

Ten species of fungi arereported from Lascaux (Penicillium namyslowskii, Isaria farinose, Aspergillis versicolor,Tolypocladium cylindrosporum, richoloma saponaceum, Geomyces pannorum,Geosmithia putterillii, Engyodontium album, Kraurogymnocarpa trochleospora,Calvicipitacea sp.). Only two of these are soil bacteria. The rest are bacteria that attack and feed oninsects. The other fungi may have been brought into the cave as various smallarthropods invaded it.

The rarity of Fusarium in 2010 suggests that theprolonged biocide treatments had drastically reduced the populations of thisfungus.

Analysis based onsamples collected between 2007 and 2009 found the fugus Scolecobasidium tshawytschae frequently isolated from the blackstains. This species is known to synthesize melanin. It is usually rare in itsnormal environment of soil and decaying leaves. Researchers think thedegradation of benzalkonium chloride by cave bacteria provided a source ofnitrogen and carbon source that allowed Scolecobasidiumpopulations to explode.

In February 2010 theFrench government establishes a new Scientific Council to oversee theconservation of Lascaux. However, the LascauxInternational Scientific Thinktank is critical of the committee because theyfeel the committee composition is not appropriate for a multidisciplinaryapproach to the problem and is not independent of the government agenciesadministering the cave. This working relationship becomes more strained overtime.

The fungus-eating springtailsoil arthropod Folsomia candida isdiscovered in and around the black stains. This animal is found in caves wherethe cave is disturbed and normal cave dwelling arthropods are absent. They probably entered Lascauxfrom leaf litter outside, attracted by the abundant food sources of the variousmicrobial outbreaks in the cave. Folsomiacandida feeds on both Scolecobasidiumand Fusarium, the fungi responsible for two of the microbialoutbreaks. The fecal pellets of Folsomiacontain abundant fungal spores. Thus the springtails feed on the fungus andwander around the cave walls defecating fungal spores. This dispersal may account for the very rapidspread of the fungi in the cave.

2011

In January The Ministryof Culture issues a report on the conservationstatus of Lascaux Cave. It brieflydescribes what happened at Lascaux, the majorefforts underway, and makes the claim that the cave environment is stabilizedand many areas show reduction or disappearance of fungal infestations. Workhours spent in the cave is kept low and the access criteria have beenstrengthened. Monitoring of microbial problems continue.

The proceedings of 2009 symposium are published in 2011 in avolume which is composed of the studies presented during the sessions and fulltranscriptions of the debates. Given theimportance of Lascaux, the intense international interest in the cave, and thesevere threats to one of the world’s great cultural resources it seemsunfortunate that the report was not made freely available on line, rather thanas a book to be sold.

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Photos

1. Lascaux Cave - Grotte de Lascaux http://www.donsmaps.com/lascaux.html

2. All others: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr

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Sources

1. International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux

http://www.savelascaux.org/crisis_overview.php

http://www.savelascaux.org/timeline.php

2. Lascaux, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

3. Lascaux Cave - Grotte de Lascaux http://www.donsmaps.com/lascaux.html

4. LascauxInternational Scientific Thinktank http://louxorsarl.free.fr/LIST/indexLISTenglish.html

5. Time Magazine http://www.savelascaux.org/TIMEMagazine.pdf

6. Bastian, F., Jurado, V., Novakova, A., and Alabouvette,C. 2010, The microbiology of Lascaux Cave. Microbiology 156: 644-652. Freely available on line at http://mic.sgmjournals.org/content/156/3/644.short?cited-by=yes&legid=mic;156/3/644

For the more technically curious reader, this review paperis a good summary of recent work on the cave’s microbiology and an excellentlead into the primary scientific literature, most of which is quiterecent.

8. Report on the conservation status of Lascaux Cave31st January, 2011 www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/dp/archeo/pdf/lascaux_unesco2011.pdf Media Release by the Ministry of Culture and Communication

Translated and abridged by Don Hitchcock http://www.donsmaps.com/lascaux.html

9. Archaeology http://www.savelascaux.org/Archaeology%20May%202008.pdf

10. Preservation Interventions. Lascaux. http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/

THE MAGNIFICENT, GIANT (AND UNFORTUNATELY EXTINCT) GRIFFENFLIES, BOTH EARTHLY AND EXTRADIMENSIONAL

2012-01-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

1. Life sized adult woman with a life sizedmodel of a griffenfly

People have a continuing fascination with giants. Part of the attraction of dinosaurs is their great size, the largest over 100 feet in length and 100 tons or more in weight. Many groups of plants and animals other than dinosaurs achieved gigantism sometime in their evolutionary history (lycopod plants, scorpions, rhinoceroses, and varanoid lizards among others). However, not all giants are of absolutely large size. Being crowned a “giant” depends on how large the other members of your group are. There are several forces that drive the evolution of gigantism -- anatomy, mechanical constraints, and environment to name just a few. One of the more interestinggiants in the fossil record, and one with some pop culture significance, are the giant dragonflies of the Paleozoic.

Dragonflies (Order Odonata) are among the most recognizable groups of living insects. They are large, often brightly colored, active during the day, and quite visible flying around and resting in open areas. Among the insects, dragonflies have devoted human observers, the arthropod equivalent of bird watching. With at least 6000 known living species there are plenty of dragonflies to watch.

2. Large eyes, strong jaws, and powerful wings are some ofthe predatory hallmarks of dragonflies

All dragonflies are predators and most are highly agile aerial predators. One exception is the damselfly family Pseudostigmatidae, which hunts orb-weaving spiders and plucks them from their webs! Dragonflies can fly at speeds up to 35 miles an hour chasing prey or hover motionless over a pond. They can even fly backwards! Their large spherical eyes, covering most of their head, provide excellent vision for hunting prey --- mostly small flying insects (especially mosquitos) – by flying, catching them between their legs,and eating them on the run. Although they may live several years as an aquatic nymph, flying adults have a short life of between one and six months.

3. Dragonfly nymphs are predatory and capable of feeding onsmall vertebrates

The nymphs of dragonflies are also voracious predators. In some species the nymph captures, kills,and eats tadpoles and small fish! As we’ll see later, this has some interesting implications for griffenflies.

THE FOSSIL GIANTS

Dragonflies have a long evolutionary history, extending back some 300 million years to the Carboniferous Period. Technically speaking these ancient giants are not true dragonflies but rather the closest relatives of dragonflies. That need not worry us very much as the distinction is based on detailed anatomical and evolutionary analysisand is, in part, purely definitional. They are known scientifically as protodonata, meganeuridae, meganisopterans, or griffenflies. Here I’ll use griffenflies. I’m not sure of the etymology of that name, but in German "griffen" means “attack” – resulting in an appropriate nomen.

When you step on a cockroach, there is a pleasing crunchy sound, made by the compressing and cracking of the hard exoskeleton. However, the exoskeleton of insects is not always hard and not all parts are equally hard. In dragonflies it is the wings that are the most resilient body part and the part most likely to be fossilized. So, much of the fossil record of griffenflies consists of fragmentary specimens, with a few spectacular exceptions. Griffenflies darted through the Earth’s skies for some 20+ million years million years (Late Carboniferous 317 MYA – Late Permian 247 MYA) and achieved a worldwide distribution.

4. The type specimen of the griffenfly Namurotypus sippelipreserving details of the head and body

5. Restoration of Namurotypus sippeli

6. Restoration of Namurotypus sippeli

There are a few complete or nearly complete griffenflies that provide much information about the overall anatomy of the group (1, 2). They have large, robust, toothed “jaws”, large spheroidal compound eyes, and strong legs with large spines. Their wings are large, strong, and directed sideways from the body. All these are dragonfly adaptations for aerial predation and griffenflies clearly had a similar lifestyle.

7. An unidentified, but spectacularly complete, griffenflyfrom France.

8. Another unidentified, but spectacularly complete,griffenfly from France

Griffenflies achieved a wide distribution, were fairly diverse (3), and new species continue to be described every year. While most griffenflies are large, some are within the size range of modern dragonflies. However, some are truly gigantic by insect, and especially dragonfly, standards.

Meganeura monyi,the first described griffenfly, was based only a fossil wing about 12 inches long and an estimate wing span of 27 inches (including an estimated body width between the wings). At the time of its description in 1895 it was the largest insect known and remained so until 1939 (4), when Frank Carpenter described Meganeuropsis permiana from Kansas. M.permiana was based on an incomplete, but large wing, in two parts. Scaling the wing of M. monyi up to the size of M. permiana, Carpenter estimated a wingspan of 29 inches for his new species. Several years later, Carpenter described another new species of griffenfly, Meganeuropsis americana (5). This species is based on a spectacular specimen the largest complete wing ever found. He estimated the wingspan of M. americana as close to that of M. permiana. The spectacular M. americana wing is on permanent exhibit at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. Today, specialists consider the two species of Meganeuopsis to be the same and the correct name is M. permiana. It is this species that holds the record as the largest known insect (6).Compare this to Megaloprepus coerulatus, the living odonate with the largest wingspan --- a paltry 7.5 inches.

9. The wing of the giant Meganuropsispermiana, measuring a remarkable 13 inches!

A 29 inch wing span is damn big for an insect --- but not big enough for some. Although often repeated in the popular press, websites, and books, griffenflies NEVER achieved wingspans of FIVE or SIX feet. There is absolutely no evidence for that and such a size is almost certainly above the mechanical capabilities of the insect exoskeleton, especially for flight. Nevertheless the myth continues to be repeated as though it were a well established fact.

10. The griffenfly Meganeuropsis permiana compared to the largest living insects. Silhouette of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley of the US spaceship Nostromo for scale

Is it possible that the known specimens of M. permiana are not full adult size and the species grew even larger? We can answer that question definitively NO. We can do that because of the biology of dragonflies. The predatory nymph stage of dragonflies grows for months or years in lakes and streams, shedding its exoskeleton several times. However, once the nymph crawls out of the water, sheds its exoskeleton a final time, and emerges as an adult, growth ceases. So a dragonfly wing in the fossil record is of adult size. Griffenflies had a similar biology and so known wings are of fixed adult size.

This fact provides some interesting insight into griffenfly diversity. In the Permian rocks of the Lodeve Basingriffenfly wings can be grouped into five distinct size classes. Given how they grew, these must represent five different species (7).

Estimates of body length for the largest species of griffenflies, some of which are known from more than just wings, is about 17 inches. This means that the nymphs reached a length of 17 inches and must have been major predators in freshwater systems, likely feeding on amphibians as well and fish and smaller creatures.

WHY GIANT GRIFFENFLIES?

Griffenflies may have been extinct for 250,000,000 years but one might well ask why are there no equally gigantic dragonflies in today’s world? Or to turn the question around, what allowed griffenflies to attain their great size?

The Late Paleozoic was unusual in several ways. During the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian there were extensive coal swamp forests that generated tremendous amounts of oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. This created a hyperoxic atmosphere, with oxygen levels in excess of modern levels. Insects lack lungs and breath through a series of tubes (trachea) that are connected to the outside. Oxygen is absorbed through the wall of these tubes by simple diffusion. With higher oxygen levels in the atmosphere the amount of the gas absorbs increases and that increased absorption would allow insects to evolve giant body size. The anatomy of griffenflies indicates very maneuverable flight capabilities which would be very demanding metabolically and require high oxygen levels. Decreasing oxygen levels in the Permian, coupled with a much more arid global aridity, could have driven these giants to extinction. Modern atmospheric oxygen levels may be too low to allow gigantism in active aerial predatory insects (8).

Of course, when griffenflies ruled the air they really ruled the air. Flying vertebrates, birds, bats, and pterosaurs, would not evolve for at least another 100,000,000 years, so the skies were free of more active fliersthat might have preyed on griffenflies.

GRIFFENFLIES IN THE MODERN WORLD

“Only one scientist dared to investigate the incredible phenomena … how a simple dragonfly had become a winged monster of a species extinct for millions of years.Your flesh will crawl,Your blood will chill in terror.”

People are fascinated by giants, especially ferocious giants, hence part of the reason for the popularity of dinosaurs in movies. Other giants of the past have sometimes captured roles on the silver screen. Griffenfliesappear in the 1958 black-and-white-cult-scifi-B-film Monster On The Campus. University professor Dr. Blake is studying a new specimen of the ancient fish known as the coelacanth – a “living fossil” of sorts. The writers did some background research because some of the “facts” about the coelacanth are reasonably accurate. However, the truest dialogue in the movie comes during a discussion between paleontologist Dr. Blake and a student as they stand before the coelacanth:

Dr. Blake: Do you know anything about paleontology?

Student: “Only that really attractive men study it.”

11. Meganuera (withcaveman restorations behind it) getting ready to attack students and faculty inMonster On The Campus.

At one point a dragonfly (actually a damselfly) lands on the coelacanth, feeds on it, and then mutates into a giant, flying griffenfly. After terrorizing some students, Dr. Blake captures it and proclaims “This insect isof the genus Meganura, an ancestor of the present day dragonfly, supposedly extinct for millions of years.”

The quote at the beginning of this section is from the film’s trailer that can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1VnWeMwd5o

I won’t give away what happens to the scientist. For that you’ll have to suffer through the movie. Don't fret, I doubt “your blood will chill in terror.”

Meganeura makes continual appearances in scientific programs and museum exhibits. It appears, much better animated this time, in the BBC documentary Walking with Monsters, episode 2 in which it flies and ultimately steals a small reptile from a large spider. Meganeura also appeared the episode entitled The Bug House in ITVs six part Prehistoric Park.

12. Prehistoric Park's host Nigel Narven with a captured Meganeura

A very nice bit of animation with Meganeura flying around a rocky stream can be seen at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW37RHwpj3Y

Griffenflies are also suprisingly popular in natural museum dioramas. Some examples are :

13. Restoration of flying and resting griffenflies in a coalswamp diorama in the Naturkundmuseum, Stuttgart.

14. Meganeura in the Audubon Institute's Insectarium in New Orleans

15. A griffenfly model at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Tania Summerell is an Australian multi-media visual artist who created a timber, acrylic perspex, plastic, and aluminum artistic rendition of Meganeura as part of her Living Fossils exhibit, which addresses issues of biotic conservation.

16. The multi-media Meganeuropsis by Tania Sumerrell

ROBIN TILLYARD AND THE GRIFFENFLIES

Robin Tillyard (1881-1937) was an accomplished and eminent English – Australian entomologist who worked on both living and fossil insects. He wrote extensively on the Permian insect beds of Kansas, including the griffenflies, before Chapman discovered the giants there. In addition to his many scientific papers, in 1917 he wrote The Biology of Dragonflies and in 1926 he published the authoritative The Insects of Australia and New Zealand, which remained a standard work for a half century (9).

17. Entomologist andpaleo-occulist Robin Tillyard.

However, Tillyard had some mighty peculiar interests outside of insects. In modern parlance one might say he was “complicated.” He was deeply interested in the occult. After a séance with the psychic Mina Stinson (a séance which later proved to be a hoax)Tillyard became convinced of the survival of the human personality after death. In 1928 he somehow managed to get his findings published in the august scientific journal Nature. Unfortunately, his occult interests did not help him much. In 1928 the psychic Jeanne Laplace “predicted” Tillyard’s death in a motor accident and this prediction was sent to Tillyard. Tillyard’s reaction? He merely laughed at the whole affair, remarking that this type of prognostication is so seldom verified.” Maybe so, but Tillyard did indeed died in a car accident in Australia on Jan 13, 1937. Ironically, Tillyards’ daughter, Faith Evans, died on March 22, 2005 after being hit by a car (10).

This might all seem to be an illogical side to an otherwise logical scientist, except Tillyard’s occultism did seep into his paleoentomological research on at least one occasion. In their book on insect evolution, Grimaldi and Engel (2) write of Tillyard:

“It is little known that Tillyard was also a devotee of the occult, who believed that mysticism could be used to understand the lives of long vanished organisms. It has even been recounted that he once visited the Museum of Comparative Zoology [at Harvard University] with the idea of having a local Bostonian mystic bring back to life the huge Permian griffenfly specimens preserved there so that he could observe their behavior.”

Ah if paleontology were only so simple ………

GRIFFENFLIES FROM OTHER DIMENSIONS

Reincarnating the fossil griffenflies is certainly an odd idea, but not the oddest of ideas about these magnificent insects. Stace Tussel claims he had a “giant dragonfly encounter in eastern Kansas” in the 1960s (11). There on I-35 he saw a living giant dragonfly with a wingspan that could have been 5 feet. He thought this might have been the result of “experiencing a meta-dimension” or moving backwards and forwards in time. He couldn’t decide if the griffenfly exists in a parallel dimension or lives a hidden life on our planet.

And gauging from the responses, Tussel isn’t the only one to have seen those giants alive. Some thought the existence of living griffenflies in today’s world challenged evolution. Or that the beast passed through “one ofthe many temporal-spatial doors on our planet – some artificial, some natural.” Or that the insect “developed aninvisible shield, knows how to disappear to the human look, is an interdimensional entity or high tech with insect shape that vibrates to the frequency of the camera flash.” There are more incidents and “explanations” than I can recount here, so visit Tussel’s post for some amusement --- such as that of the person who found that dragonflies speak to him, but in their own language! (11)

I live in the rural hamlet of Jensen, Utah and the bottom lands of the nearby Green River flood every Spring, some years worse than others. Regardless of the level of flooding, however, this area is famous as the mosquito factory for the state, with literally billions of those pesky West Nile Virus carrying dipterans swarming the skies. So if any readers see a living griffenfly, please let me know. We could sure use them here.

PHOTOS

1. http://airworld.tistory.com/archive/20101222
2. Griffin Chure
3 http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/water/?section=lifeinwater&page=lifeinwater_g
4. http://www.lwl.org/pressemitteilungen/mitteilung_drucken.php?urlID=16087&PHPSESSID=2caf5b1c041669a21c70bf12fa2b7db0<
5 and 6. Bechly et al 2001. (ref 1)
7. http://www.paleomania.com/photo-1307572-I-Houiller-06-Meganeuridae-indet-Commentry_jpg.html
8. http://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org/wildaboututah/110721dragonflies.htm
9.(MODIFIED): http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/11/dragonfly

10: http://arthropoda.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/heavyweight-hexapods-the-largest-insects/

11.http://monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com/2008/08/monster-on-campus-universal-1958-stock.html

12: http://blog.evolutionibus.info/2007/11/21/el-gigantismo-en-insectos-e-inversion-en-traqueas/

13 http://www.hornissenschutz.de/stammbaum.htm

14: http://taxondiversity.fieldofscience.com/2011/04/odonatoptera.html

15: http://www.oceansofkansas.com/denver.html

16: http://taniasummerell.com/docs/soloex/fossil/fossil.htm

17. Grimaldi and Engel (ref 1)

REFERENCES

(1) Bechly, G., Brauckmann, C., Zessin, W., and Ning, E.G.2001. New results concerning the morphology of the most ancient dragonflies (Insecta: Odonatoptera) from the Namurian of Hagen-Vorhalle (Germany).J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Research 39 (2001) 209-226.

(2) Grimaldi, D. and Engel, M.S. 2005. Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press: 755 pp.

(3) Zessin, W. (2008): Überblick über die paläozoischen Libellen (Insecta, Odonatoptera). Mitteilungsblatt des Entomologischen Vereins Mecklenburg, 11. Jahrgang, Heft 1: 5-32

(4) Carpenter, F.M. 1939. The Lower Permian Insects of Kansas. Part 8: Additional Megasecoptera, Protodonata, Odonata,Homoptera, Psocoptera,Protelytroptera, Plectoptera, and Protoperlaria. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 73(3): 29-70

(5) Carpenter, F.M. 1947. Lower Permian Insects from Oklahoma. Part 1.Introduction and the Orders Megasecoptera,Protodonata, and Odonata. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 76(2: 25-54.

(6) Anonymous 2007. Dragonfly. The largest complete insect wing ever found. Harvard Magazine, November-December 2007. available on-line at:http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/11/dragonfly

(7)Nell, A.N., Fleckl, G., Garroustel, R., and Gand, G. 2008. The Odonatoptera of the Late Permian Lodève Basin(Insecta). Journal of Iberian Geology 34 (1) 2008: 115-122

(8)Dudley, R. 1998. Atmospheric oxygen, giant Paleozoic insects and the evolution of aerial locomotor performance. J Exp Biol. 201(Pt 8): 1043-50.

(9) John Robin Tillyard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_John_Tillyard

(10) Price, L. 2005. Dr. Robin John Tillyard 1881-1937- a forgotten Australian psychical researcher. Psypioneer, An Electronic Newsletter, Vol. 1,No 19.
http://www.woodlandway.org/PDF/19.PSYPIONEERFoundedbyLesliePrice.pdf

(11) Giant Dragonfly Encounter in Kansas: http://inter-intelligence-communications.com/?p=1231

LA TRAGEDIE DE LASCAUX: DEUXIEME PARTIE

2012-01-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

1. The overwhelming Hall of the Bulls, the firstlarge chamber with paintings seen by Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, GeorgesAgnel, and Simon Coencas after dropping through the Lascaux Cave entrance on September12, 1940.

THE CAVE

Lascaux Cave is located along the left bank of the river Vézère near the town of Montignac in southwestern France. It is a rather short cave, only 250 meters long, with a drop of about 30 meters over that distance. The cave structure consists of a series of large circular chambers connected by passages tall enough to walk through. Archeologists have given the chambers names based on the artwork within each.

2. Map of the Lascauxcave with the major artistic features identified.

PALEOLITHIC USE OF THE CAVE

The Lascaux paintings are attributed to the Paleolithic Cro-Magnon people Homo sapiens sapiens and are part of the Magdalenian culture.

3. Animal fat was burned in this lamp to provide light in the cave.

Artifacts recovered from Lascaux are mostly related to painting. Among these are rock scrapers for etching, pieces of naturally occurring pigments, pestles and mortars used to mix the pigments, bone tools, shells from necklaces, and a small bone oil lamp. Most artifacts found are either used in painting or providing light for painting. The lack or human bones or other artifacts indicates that the cave was not used as a living site. Peopleonly used entered for painting and associated activities.


4. A shell from a necklace.It was attached to the necklace along the horizontal cut near the top.

5. Bone tools.

THE PALEOLITHIC PAINT KIT

The paintings are colored with blacks, yellows, reds and whites. These pigments were created from hematitite, manganese, charcoal, and clays. The pigments were crushed, moistened with water or spit and adhered to the walls when they dried.


6. Natural pigments used in the painting. Left to right hematitie, ochre, magnesium dioxide.

Outlines were made using fur or hand as a brush and fields of colors within the outline were applied by blowing the paint through a tube as seen in figure 7.

7. A horse with a row of dots below it.

THE ARTWORK

Lascaux contains some 2000 figures on its walls. Of these, about 600 are paintings and 1400 are engravings. These can be grouped into three groups; animals, very rare humanfigures, and abstract shapes. Interestingly, there are no images of landscape or vegetation anywhere in the cave.

8. Two horses.

9. Head of an auroch.

Horses are by far the most common animal figure. Stags, cattle and bison are also very common. There are a few felines, two human figures, and one each of ibex, birds, bear, and rhinoceros. The few carnivores shown (felines, bears) are in the most remote parts of the cave. This beastiary reflects the large mammals occupying the area during thetime of Lascaux. The absence of mammoths and near absence of wooly rhinoceros in Lascaux indicates that the paintings were done during a warmer interglacial period.

10. Stag.

11. Two bison.

Abstract figures occur as dots, lines, and curves, etc. and some have been interpreted as ancient star charts.

What these diverse images represent is difficult to ascertain. Are they memorializing hunting events or serving as strategies for future hunts? Are the figures simply illustrations of animals or are they symbolic? Are the paintings secular or spiritual in nature? Might they serve more than one of these functions or some other functionwe cannot discern? These are difficult questions to answer and we may not be able to answer them at all. We know nothing of the mental and spiritual worlds of the painters so the “meaning” of the Lascaux may be impossible to answer with certainty. However, the art was not likely decorations of living areas, since the caves with paintings show no signs of continuing habitation. There is a very large body of research about cave art around the world. That is much too complex an issue to even discuss in a rudimentary way here and I suggest the interested reader search the internet for discussions of the various schools of thought interpreting the paintings.

HOW OLD ARE THE PAINTINGS?

Dating the Lascaux paintings themselves is frustratingly challenging. This is because most of the pigments used are metal oxides and have no carbon, thereby excluding radiocarbon dating. C¹⁴dating of small bits of charcoal excavated from the cave floors gives dates of 15,500 to 17,2000 years old. C¹⁴ dates of bone tools from the floor gives ages ranging from 18,600 and 18,900 years old. Comparison of the Lascaux images and symbols with other better dates cave art suggests that some images may before from beginning of the Magdalenian culture around 17,000 old. Some time after the paintings were completed the cave entrance collapsed, creating a sealed stable environment that preserved the delicate artwork.

Photos

1: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/01/2012/lascaux-revisited

2: http://www.frenchfriends.info/gallery/Aquitaine/Lascaux_Cave/lascaux_map.gif.html

3: http://art110.wikispaces.com/andrea-seu-Lect3
4, 5, 6: http://www.donsmaps.com/lascaux.html
7: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/index.php?fichier=mediatheque.xml&item=147
8, 9, 10: http://www.savelascaux.org/gallery2.php#

11: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/index.php?fichier=03_06.xml

Sources

Lascaux : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

Grotte de Lascaux: http://www.donsmaps.com/lascaux.html

Lascaux: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/?lng=en#/en/00.xml

The Bradshaw Foundation's Save Lascaux:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/index.php

LA TRAGEDIE DE LASCAUX: PREMIERE PARTIE

2012-01-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

THE SISTINE CHAPEL OF PREHISTORIC ART

The Lascaux cave paintings are without a doubt one of the greatest discoveries ever made about our species’ past. Although no human remains have been recovered from the cave and relatively few artifacts have been found, the site is a most remarkable window into the world of Upper Paleolithic humans.
Understanding what these paintings meant to those who made them is very difficult to discern, but the importance of the artwork is self evident.

In this first Lascaux post I will look at the cave’s discovery. In following posts we’ll look at the painting themselves, their near destruction, and the efforts underway to preserve them. However, if you are not familiar with the the paintings I would encourage you to visit the Lascaux website ......

http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/?lng=en#/en/00.xml

....... and spend some time in the virtual Lascaux. This site provides a remarkable 3-D walk through tour of both levels of the cave, with close up images of many of the paintings and information about the figures. This is an exceptional website and you will leave it with an infintely better appreciation of the cave than anything I can blog. It will also help you better appreciate the tradedy of what happened at Lascaux. A pull out bar on the left side of the screen will allow you to change languages.

A MOST IMPROBABLE DISCOVERY

Its somehow appropriate that a such a spectacular site have a good tale of discovery. The Lascaux discovery itself is almost unbelievable and seems to leap from a Spielberg movie. On September 12, 1940 four teenage boys, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, along with Marcel's dog Robot, set off to find gold riches supposedly hidden underground in the woods of Montignac.

Fig 1 The dog Robot, the hero of our tale, who sniffed out the hidden entrance to Lascaux, with two of the human-co-discoverers (unidentified).

Robot began eagerly sniffing at a hole left by a fallen tree in the undergrowth of a depression on the forest floor. Thinking this might lead to the treasure, the boys pulled out some stones to enlarge the opening a bit. Each one then squeezed through the opening and climbed down a 15 meter near vertical shaft to the cave floor. Marshall recalled that “The descent was terrifying.”

In the chamber they used their small oil lamps to illuminate the cave. On the white ceiling above them they saw large red, black, and brown paintings of animals. Excitedly, the boys explored the rest of the length of the cave, seeing hundreds of animal figures by the flickering light of their lamps. At the end they came to a dark vertical shaft. With their lights running low they returned to the opening and climbed back up the shaft to daylight.

Pledging secrecy, they returned the next morning, now with ropes to assist them, and re-entered the cave. They went to the end of the cave and made another frightening descent down a second, 12 meter deep, vertical shaft to a lower level with more artwork.

THE FIRST VISITORS

By the third day of exploration the boys realized they couldn’t keep their discovery a secret. They agreed that each could bring five friends, but charged each one forty cents for the tour. This began the commercialization of Lascaux that would end so tragically.Of course once the tourists had seen the cave the word got out and more and more people wanted to see it. To accommodate them the discoverers further enlarged the entrance.

Soon the boys went to Leon Laval, their schoolmaster, for advice. Fortunately, Laval belonged to the Montignac Prehistoric Society. Although he was first suspect of the boy’s claims he soon went into the cave and immediately recognized the prehistoric nature of the paintings and their great scientific and cultural significance. Concerned about vandalism, Marshal pitched a tent and lived full time near the cave entrance, both protecting it and serving as its first tour guide.

RECOGNITION

One visitor was a student of Abbe Breuil, a noted Catholic priest and archeologist who has studied cave paintings around the world. The student made some sketches of the Lascaux paintings and showed them to Breuil who fortunately happened to be visiting in a nearby town. Breuil, his interest greatly stimulated, came to the cave and pronounced the artwork as authentic. Substantiated by such an eminent scientist, Lascaux became a sensation and the cave’s fame spread like wild fire as the “Sistine Chapel of Prehistoric Art.”

Fig 2 The 1940 visitors that established the authenticity of the Lascaux paintings, at the relatively undeveloped cave opening. Left to right: Leon Laval, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marshal, and Henri Breuil.

THE TRAGEDY BEGINS

Lascaux was on the land of Count of LaRochefoucault and the family began to commercially promote visitation. Even though it was only three years after the end of the terrible devastation and dislocation of WWII, by 1948 over 1,000 people a day came to tour the cave. Although the cave was given statutory historic monument protection in December 1940, it was now on the verge of being loved to death.

Fig 3 The Lascaux discoverers in 2010. Left to right: Marcel Ravidat, Simon Coencos, Jacques Marshal, and Georges Angiel. Not shown: Robot the dog (deceased).

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BLAME ALL THIS ON WERNER HERZOG

These posts about the Lascaux cave paintings were inspired by the German film maker Werner Herzog. A few weeks ago I watched his documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams on Netflix. It’s about the spectacular cave paintings in Chauvet Cave, itself only discovered in 1991. The Chauvet paintings are estimated at to be 30,000 years old, nearly that of Lascaux. There are many differences in the art between the two sites and Chauvet cave contains the remains of nearly 150 cave bears, as well as their trackways! I would suggest readers who find cave art interesting to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Seeing Herzog’s film reminded me of Lascaux and the problems that developed there. I knew that story only in the broadest of terms, so my new research turned up much I was unaware of. The story of Lascaux involves many themes I care deeply about and provides a most striking example of the conflicts between science, visitors, and resource protection. The precautions taken at Chauvet, as seen in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, are a direct result of the tragedy of Lascaux.

***********************************************

Sources

I have drawn extensively for this post about the discovery of Lascaux onthe website of the
International Committee for Preservation of Lascaux, Finding Lascaux at:

http://www.savelascaux.org/Legacy_Finding.php

Among the other sites I referred to for this post are
The Bradshaw Foundation's Save Lascaux:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/index.php
Grotte de Lascaux: http://www.donsmaps.com/lascaux.html
Lascaux Website: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/?lng=en#/en/00.xml

Photos

Top photo: Cave Paintings at Lascaux, Bradshaw Foundation:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/index.php
Fig 1, 2: Save Lascaux: http://www.savelascaux.org/Legacy_Finding.php

Fig 3: Genèse d’une grottehistorique at L’Humanite.fr: http://www.humanite.fr/node/453540

EXTINCTION MAY NOT ALWAYS BE FOREVER: Bringing an extinct tortoise back from the grave

2012-01-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

I suppose that a tortoise that that went extinct nearly 200 years ago is not actually a fossil species, but being declared extinct should at least make you an honorary member of The Land Of The Dead blog.

Charles Darwin studied and collected specimens during his stop at the Galapagos Islands between Sept 15 – Oct 30 1835. Darwin served as the naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle on its five year circumglobal travels. One of the striking things that Darwin noticed were the large tortoises on the islands. In fact, islands got their name “Insulae de lasGalopegos” (Islands of the Tortoises) in the 18^th century because of their abundance of tortoises (1). The island-to-island differences in Galapagos tortoise species helped spark Darwin’s thoughts about evolution through natural selection.

Fig 1 The Galapagos Islands. Floreana Island in green. Isabela Island in red.

The Galapagos were used extensively as a stopover by pirates and whaling ships. In the first half of the 19^th century some 200,000 tortoises were killed for food by the whalers. The tortoises were large, heavy (up to 880 lbs.), and slow moving, making them an easy target. It also made them a target for extinction. Habitat destruction and the introduction of rats, pigs, etc. also contributed to their demise (2). In spite of these depredations each island still has its own living species of tortoise (with greatly reduced populations), but the species on Floreana Island, the giant Galapagos tortoise (Chelonoidis elephantopus), went extinct. It was rare when Darwin visited the Island and extinct by 1850.

So it was surprising when in 2008 Nikos Polakakis and colleagues (3) reported that genetic studies of Galapagos tortoises revealed that 11 hybrid tortoises (Chelononidis becki) on Isabela Island in the Galapagos had genes from C.elephantopus. For the technically inclined, they were looking at single nucleotide polymorphisms that vary among the tortoises on different islands.

This discovery provided a great opportunity. By selectively breeding individuals of C. becki having C. elephantopus genes, in about four generations (approximately 100 years) there would be individuals with about 96% of the C. elephantopus genetic markers. This would allow them to reintroduce the species to with some of its original genetic diversity back onto Floreana Island (1, 2).

Fig 2 "This hurts me more than it does you." Collecting blood samples for genetic analysis.

However, in a more stunning paper just published (4) Ryan Garrick and his colleagues (including Nikos Polakakis) the story becomes more remarkable. They have found that for 84 of the tested C. becki on Isabele Island, genetic analysis shows that they are the result of a hybridized breeding event that involved a purebred C. elephanoptus as one of the parents Given that 30 of these 84 these individuals are less than 15 years old and that Galapagos tortoises have lifespans of over 100 years, there is the very strong possibility that pure genetic strains of G. elephantopus are still alive and crawling around Isabela Island. The search is now underway to find those purebred individuals.

Figure 3. The Galapagos tortoises, by virtue of their large size and great weight, have a real impact on vegetation and erosion. Imagine thousands of such beasts per island! Their removal radically and negatively changes the island ecosystem they evolved in.

Tortoises are important members of the island ecosystems and their presence, or absence, greatly influences the plants and animals on the island. Purebred C. elephantopus could be used to establish a breeding program to produce young that could be used reintroduced to Floreana Island, bringing the "extinct" tortoise back to the island it once inhabited. This is the first time that genetic tracking in hybrids has led to the rediscovery of a (thought to be) extinct species.

One final question. If each Galapagos island has its own species, how did C. elephantopus get to Isabela Island? It is well knownthat pirates and whalers moved them. Maybe some of that was intentional, but when whalers left the Galapagos they would toss overboard any tortoises still on the ship to make room for a far more valuable cargo than meat --- whale blubber. (2) Although large, the tortoises don’t sink like stones and some of them probably made it to theshores of Isabela Island to breed amongst themselves and survive cryptically until today.

Photos

Fig 1(modified): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_tortoise
Figs 2, 3: http://www.yalescientific.org/2010/09/bringing-back-the-dead-reviving-an-extinct-tortoise-species/

References

(1) Galapagos tortoise (Wikipedia):en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galapagos_tortoise>
(2) Muller, B. 2010. Bringing back the dead: reviving an extinct tortoise species. Yale Scientific Magazine (posted in 83.2 News) www.yalescientific.org/2010/09/bringing-back-the-dead-reviving-an-extinct-tortoise-species/
(3) Pulakakis, N. et al. 2008. Historical DNA analysis reveals living descendants of an extinct species of Galapagos tortoise. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105: 15464-15469.

(4) Garrick, R.C. et al. 2012. Genetic rediscovery of an “extinct” Galapagos giant tortoise species. Current Biology 22(1): R10-R11 (copy available for free download at:

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/issue?pii=S0960-9822%2811%29X0025-8

SACRED BIRDS, LUCKY RHINOS, AND THE VIRGIN AND THE SAUROPOD

2012-01-07T12:56:00.001-08:00

Fig. 1 Large theropod track from the Early Jurassic.

It should come as no surprise that dinosaur tracks are known from thousands of sites across the globe. After all, an individual dinosaur left hundred of thousands of footprints throughout its life but had only one skeleton to contribute to the fossil record. Many dinosaur sites, when discovered, have bone exposed just as fragments or as aghostly cross section visible in a rock outcrop. Such subtle clues are not easy to see or make sense of. However, footprints are often more easily recognized. True, footprintscan be distorted and poorly preserved, especially when the animal was walking on a wet, muddy substrate. But often fossil tracks are easy to see, even if you are not a paleontologist. Indeed, the late paleoichnologist W.A.S. Sarjeant surmised that fossil footprints were probably recognized as being made by animals well before fossil bones were recognized as the remains of animals (1)

Lida Xing and his colleagues, and his colleagues Adrienne Mayor, Yu Chen, Jerry Harris, and Mike Burns, have recently published a very interesting and enlightening review of Chinese folklore as it relates to dinosaur tracks and how such myths might help in paleontological prospecting (see link at ref 2 for free pdf of this paper). The paper focuses on eight localities scattered across the country. The Chinese written record of ‘dragon bones”, (i.e. fossil bone, most often of mammals) used for medicinal purposes go back as far as the 3^rd century BC. However, fossil bone is more transient because it is fragile and easilydestroyed by erosion. Fossil footprints are often less susceptible to such damage and are often visible in large numbers on extensive surface exposures. The authors suggest that because of this difference fossil tracksites can remain exposed for long periods of time and be seen by many generations of people. Hence it is not surprising that myths would arise in prescientific cultures to explain these striking features.

Fig 2 Examples of theropod tracks associated with the various bird legends in China (not to scale).

These three toed footprints are usually made by bipedal theropod (carnivorous) dinosaurs. They are strikingly bird-like in appearance (not unexpected since birds are direct descendents of small maniraptoran theropods) so it is not surprising that the myths surrounding them attribute them to birds. In China they go under a variety of names --“Divine Birds”, “Feng Huang tracks (a giant Phoenix mythological bird), “Golden Chicken” and “Heavenly Chicken”. At one locality, the deeply impressed tracks were thought to have been impressed directly into the rock, suggesting something supernatural. Today funeral processions progress along the trackway in the belief that this guides the deadto heaven. (2)

Fig 3 Lianhua Baozhai footprint site and rock building on an eroded surface cut into the cliff face.

The large herbivorous hadrosaur dinosaurs left three toed tracks but with a different look than the elegant tracks of theropods. Hadrosaur tracks have thick blunt toes and a broad rounded heels. At the Lianhua Baozhai site the hadrosaur tracks were thought to be lotus petals, while fossil mudcracks with the tracks were interpreted as the veins of lotus leaves. Ripple marks on the rock surface reinforced a watery environment for these impressions and help lead to the interpretation of the footprints as lotus plant remains. The fossil site is located in the middle of a cliff face next to a rock shelter built in 1256 with an associated Chinese inscription. The lotus symbolizes purity in many Asian cultures and the translation of “Lianhua Baozhai” is “The mountain stronghold protected by lotus.” (2, 3)

Fig 4 Lianhua Baozhai.

Fig 5 Lotus petal shaped hadrosaur tracks on the overhang at Lianhua Baozhai.

The gigantic sauropod dinosaurs have a foot structure quite different from that of theropods and, not surprisingly, leave strikingly different tracks. These dinosaurs are quadrupedal and the hand and foot impressions are often close together. Given the great weight of sauropods their tracks can be deep and somewhat nondescript impressions. In Fushun County a trail of eighteen sauropod tracks are attributed to an ancient tale of a rhinoceros that ascended the mountain to get mushrooms. Counting these tracks is thought to lead to good fortune.(2)

Fig 6 Sauropod tracks posing as a lucky rhinoceros trackway.

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However, fossil footprint folklore is not restricted to China --- there is a rich tradition from around the world (4). One of the most interesting comes from the coast of Portugal and involves, again, sauropod footprints.

Fig 7 The Church of Nossa Senhora da Mua at the cliff's edge.

At Cabo Espichel steeply dipping rocks of Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age rise from the sea to form tall cliffs hundreds of feet high along the small bay of Lagosterios. On the top of the cliffs is the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Cape Espichel which dates back to the 15^th century. Of most interest to our present story is the Memory Heritage or Church of Nossa Senhora da Mua (Our Lady of the Mule), a small building located away from the rest the Sanctuary at the very edge of thecliff.

Fig 8. The steeply dipping dinosaur track layers at Cabo Espichel. Arrow point to location of the small white Church of Nossa Senhora da Mua perched precariously at the edge of the cliff.

The legend underpinning this small building involves two elderly men who lived in separate cities (Caparica and Alcabideche). Both men, on the same night, dreamt that theVirgin Mary appeared on the cliff top astride a giant she-mule. Later, both men went to the site of their shared dream vision and found a miraculous image ofOur Lady. Beneath this spot, on the great cliff wall rising out of the ocean, can be seen lines of large depressions and those closest to the church were interpreted as the footprints of the Virgin’s giant mule that she rode out of the ocean and to the top of the cliff. (5)

Inside the Church of Nossa Senhora da Mua is a panel of 18^th century painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tiles commemorating the appearance of Our Lady on the mule. The tracks can be clearly seen coming out of the ocean and up the cliff face. However, we now know that these “mule tracks” are not miraculous, but are nevertheless interesting, as they are the footprints of Late Jurassic sauropod dinosaurs. Remarkably, this panel turns out to be the oldest known illustration of dinosaur tracks! (6)

Fig 9 Tile inside Church of Nossa Senhora da Mua showing the Virgin Mary on a mule and two angels at the top of cliffs at Lagosterios Bay. Directly behind the mule's back legs you can see the two rows of mule, er...sauropod, tracks on the steep cliff walls.

On the cliffs of Lagosterios forty sauropod trackways occur at eight different levels. The sauropod tracks, known in the area as far back as the 13^th century, are large and quite visible even from a great distance.

Fig 10 Stratigraphic column for Cabo Espeichel, showing the positions of the eight sauropod track bearing horizons.

Although the setting is magnificent, the height of the exposures and the tilt of the beds making accessing and studyingthe tracks difficult and dangerous. Martin Lockely and his colleagues used ropes, climbing equipment, and bolts to study and map these sites in detail in the mid-1990s (7, 8).

One of the track horizons at Cabo Espichel (level 3) provides evidence of social behavior in sauropods. Here one can see the footprints of seven subadult dinosaurs, all aboutthe same size, traveling close together in the same direction, and evenly spaced. The details of track morphology clearly show that they were made by sauropods and not a small herd of celestial mules.

Figure 11 Map of track level 3 at Cabo Espichel showing the trackways made by a group of seven juvenile sauropods traveling together. Tracks 8 and 9 are from adults crossing the area earlier.

Fig 12. Reconstruction of the juvenile sauropod crossing recorded in level 3 at Cabo Espichel. Note larger adult sauropod trackway already present as the herd crosses the area. That is trackway 8 in fig 11.

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Fig 13 Edward Hitchcock, the father of the scientific study of dinosaur tracks.

Although fossil tracks have long been recognized as tracks of some sort, the serious scientific study of dinosaur tracks did not begin until the early 19^th century when Congregationalist Minister and geologist Edwin H. Hitchcock (1793-1864) began collecting and describing fossil tracks from the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic rocks of the Connecticut River Valley. Hitchcock amassed an immense and diverse collection of fossil footprints that became part of the museum collections at Amherst University and some of it is still on exhibit today.

Fig 14 Part of Hitchcock's immense dinosaur track collection as exhibited in the Amherst museum in the 19th century.

His studies spanned several decades and resulted in three book-length monographs and numerous scientific papers (9, 10, 11). Ironically, when Hitchcock began his studiesdinosaurs were not even known to exist. Faced with peculiar tracks, many of which were three toed, he made careful study of foot structure in many different terrestrial vertebrates. After making these comparison Hitchcock reached the conclusion that the tracks were made by (you guessed it) giant birds! (12) Sadly, he never recognized the dinosaurian nature of his discoveries.

For a really great series of photos of the Hitchcock tracks in the collections at Amherst take a moment to visit John McCauley's May 31 2011 post at http://njtntm.blogspot.com/2011/03/amherst-college-beneski-museum-of.html

Photos

Fig 1: NPS

Figs 2 (modified), 3, 6: Xing et al (ref 2)
Figs 4, 5: http://english.cntv.cn/program/cultureexpress/20111027/103571.shtml
Fig 7: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermida_da_Mem%C3%B3ria_%28Sesimbra%29

Fig 8: http://portugalfotografiaaerea.blogspot.com/2011/02/baia-dos-lagosteiros.html

Fig 9: Antuns and Mateus (ref 6)
Fig 10, 11, 12: Lockley et al (ref 7)
Fig 13: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hitchcock
Fig 14: http://oficina.cienciaviva.pt/~pw011/jazidas/icnotaxa_teropodes_triassicofinal_jurassicoinicial.html

References

(1) Sarjeant, W.A.S. 1997. The Earliest Discoveries. in: Farlow, J.O. and Brett-Surman, M.K. (eds.) The Complete Dinosaur. Indiana Univeristy Press: 3-5.
(2) Xing, L., Mayor, A., Chen, Y. and Harris, J.D. 2011. The folklore of dinosaur trackways in China: impact on paleontology. Ichnos 18:213-220. (copy freely available for download at: http://www.xinglida.net/paper_list.htm)
(3) Xing,L., Mayor, A., and Chen, Y. 2011. Lianhua Baozhai (Lotus Mountain Fortress, Qijiang County of Chongqing City): Direct evidence of co-existing ancient Chinese and dinosaur tracks. Geological Bulletin of China. 30(10): 1530-1537 (copy freely available for download at: http://www.xinglida.net/paper_list.htm)
(4) Mayor, A. and Sarjeant, W.A.S. 2001. The folklore of footprints in stone: from Classical Antiquity to the Present. Ichnos 82: 143-163.
(5) Antunes, M.T. 1976. Dinosauros eocretacicos de Lagosteieros. Lisboa: Universidad de Lisboa.
(6) Antunes M.T. and Mateus, O. 2003. Dinosaurs of Portugal. Comptes Rendus PaleoVol 2: 77-95 (copy freely available for download at http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tmp/luso.pdf)
(7) Lockley, M.G., Meyer, C.A., and Santos, V.F.d. 1994. Trackway evidence for a herd of juvenile sauropods from the Late Jurassic of Portugal. Gaia 10: 27-25.
(8) Lockley, M. and Meyer, C. 2000. Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossil Footprints of Europe. Columbia University Press, N.Y.: 323 pages.
(9) Hitchcock, E. 1848. An attempt to discriminate and describe the animals that made the fossil footmarks of the United States, and especially of New England. AmericanAcademy of Arts & Sciences Memoir (n.s.) 3:129-256.
(10) Hitchcock, E. 1858. Ichnology of New England: A Report on the Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley, especially its Fossil Footmarks. Commonwealth of Massachusetts: 220 pp.

(11) Hitchcock, E. 1865. Supplement to the Ichnology of New England. Commonwealth of Massachusetts: 96 pp. (copy freely available for download at http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~polsen/nbcp/EH1865download.html)
(12) Pick, N. and Ward, F. 2006. Curious Footprints: Professor Hitchcock's Dinosaur Tracks and Other Natural History Treasures at Amherst College. Amherst College Press:121 pages

MAYBE THEY ARE DUMBER THAN A FIFTH GRADER?

2012-01-04T21:20:00.001-08:00

Allosaurus has been the Utah state fossil for well neigh forty years. Utah is a remarkable state when it comes to dinosaur fossils, in part because it has so much in the way of Mesozoic terrestrial rocks and in part because it is so arid. The extensive desert ecosystems of Utah means that there is little in the way of forests, grasslands, cities, roads, etc. to cover up the rocks. And the more rock exposed the better the chance of finding fossils. If Utah, as it has sometimes been referred to, is “The Dinosaur State” then how did Allosaurus end up being selected as the state fossil? Well there’s damn good reason for that.

The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in Emery County, near the city of Price in southeastern Utah, is the motherload for Allosaurus fossils. Discovered in the 1930s, it was worked for a time by Princeton University and then on a more sustained basis by first Lee Stokes and later James H. Madsen of the University of Utah. The CLDG had produced thousands upon thousands of dinosaur bones, most belonging to Allosaurus fragilis. The remains of over 40 Allosaurus have been collected, ranging in size from very small to very large individuals. The skeletons were in water for some period of time and are completely disarticulated --- with even skulls falling apart into their individual bones --- but the abundance, size range, and quality of preservation make this one of the world’s great carnivorous dinosaur sites. With most of the quarry unexcavated much work remains to be done. The existing collections from the CLDQ have been studied by many paleontologists, including myself, and have contributed to many scientific publications. The quarry is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and there is a small visitor center with exhibits at the site.

The CLDG is world renowned in scientific circles and every dinosaur paleontologist knows of it. It is, without a doubt, one of the best understood (scientifically) meat-eating dinosaurs in the fossil record. So it’s not surprising that when Utah selected a state fossil they chose Allosaurus. That brings us to the title of this post.

Along U.S. Highway 40, at the Utah-Colorado border, there is a billboard welcoming those traveling westwards as they enter Utah. The big image on the billboard is a flesh restoration of a carnivorous dinosaur. You might reasonably think that this would be famous Allosaurus, since that is the state fossil, but you would be WRONG!

The dinosaur shown has a prominent horn over the nose and is clearly the carnivorous Ceratosaurus (whose name, not surprisingly, means “horn lizard”). The nasal horn core is a diagnostic feature of Ceratosaurus and easily separates it from Allosaurus. This is not some obscure morphological feature, such as whether branches II and II of the trigeminal nerve exit the braincase through a common foramen or via separate canals. Really, the nasal is horn is big and obvious to anyone willing to taking a few moments to look.

Skull of Ceratosaurus nasicornis (from Gilmore 1920)

Skull of Allosaurus fragilis (from Madsen 1976)

Unlike Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus is a pretty rare dinosaur, although one fairly good specimen is known from the CLDQ. To further the confusion, the dinosaur on the sign has three fingers on its hand (like Allosaurus) and not four fingers (like Ceratosaurus). How this chimaera came to be is unknown but I am sure they though it was Allosaurus. Whoever selected the graphic knew nothing about dinosaurs and certainly no careful checking was done. I guess a dinosaur is a dinosaur, so who would know or care? Come on even an elementary school dinosaur enthusiast can tell the difference. Maybe this seems a small point to the reader, but imagine if New Jersey had a welcome sign with its nickname “The Garden State” and below that there was a silhouette of chemical plants and storage tanks. Ooops -- never mind.

Thinking about visiting the CLDQ? Visitor information can be read at http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/price/recreation/quarry.html

References

Gilmore, C.W. 1920. Osteology of the Carnivorous Dinosauria in the United States National Museum, with Special Reference to the Genera Antrodemus (Allosaurus) and Ceratosaurus. Smithsonian Institution, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 110: 159 pp + 36 plates.

Madsen, J.H. 1976. Allosaurus fragilis: a Revised Osteology. Utah Geological and Mineral Survey Bulletin 109: 163pp.

Photos
GLDQ photos: BLM website given above.

NEW YEAR, NEW NAME, NEW LOOK, SAME OLD CRAZY BLOGGER

2011-12-31T16:56:00.000-08:00

The completion of the Quarry Visitor Center rehabilitation and reconstruction project poses a conundrum for the Quarry Visitor Center blog. I started this blog in March 2010 with the purpose of documenting the scientific and resource management implications of a unique undertaking --- the partial demolition and reconstruction of a building over a large, in-place exhibit of dinosaur bones. With that project completed I could bid adieu and we could all go our own ways. Although there are still paleo things toblog about at Dinosaur they have little or nothing to do with the QVC project. Paleontology itself is an amazingly active field, with new and astounding discoveries happening all the time, and a rich, complex, and sometimes very peculiar history. So there is much to still be blogged about.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to continue, with a few modifications. I’ve changed the title to one that better encompasses what I’ll be blogging about, essentially anything paleontological and not just dinosaurs. In keeping with that change I’ve also changed the format. However, the url is the same, which means that all my past posts are still available here, though the blog name is different. So those of you who have been following me can continue to do so without having to sign on to another site. I hope you’ll enjoy the larger universe of the new blog and will follow along. Please put seat backs and tray tables up, fasten your seat belt, and enjoy your trip to the Land of the Dead.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2011

2011-12-24T21:09:00.000-08:00

Five minutes sooner and I would have gotten a photo before T. rex got to all the reindeer!

Photos

Reindeer killing field:

http://www.holytaco.com/the-12-deviant-days-of-christmas-9-rotting-reindeer/dead-reindeer-2/

EVERY SILVER CLOUD HAS A DARK LINING

2011-12-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

The Park Service often finds itself on the horns of a dilemma inherent in its creation. The 1916 Organic Act creating the NPS gave it a dual mission:

“…..the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

This is something of an administrative Charybdis and Scylla. It is no secret that the NPS worries about “losing relevance” to most Americans in the 21^st century and is making great efforts to attract visitors to its nearly 400 units. At the same time, there is the oft repeated NPS lament that visitor impacts are so great that parks are being “loved to death.” So balancing resource protection and visitor enjoyment can, at times, be quite difficult and challenging.

In the previous post I looked at the travails of early visitors trying to get to the Monument. Now let’s look at that visitation from the perspective of impacts.

As visitation to Dinosaur increased so did visitor impacts. There were problems with both local and more distant visitors carrying away “specimens of bone, fish scales, and gastriliths (sic).” (1) As no fish fossils of any kind are known from the Carnegie Quarry these fish scales were being stolen from elsewhere in the Monument from exposures of the mid-Cretaceous marine Mowry Formation where isolated fish scales are abundant. In another incident, a local Jensen Boy Scout leader amassed a substantial collection of fossils from the Monument. This was a concern for park management and through negotiations he ultimately turned the collection back to Dinosaur. (1)

In 1934, NPS representative David Madsen wrote

“In the past tourists and even our own people visiting the quarry have destroyed exposed fossils by chipping off what they considered a souvenir. With thousands of visitors coming as anticipated, danger of destruction by vandals will become still greater.” (1)

This is an particularly interesting observation, because the phrase “even our own people” implicates NPS and other government officials visiting Dinosaur in the illegal taking of dinosaur bone trophies!

That souvenir taking was a serious problem early in the Quarry’s history is evidenced by this old photo.

Although the focus is on the man excavating fossils and the field jackets and crates around him, in the background one can barely make out a sign against the cliff. Although difficult to read, when enlarged its message becomes clear “PLEASE DO NOT MOLEST BONES.”

The problem of fossil theft became so severe that David Madsen recommended that site Supervisor A.C. Boyle post signs prohibiting the taking of any natural specimens and that he should “refrain from taking parties to places where they will be able to remove specimens without being detected.” (1) The latter is significant because Boyle, as recounted in the my last and previous posts, was energetic and enthusiastic, in showing visitors the fossils and explaining the work underway at the Quarry.

Given that there was no NPS staff at the Monument, all responsibilities for interpreting the site fell to Boyle and his staff. This impacted the primary work of excavation to the point that David Madsen wrote in 1934 “…it would be impossible for [Dr. Boyle] and the workmen to do much work if their time was taken up explaining details of the work being done and acting as guides and police.” (1: 118) In that same year NPS representative H. Langley recommended to Boyle that “tourist traffic be discouraged at this time as it would prevent the workmen from doing their work properly.” (1)

Old trophies still occasionally pop up. In the late 1980s the Monument received an anonymously mailed package with a small piece of dinosaur bone and a note stating that the souvenir had been taken by the writer’s grandfather during a visit to the Monument in the 1930s. Now in his later years the grandfather had been feeling sorry for taking it and was sending it back with an apology.

Nor is this a problem unique to Dinosaur. Years ago, I saw an exhibit case at Petrified Forest National Park that contained small pieces of fossil wood that had been stolen and then returned with a number of letters of apology. The letter I remembered best was from a self-described “good Christian man” who recounted that he had found the pilfered petrified wood in his wife’s bra. I read the letter carefully for clues as to the circumstances under which this discovery was made, but no details were forthcoming. One is simply left to wonder and speculate.

Nor is it a problem unique to fossils. Haleakala National Park in Hawaii is well known for people mailing back souvenir pieces of lava illegally taken from the park. Some lament their bad fortune after stealing the lava --- jobs lost, illness, even death of loved ones. I feel sorry for someone who feels responsible for their child’s illness because they stole a small piece of lava. Then again, if their child hadn’t become sick they would probably have kept the lava in a kitchen drawer until someday someone asked “What is this piece of junk?” and then chucked it into a garbage can. The garbage dump is the final resting place for many such “priceless souvenirs”, be they rocks or fossils.

References

(1) Beidelman, R.G. 1956. Administrative History, Dinosaur National Monument. Unpaginated. (available on line at: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/dino2/adhi.pdf

Photos:
NPS

PAYING A CALL ON THE DINOSAURS

2011-12-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

“You know, when I was a youngun’ I walked 20 miles each way over muddy roads during a white out snow blizzard just to get a gander of them there dinysour bones.”

It’s been a long five years. When the QEH closed in July of 2006 our visitation plummeted. Well not immediately, because the emergency closure order came with only 48 hours advance notice and we could not get the word out to the public ahead of time. As a result, tens of thousands of visitors continued to arrive throughout the summer expecting to see the dinosaur fossils. Upon discovering that they couldn’t, they took their anger out by verbally abusing park staff --- mostly the seasonal interpretive staff. The visitors seemed to think that we had closed the building specifically to ruin their trip. We had a hard time convincing them we did it to just keep them alive.

However, the year after our closing our visitation did plummet and stayed bottomed out. Only the quarry building was closed, all the rest of the Monument’s 211,000 acres were open for hiking and exploring. But visitors (other than the white water river running community) stayed away. So visitation was down 70%. One can hike high deserts and view petroglyphs at a number of National parks and Monuments, but there is only one place to go to see a hill full of dinosaur bones. The QEH reopened on October 4 and the visitation for that month was over 13,000, high visitation for the off season and a level of visitation not seen for years. However, from the beginning visitors have been drawn to gaze upon this spectacular paleontological discovery, although getting here was sometimes difficult and challenging.

Jensen resident Elder Goodrich stands next to the eight Apatosaurus tail vertebrae found on August 17, 1909.

Locally, Douglass’s discovery of the Carnegie Quarry on August 17, 1909 was big news immediately. The Vernal Express of August 20, 1909 heralded the discovery with the headline “Sixty-Five Feet Long, Sixteen Feet High. Remains of Immense Dinosaur Discovered on Green River by Earl Douglass of Carnegie Museum.” As reported, Douglass decided to hold off removing any bones from the skeleton no.1 until after the following Sunday “in order to give Vernal people a chance to see it and all those who avail themselves of the opportunity will witness a show of a lifetime.” (1)

Suits and ties and long white dresses were appropriate visitor attire during the early history of the quarry.

In his diary (2) Douglass recorded his impression of a group of Vernal citizens who came to the quarry on Aug 22 “For a time the rocks that never had the impress of a woman’s foot, and seldom that of a man’s, swarmed with people of all ages. Mothers and grandmothers ascended to steep, almost dangerous, slopes with babies and there were men and women well along in years.” August 29^th saw more visitors, among them were “The strong, the lame, the fat and the lean went up. One girl with a wooden leg and a man with only one leg, went up the steep slopes.” (2)

Visitors to the quarry in September of 1909. Unexcavated original discovery Apatosaurus tail vertebrae can be seen in lower right. Earl Douglass is the man on the left carrying a rifle. Note woman with child on her lap under the umbrella. Formal ladies dress for a visit included large and ornate going-to-church hats.

Scientists were also quickly interested. By September of 1909 Professor Hinkley, from the Geology Department at Brigham Young University in Provo visited. He was soon followed by Dr. W.H. Ochsner of Stanford University and the California Academy of Sciences.

Some 400-500 people visited the quarry each year between the time of its discovery in 1909 and when it became a National Monument in 1915. Virtually all the schools in the eastern parts of the Uintah Basin had field trips bringing students to the quarry.

Seventh and eighth graders on horseback and buggy visit the Monument in 1917-1918

To help visitors locate the quarry “informal” wooden signs put out on the highway in 1920s.

This way to the bones! circa 1923 (3).

One effort was made to get photos of the quarry operation and specimens from the quarry at the Carnegie and University of Utah. These were to be used, along with training and education, so that the employees of local and regional gas stations could provide information about the Monument and answer questions. That plan apparently never reached fruition.

Ladies from nearby Jensen visit the excavations

Visitors in the excavation site. Note dinosaur bones in upper right and logs supporting undercut blocks of sandstone.

La Dolce Vita at the quarry.

After becoming a Monument there was increased national interest in Dinosaur. News services began asking the Department of the Interior for information about the discovery and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company asked for photos and descriptive materials for publicity purposes. In 1937 Life Magazine did a four page spread on Utah dinosaurs and the quarry. Now THAT was national exposure.

A car travels the dirt road leading up to the quarry while visitors safely hike a foot trail to the left.

For some inexplicable reason the visitor walking on the rocks in the center has on a hat, white shirt, tie, and appears to be carrying a brief case.

Specialized groups, such as Intelligence Tours out of Salt Lake City, made the Dinosaur Quarry one of its destinations. Organized by Dr. Fredrick J. Pack, a geologist with the University of Utah, “Intelligence Tours are designed to supply the tourist with precisely the information he needs. For this purpose a trained geologist, chosen because of his particular fitness, will accompany each party…Popular information will be designed for those who have no previous training in geology, while technical instruction will meet the requirements of educational institutions.” (4)

The cover of an Intelligence Tours Guidebook from 1927

The spectacular Allosaurus fragilis skull now on exhibit at the Quarry Exhibit Hall was an icon for the Intelligence Tour trip to Dinosaur (photo from Intelligence tour guide)

As a result of all this, visitation rocketed to 6244 in 1937, with 111 on April 24 alone! Some came from as far away as South Africa, France, Holland, New Zealand, England, the Panama Canal Zone, Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska. In June of that year ex-president Herbert Hoover also paid a call (1).

A stylishly dressed young lady carefully points to sauropod vertebrae in the quarry sandstone.

Until its expansion in July of 1938 Dinosaur was a small National Park Service unit, remote, and with limited funding and resources. Nevertheless, it was a popular destination and coping with visitors could be challenging, especially while trying to run an active dinosaur excavation. In 1938 travel records were broken every month. “Visitors were arriving at the Monument from 5:30 AM to 9:00 PM, or even later. When the designated guide was unable to take care of the crowds (and as it was he would often work 12 to 15 hours daily), Dr. Boyle would help out, putting in 57 hours beyond his regular work hours in May, 64 in June, 69 in July, and giving special lectures and showing around special visitors.” (1)

Dr A.C. Boyle, rock hammer in hand, elucidates a fine point of paleontological science at the quarry.

However, the road system to and within the Monument were none too good and sometimes impassible. Signs were poor and visitors could miss the turn off to the Monument and travel 20 miles east, only realizing their mistake when hitting the Colorado state line. To remedy this situation, new roads were eventually built and “official sign boards” were erected at the turn off, replacing those put up in the 1920s. These new improved signs had a reputedly salutary effect because, ahem, “since these sign boards were erected, an entirely different class of visitors has registered. Men and women of national and international fame and achievement in all walks of life have made their way to the Monument.” (1)

Muddy roads typical of conditions in the quarry area of the Monument during its early history.

At one point Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History suggested procuring one of the mechanically operated dinosaur robots from the Chicago’s World’s Fair. Monument supervisor Dr. A.C. Boyle envisioned placing it on the main highway at the entrance road, as “one of the best means of advertising the work here that I know of at the present time.” (1) Maybe I am missing something here, but the World’s Fair robots operated inside a building, whereas outside in Jensen, they would be subjected to temperatures ranging from 105F to -50F. Maybe the symbolism is deeper and more subtle than it first seems ---- inoperable robots could be a good advertisement for dead and extinct dinosaurs.

References

(1) Beidelman, R.G. 1956. Administrative History, Dinosaur National Monument. Unpaginated. (available on line at: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/dino2/adhi.pdf

(2) Douglass, G.E. 2009. Speak to the Earth and It Will Teach You: The Life and Times of Earl Douglass 1862-1931. http://www.booksurge.com 448 pp

(3) Gilmore, C.W. 1924. Expedition to the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 76 (10): 16-18.

(4) Pack, F.J. 1927. Intelligence Tours Through Utah's Geological Wonders. Intelligence Tours Inc., Salt Lake City, UT: 45 pp.

Photos

Unless otherwise noted, all photos are from the Uintah County Library, Vernal, UT.

THANKS

2011-11-23T08:55:00.000-08:00

For the last 18 months I have been your on-the-spot cub reporter for the construction project at Dinosaur. But in truth I am just a lowly vertebrate paleontologist with little construction experience. I did build an awesome backyard skateboarding park, including quarterpipes, flyboxes, ramps, rails, and a really big halfpipe --- quite an accomplishment for me, but hardly real construction.

Yes, I made a small contribution as a member of the large team involved in the concept development and design of the building. However, like Blanche Dubois, I depended on the “kindness of strangers” to understand the details of the actual construction project and how it was carried out. So I need to give a special thanks to three guys who were in-charge and on-site for the entire project, Dan Cox (Advanced Solutions Group), Steve Elkins (Big-D Construction) and Justin Jones (Atkins).

Dan Cox, Advanced Solutions Group

Steve Elkins, Big D Construction

Justin Jones, Atkins

Even though their days were incredibly busy with overseeing and managing the project, these gentlemen were always cheery, willing to answer my questions, and took time to explain what part of the project was underway and its unique problems and challenges. They were kind enough not to laugh out loud as I referred to a piece of construction equipment alternatively as a GJL, LJG, and JGL. I’m still not sure which is the correct acronym. Then again, they can’t tell the difference between the posterior cervical vertebrae of Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus, and Apatosaurus. So the Universe remains in balance.

And by the way, Big-D Construction has really great, badass graphics on their t-shirts, to wit:

Dan, Steve, and Justin have all moved on to supervising other construction projects now and I wish them the best. However, constant reader, we have more to paleontology to explore, so stayed tuned.

HANGING DINOSAURS

2011-11-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Here’s the challenge: how do we make this …

“Differs from other plagiaulacoids in having restricted enamel on both the lower incisors and on I²; differs from all Cimolodonta in having a complete primitive dental formula of 3,1,5,2/1,0,4,2.” (1)

… understandable to the general visiting public coming to Dinosaur to learn about dinosaurs and the world they lived in?

Much of the science of vertebrate paleontology involves detailed morphological description of bones and analysis of evolutionary relationships (the latter assisted by sophisticated computer programs evaluating extensive morphological/taxonomic databases). Inferences about paleobiology can only be based on an understanding of morphology and how the components of an organism function as an integrated whole. So while a visitor may not understand, or even care about, the fact that Glirodon has restricted enamel on its incisors, they might be interested in what this means --- that these ancient diminutive mammals had self-sharpening teeth, as in rodents (even though they have only a very remote relationship to rodents) and could gnaw on resistant plant material without dulling them. And Glirodon, whose skull is only a one inch long, is known only from the Morrison exposures in Dinosaur and nowhere else.

At Dinosaur we are faced with the further problem of having relatively little exhibit space in the Quarry Exhibit Hall. Filling that limited space up with dense text and complex illustrations of teeth and bones might get the message across to our colleagues but would tend to cause visitors’ eyes to glaze over, especially so with kids. This is further complicated by the fact that the Morrison Formation in the Monument has an exceptionally rich and diverse fossil record ranging from 80 foot dinosaurs to microscopic pollen. So to solve this problem making the scientific mumbo jumbo understandable we turned to the community of paleoartists who specialize in bringing the past back to life.

For our new exhibits we worked with Bob Walters, Tess Kissinger, and their talented staff who have extensive experience in this area, including creating the largest ever mural of a dinosaur community (check out http://www.dinoart.com/ for many examples of their artistry). They have won several prestigious awards for their work. I worked very closely with them in developing the major art piece for the QEH --- an 80 foot long, 9 foot tall , full color reconstruction of the Morrison ecosystem preserved in the rocks of Monument. We decided quite early in the process to try and show as much of the Monument’s Morrison diversity as possible. That was no mean feat given that over 60 species have been found here and most of the diversity is small non-dinosaurian animals, some microscopic. It was quite a challenge and an exciting experience. I’ll talk about the mural in the future. For now I’d like to explain how one installs such a monumental piece of art.

In a way it’s just like hanging wall paper, sort of. The entire mural is printed across numerous sheets and in one run. What that means is that if one sheet is somehow damaged or ruined the entire 80 foot mural needs to be reprinted and rehung. One cannot simply print a single sheet because the colors will be ever so slightly different and it will stand out oddly in the mural. So it’s like hanging wall paper except if something goes wrong the entire thing needs to be redone. I hate hanging wallpaper even more than I hate accordion music.

Luckily, the exhibit installers had considerable experience with this sort of thing. So let’s follow how this is done.

First a new 80 foot x 10 foot wall is installed that is flat and has smooth seams, with no gaps between sheets of drywall.

Each sheet of the mural has an adhesive back that is covered by a removable sheet of paper. Each sheet is long and wide so it it rolled up …

… and lined up with the top of the mural and the previously hung sheet.

The backing is removed near the top and the sheet attached. Then the backing in removed in sections and the entire sheet is placed on the wall.

Wrinkles are a potential problem, so as the backing is removed the mural is rubbed with a soft but somewhat stiff block to make it smooth.

The excess at the bottom is trimmed off.

There are exhibit cases set into the mural so the parts of the mural over those cases is cut away.

When the sheet is done, repeat process until all 80 feet of the mural is installed.

The mural is both a striking piece of art and a scientific tool of great explanatory power. Remember, much of the Morrison’s diversity is small and finding some of the animals in the mural is akin to a 149 million year old Where’s Waldo?

A small, shrew-sized mammal hiding under ferns in the new mural

Photos: NPS

References

(1) Engelmann, G.F. and Callison, G. 1999. Glirodon grandis, a new multituberculate mammal from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. in: Gillette, D.D. (ed.) Vertebrate Paleontology in Utah. Utah Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Publication 99-1: 162-177.

GENTLY HOLDING THE FAMILY JEWELS

2011-10-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

The exhibiting of fossil vertebrates at Dinosaur is somewhat unusual in that in our main display the 1500+ in-situ bones are supported by the conglomeratic sandstone in which they were buried. Although a few areas are friable from increased clay content, much of the sandstone is both hard and strong, which allows bones weighing up to several hundred pounds to be safely exposed in bas-relief.

However, delicate items, even if still in small pieces of rock, present a different challenge. These are displayed in cases and require other support so that they are held securely and in the right place both relative to lighting and explanatory text. These supports are built on site by the exhibit fabricators and installers. Each is built to match the specific size and shape of the fossil it holds.

The fabricators start with a collection of brass rods of varying width, length, and shape.

In most cases, four arms are needed, so short pieces of brass rod are cut and laid across one another at right angles. These are placed on a heat resistant ceramic slab.

Next, a rod is placed vertically and supported upright with a clamp. A small dab of flux is placed at the point where all three rods contact.

Now you can see clear why a ceramic base is needed. A small butane torch and solder is used to firmly join all the pieces together.

The arms that hold the specimen are cut to the correct length and bent to fit around the edges of the fossil. Areas that will directly contact the specimen are cushioned with soft white material or a rubber sleeve.

Once properly formed, the ends are rounded off on a small belt sander.

Then the frame is put in a vise and spray painted a neutral color.

The frame is then attached to the inside of the case……

… and the specimen is placed in it. The small arms are adjusted as needed so that the fossil is firmly held. In this example, the fossil is part of a three dimensionally preserved piece of conifer branch from rocks the same age as the Carnegie Quarry but found a short distance away from it.

Another example is this cast of a fossil conifer cone held further forward in the case than the conifer branch.

Virtually all the smaller fossils exhibited at both the Quarry Visitor Center and Quarry Exhibit Hall are on mounts such as these. Such delicate mounts require skill and patience and, if done well, are not really noticed by the viewer. So next time you wander the hall of a museum take a moment to look beyond the specimen and notice how the object is supported and positioned. Its an important, if often overlooked, part of the exhibit.

Photos: NPS

THE FATE OF THE CARNEGIE QUARRY AND THE QUARRY EXHIBIT HALL

2011-10-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!

Don’t Read On If You Don’t Want To Know The Ending

The Organic Act of 1916 established the National Park Service and in that piece of legislation the mission of the NPS was laid out: "...to promote and regulate the use of the...national parks...which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

These words are the ruler by which we, as an Agency, measure our actions and direct our programs (most of the time). Nearly all our employees love the mission and most love both the mission and the organization. I do suspect that there are a few miscreant employees squirreled away who like neither.

Dinosaur National Monument was established in 1915 to preserve and protect dinosaur remains, making the Carnegie Quarry the specific site for which the Monument was created. Thus the QEH project to make a more stable building is crucial to Dinosaur meeting it mission. With the completion of the project we now have a building that will protect the fossil deposit far into the future. However, “… unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations” means different things to different people and depends on your frame of reference. Einstein, in his laws of relativity, made it clear that there is no universal frame of reference and one must stipulate what the frame of reference is for any given measurement or observation. So let’s look at the fate of the NPS mission for the QEH and Carnegie Quarry from a perspective other than that of "future generation"... oh, say the frame of reference of Earth History.

Predicting Biological Systems

Predicting the long-term future of lineages of organisms is very, very difficult and probably impossible. For example, if you were wandering around the sea floor 550 million-years ago during the mid-Cambrian and looking at the Burgess Shale fauna composed of sponges, velvet worms, penis worms, primitive fish, trilobites, etc…

…… you would not predict that over the next several hundred million years these groups would diversify into tyrannosaurs, whales, tree frogs, aardvarks, rhinos, stegosaurs, dragonflies, bracket fungi, Venus fly traps, and so forth.

Your failure would not be one of lack of imagination. Rather, it has to do with the nucleic acids that make up our chromosomes and genes. The mere process of replication of hereditary material during cell growth and division creates new genetic combinations and arrangements. Individual genes mutate, offering additional genetic diversity. Once sexual reproduction evolved, the process of meiosis that produces gametes and the fertilization of eggs by sperm vastly increased genetic diversity. Every progeny is, in a sense, a roll of the dice with different genetic composition upon which natural selection can work. Given all these sources of variation and the various ways that natural selection can cause differential survival in any generation, one simply cannot make long term predictions about how a lineage of organisms will evolve or even if it will survive, or go extinct. There are few “natural laws” of broad application in biological systems.

The Physical Side of Things

In contrast to living systems, physical systems are more subject to forces that can be determined, quantified, and used to make predictions. That is why one can predict the trajectory of munitions, the orbital path of a moon, planet, solar system, or galaxy with some precision.

In general, laws ruling the physical world are more common than those in biological systems and have more predictive power. “Yes, yes” you say, “how very interesting and clever. You’re a regular geological Noel Coward. But what the hell, may I politely ask, does this have to do with the QEH and the mission of the NPS?” Well let’s have a look.

The Fate of the Carnegie Quarry and the QEH

By way of starting, let’s look at our location. Our solar system sits on the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way Galaxy of the local cluster, about half way out from the galactic center.

Now that we are oriented, what lies ahead? In the following, all years are years in the future.

100 million years Based on what we know of the history and pattern of meteorite, comet, and asteroid impacts of Earth and the solar system, by this time Earth will be have been struck by an extraterrestrial object of the size that killed the dinosaurs and caused the Cretaceous global extinction event.

250 million years Following current patterns of plate tectonics and continental drift, nearly all the continents on Earth fuse into a new supercontinent, completing the latest supercontinent cycle.

600 million years The increasing surface temperature of the Sun causes increased weathering of rocks on Earth, resulting in decreasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. At 600 millions years these levels will be so low that C3 photosynthesis in plants will become impossible. Since approximately 99% of the living plants species use the C3 photosynthetic pathway, the result of these changes will be a catastrophic plant extinction.

800 million years Decreasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide drop to levels where C4 photosynthesis is no longer possible, resulting in the extinction of all plants that avoided the 600 million year extinction event. Since plants produce oxygen as a by product of photosynthesis, atmospheric free oxygen will eventually disappear.

1 billion years. The luminosity of the Sun (i.e. the amount of light emitted) increases by about 10% every billion years. As a result the surface temperature of the Earth by this time will increase to 47^oC (117^oF) and all surface water, including the oceans, will begin to boil away. All terrestrial life will become extinct.

3.5 billion years Earth has become a run away greenhouse and its surface conditions will resemble those of present day Venus with a temperature of 460°C (860°F).

5 billion years Driven by the laws of physics, astronomers can predict the “life history” of a star based on the star’s original mass. It is a widespread misconception that every star will become a supernova and explode. Not true. Our Sun is only 1/6 the mass needed to become a supernova and such is definitely not in its future. However, that turns out to be of little consolation.

When the hydrogen fuel in the Sun’s core is consumed, the core contracts and heats up. Eventually the Sun will begin to expand and enters its red giant phase. As the size of the Sun grows, it will expand beyond the orbit of Mercury and Venus and both those planets will be consumed.

What happens to the Earth is a little less clear because our orbit is in the area of maximum expansion of the red giant Sun. However, even if the Earth is not consumed by the Sun, Earth’s temperature will become so great that our planet’s surface will melt.

Two excellent short videos on the red giant Sun and its impact on the solar system are

Solar Empire: Death of the Sun
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/tlc/28850-solar-empire-death-of-the-sun-video.htm

The Future of our Sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMRtvFD8ek
This one is a bit longer but nicely shows the internal evolution of the Sun that results in it becoming a red giant.

7 billion years Our Milky Way galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy. Such galactic collisions are not unusual and our galaxy is currently colliding with two dwarf galaxies. The implications for Earth of a collision with the Andromeda galaxy are uncertain, but photos taken by the Hubble telescope show that galactic collisions are usually nasty affairs.

7.5 billion years After the Sun throws off its outer layers at the end of its Red Giant phase and with only the hot core is left it becomes a white dwarf. White dwarfs are extremely dense, with the mass of the Sun in the volume of our Earth. However, its light comes just from stored thermal energy rather than fusion and it will ultimately cool further with time. Our Sun will become nothing more than a faint spot of light, a mere shadow of its former self.

So THIS is the future of the Carnegie Quarry and the Quarry Exhibit Hall. While there are different timelines for these events, the ultimate fate our our Sun, and hence the Carnegie Quarry, is unavoidable. Our Sun’s future is typical of that of low to medium mass stars.

And don’t think about running to Mars during the Red Giant stage, because while Mars will warm up and its ice will melt, it will continue warming and become uninhabitable. Both Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, with only small rocky cores and will never become habitable even if much of their immense, thick atmospheres are lost. It’s possible that some of the moons of Jupiter might have a remote chance of becoming habitable during the red giant stage but that’s unlikely. But even if that was so, and even is we could move to those moons, I doubt that we have the wherewithal to cut up the Carnegie Quarry sandstone and bones and haul it with us. By the way, forget about black hole generated wormholes as ways of jumping to distant parts of the galaxy. It seems that even if one could manage to successfully navigate through a wormhole, what would come out the other side would retain your mass and momentum but not in any form like that when you went in.

When I point this out this future history of the Carnegie Quarry to dedicated NPS employees, virtually all of them express the view of so what, humans won’t be around even a thousand years in the future, much less the amounts of time we are talking about here. I hold the same view but, as I wrote above, predicting what biological organisms and systems will do is difficult, so we don’t know for sure. However, the future history of our planet in inevitable and inescapable. As Darwin wrote in the opening sentence of the last paragraph of The Origin of Species “There is grandeur in this view of life….” and I quite agree --- even as it applies to our solar system’s demise.

I only have a decade or two left to wander on the third rock from the Sun and yet I’ve spent a bit of time over the last few years to ensure, even knowing the ultimate outcome, that the new buildings and exhibits will function and protect the wall of bones. While the fate of the Carnegie Quarry maybe of no importance to the Universe, it should be of importance to us. I assume that you, constant reader, agree. Otherwise why would you have followed me over the last 100+ postings here?

For those of you interested in following the future of the Universe beyond the 7.5 billion years covered here, I suggest making a first stop at the Time Line of the Future (1). The information is provided in a helpful table format. But beware --- there are some mighty big numbers out there and some very strange events yet to occur! A nice introduction to our Sun, how it works, and its future can be found at (2)

References

(1)Timeline of the far future http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
(2) The Sun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

Images (in order of appearance)

Burgess Shale http://green-enb150.blogspot.com/2011/04/burgess-shale.html

Aardvark http://www.zooborns.typepad.com/zooborns/aardvark/

Venus fly trap http://www.cooltropicalplants.com/Venus-fly-traps.html

Circular Orbits http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bagenal/3750/ClassNotes/Class2/Class2.html

Sun in our galaxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:236084main_MilkyWay-full-annotated.jpg

Asteroid impact http://www.fallingstar.wo.to/act3.htm

Supercontinent http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/mg19626261V1/mg19626261V1.html

Earth's greenhouse atmosphere http://astroguyz.com/2009/04/01/april-2009-news-notes/

Life cycle of Sun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

Sun as a red giant
http://www.michaelh53.com/astronomy/eotwdetail.htm

Earth and red giant Sun
http://www.kiwispaceplace.com/astronomy-guide-dead-stars.html

Galactic collisions
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/upload/2011/07/what_our_future_looks_like_to/heic0810ac.jpeg

White dwarf Sun
http://www.physics.uc.edu/~hanson/ASTRO/LECTURENOTES/W02/Lec9/Page1.html

APATO AND THE NIGHT VISITORS

2011-10-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

The quarry face once again looks spectacular --- all cleaned up, with special lighting illuminating important concentrations of bones, and in a brand new stable, shinning, clean windowed structure. Hard as it may seem, there are times when it can look even better. Is hyperspectacular a real word?

The Quarry Exhibit Hall, like its predecessor, is designed with extensive glass walls in order to use ambient light both to illuminate the cliff and to allow those inside to see how the quarry sits among the nearby craggy hills. However, an equally spectacular, although radically different, view of the cliff comes at night. Dinosaur has remarkably dark skies, unimaginably so to those who have lived all their lives in urban areas. With the inside exhibit and cliff lights turned on, the Quarry Exhibit Hall glistens in the vast darkness of the Monument.

Inside the wall lights up with a different look and feel than that seen during the day, although it is admittedly a difficult look to capture in a photograph.

From inside, the darkness makes the hills and valleys around the building simply disappear. At first you get the unnerving sensation that there is nothing other than the building you are in. However, looking carefully at the glass walls reveals a reflection of the cliff, both clear and unreal, extending seemingly off into the void. It is a striking thing to see.

For a variety of reasons the building has only rarely been open at night. Last week we opened it up for a few hours as a thank you to those who labored for months on planning, coordinating, and cleaning for its reopening so they could get a chance to see it at its most enchanting.

Photos: Dan Chure

OPENED!

2011-10-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Oct 4^th was the 96^th anniversary of the creation of Dinosaur National Monument by President Woodrow Wilson. Such an auspicious day was a natural choice for the formal reopening of the Quarry Exhibit Hall and the wall of bones. The past month has been nothing but blue skies, comfortable temperatures, and beautiful weather. So it was only natural that Tuesday would arrive with overcast skies, wind, and threatening rain. Fortunately the blustery wind and rain held off until hours after our opening ceremonies and the Sun even came out during the festivities.

Several hundred people were in attendance --- even a hatchling dinosaur made an appearance.

Dinosaur Superintendent Mary Risser recounted the major problems (known and unexpected) that plagued the old building and the creative solutions brought to them.

Northern Ute Tribal Elder Clifford Duncan gave a traditional Ute blessing.

There were several guest speakers. Diane Iverson, the granddaughter of Earl Douglass, spoke about the great importance that the quarry, the QEH, and the Monument holds for their family. Her sister Mary Madison and their families were also in attendance.

Laura Joss, Deputy Regional Director of the NPS Intermountain Region, spoke about what the reopening of the QEH means to the region and the Service.

Yours truly talked about the scientific significance and value of the quarry and its contributions to paleontological science. Wisely I was restricted to five minutes, a tough order given that it usually takes more time than that for me to answer the question “What bone is that?”

Hair carefully out of sight in a ponytail, I suffer a tie to speak about the Carnegie Quarry.

Pam Juliano, from Utah Congressman Jim Matheson’s staff, presented the Monument with a flag from the US Capitol.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert was the keynote speaker and addressed the economic importance of the Monument and the value of tourism to the local economy.

The Uintah High School Jazz and Marching Bands, and the Uintah High School Choir performed and the Jensen Veterans of Foreign Wars and Honor Guard Presented the colors.

Finally, Governor Herbert and the Vernal Area Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon and the QEH was formally opened and the crowds poured in.

Behind the scenes the entire park staff was busy with a vast range of activities from seating visitors, to directing traffic, providing security, preparing for medical emergencies, getting visitors on and off shuttle buses, and the myriad of logistical work that most of us don't see but are essential for a successful event. Planning and preparations for the Grand Opening had been going on for months.

My friend and colleague Dr. Brooks Britt, paleontologist at Brigham Young University, gave up a faculty meeting to come out and help me with meeting and greeting Tuesday’s visitors and talk to them in depth about the exhibits and the Carnegie quarry story.

Yes, this is the same Dr. Britt who was the drummer for the Provo Accordion Cannibals (see my June 30 2011 post). Since he took off his nose and ear rings we allowed him to try on an NPS flat hat.

For a view of the opening from a visitor's perspective (albeit one who is a paleo blogger), see Brian Switek's fantastic Dinosaur Tracking at the Smithsonian on-line:
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2011/10/americas-real-jurassic-park-re-opens/

Does the opening of the QEH and QVC mean adieu for this blog? Well not quite yet at least. There are some interesting things still to be told about the new exhibits, quarry history, etc. So if you, constant readers, will continue this trip with me, we’ll follow up on those topics in future posts.

Photos: Lorraine Chure

A MISSED HEADSHOT, A LOST WAGER

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

The 1940 movie One Million B.C. is a classic caveman/dinosaur flick. It was quite a spectacle for its time. Lacking a budget sufficient for stop action dinosaurs the film makers took a different approach, using various living reptiles and mammals enlarged through photographic gimmicry to an immense scale relative to the cavemen.

The best known of these segments involves a real life battle between an alligator and a goanna lizard.The alligator was made appropriately dinosaurian by having a large sail glued onto its back, a la Dimetrodon (which is not a dinosaur and is actually more closely related to mammals, including you and me, than dinosaurs).

The battle segment lasts several minutes and there is biting, slashing, thrashing, roaring and bellowing, and death rolling (by the alligator). Sometimes the goanna has the upper hand…

Sometimes the alligator.

Ulimately the goanna is actually killed by the alligator and the camera rolls close up to the twitching, bleeding, and dying lizard. It’s brutal and unnecessary.

This dramatic footage has been recycled in many subsequent B-flicks. The award for its use least relevant to the story line of a film goes to the infamous 1953 Robot Monster (aka Monsters from the Moon), a film considerably worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space but infinitely better than The Creeping Terror.

The unforgettable Robot Monster.

Thankfully modern film standards and the public would not brook such battle-to-the-death nonsense today. However, we still see this kind of thing replayed in real life, most recently in the US Congress. There’s lots of false posturing, roaring bravado, and transparent pretending (like the phony sails, horns, and frills in OMBC) that goes on there. And like the movie real blood is sometimes drawn. Take the 2012 Federal Budget as an example.

The fiscal year for the federal government starts on Oct. 1. Without a budget bill passed government facilities shut down, employees are furloughed, and National Park campgrounds are emptied and the parks gated and closed to the public. Last week the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution, a stop gap funding measure to keep the government open until mid-November. They sent it on to the Senate, promptly left Washington DC, and are out all this week. The Senate rejected the House bill. So with less than a week to go there was no funding bill for anyone to agree on and half the players weren’t even around. The Senate then passed a different version of the bill and parliamentary procedure allowed three Representatives to call a House meeting and approve the Senate bill. Whew, close call you say? Well closer than you think and we’re not out of the woods yet.

The bill passed by the House and Senate only funds the Federal government THROUGH MIDNIGHT OF OCTOBER 4! Fortunately, the 4^th is the day for the Grand Reopening of the Quarry Exhibit Hall and the wall of dinosaur bones. Being funded through midnight of the 4^th will let us have that opening as planned. However, it also means that we will not be able to open after the 4^th until a new budget bill is passed. So after five years of closure and planning and 18 months of hard construction work on a $7 million dollar project we may be in the position of reopening the building on the Oct 4^th 2011 and immediately closing it on Oct 5^th 2011. Can this be avoided? Maybe, but the House will not even reconvene until 2:00 PM on Monday October 3.

In its history the US government has closed down 17 times. In my 30+ years of federal employment I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve had a full year budget by Oct 1. In some years we hobble by on continuing resolutions through March or even April. Living by my personal motto --- that you are only a cynic if you’re wrong, otherwise you are a realist --- I banked on past experience and placed some heavy bets with Paulie Walnuts that we wouldn’t even be able to open on the 4^th. Who would have guessed I’d be blindsided by a pro forma session of the House? I guess it’s true, there’s no sure thing in life.

Photos:
Second photo: http://blackholereviews.blogspot.com/2011/08/one-million-bc-1940-original-tumak-and.html
All other photos (exclusive of Robot Monster): http://stoneagecinema.blogspot.com/2009/03/7-one-million-years-bc-1940.html
Robot Monster: http://www.planetvideo.com.au/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=1&tag=movie%20robots&limit=20

ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO

2011-09-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

Update: The initial posting was done as the story of the opening was breaking in the news. This post has now been updated with additional photos and text.

Throughout most of this blog I have concentrated on following the work at what was known as the Quarry Visitor Center, the building surrounding the Carnegie Quarry. I have done this because my interest was in telling the tale of the fixing a very sick building while trying to protect the priceless scientific treasure it was built over to protect. However, the project at Dinosaur actually involves 2 buildings. The other one is ¼ mile down the road from the Carnegie Quarry. That building will serve the needs of a typical National Park Service visitor center.

Before looking at that, however, we need to attend to some nomenclatorial issues. Since it was opened in 1958 the name Quarry Visitor Center has been used for the Carnegie quarry building. Pretty obvious why and quite logical. However, after the new construction project, the name Quarry Visitor Center will be used for the lower building, running in parallel with the name Canyonland Visitor Center which is used for our headquarter’s building in Dinosaur Colorado. The Colorado half of the park is best known for the magnificently carved canyons of the Green and Yampa Rivers, the Utah half for the Carnegie Quarry. The building formerly known as the Quarry Visitor Center will henceforth be known as the Quarry Exhibit Hall. I shall follow this terminology from this point out.

Okay, so what about the new Quarry Visitor Center? As I said, it will perform most functions of a typical NPS visitor center. It houses exhibits, offices for interpretation and law enforcement staff, has a cozy AV auditorium, the bookstore/giftshop, will be a site for educational programs, and, of course, bathrooms.

Here you will catch the shuttle to go to the Quarry Exhibit Hall. The QVC will serve as the place to find out what to do and where to go in the Monument after, of course, seeing the great Wall of Bones. The new exhibits highlight the diverse historical, archeological, geological, paleontological, and biological resources of Dinosaur and directs you to where best to see them. All this was sorely missing in the former Quarry Visitor Center and is a great addition to the park. See my recent post about the move of the life-size Stegosaurus model to the front of this building.

The Quarry Visitor Center was completed about 10 days before the Quarry Exhibit Hall, so we decided to open it early. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held this past Wednesday, Sept. 28. Speakers included....

Mary Risser, Superintendent, Dinosaur National Monument

Clifford Duncan, Northern Ute Tribe Elder

John Wessels, Regional Director, InterMountain Region, NPS

The Keynote Speaker was Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior.

After the dedication and opening I was able to tour Secretary Salazar through the nearly completed Quarry Exhibit Hall to see both the freshly cleaned bones and the new, dramatic exhibits.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and posterior dorsals, sarcrals, pelvis, femur, and anterior caudals of Allosaurus fragilis.

It wasn’t a long tour --- a Cabinet level position runs on a VERY tight schedule. One barely has the time to explain the differences in innervation of the laterosphenoid in camarasaurid and diplodocoid neosauropods. Fortunately a longer tour was possible for Regional Director John Wessels, although he did run out of time before I ran out of answers.

The Grand Opening of the Quarry Exhibit Hall will be on Tuesday October 4. More news about that to follow.

Photos:
Salazar and Allosaurus skeleton: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogshiking/52657243-150/salazar-utah-interior-issues.html.csp

All others: Lorraine Chure

THE NON-AVIALAEAN SAURISCHIAN DINOSAURIA COME HOME TO ROOST

2011-09-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

When we evacuated the exhibits from the Quarry Visitor Center many specimens went into storage rooms in the Monument. However, a few mounts were too large for any of our areas. They went to the Utah Field House of Natural History, in nearby Vernal, where they remained on exhibit. Last week these spectacular casts were returned and we are now setting them in place and building the new exhibits around them. The big skeletal casts (both slab and free standing) are of the famous Camarasaurus lentus puppy (only ¼ adult size), Allosaurus jimmadseni, and Allosaurus fragilis.

Camarasaurus lentus

Allosaurus jimmadseni

The Allosaurus fragilis mount was disassembled for transport and had to be reassembled by DinoLab on site.

Many thanks to the staff of the Utah Field House and DinoLab (Salt Lake City) for moving these large, heavy, and delicate skeletons back to Dinosaur.

Photos: NPS

LUDI INCIPIANT

2011-09-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

Like aurigae in the Circus Maximus we are racing circuits to complete what needs to be done by the formal opening of the building on Oct. 4. There’s not much time left and there are many projects and crews now working side by side.

On Monday September 19^th the long awaited cleaning of the quarry face finally began. Years ago the cleaning of the quarry face was an annual event for the staff. That changed when in the late 1990s the large indoor crane was damaged and could not be repaired. The crane was needed to hold the canister vacuums and get the staff to the high areas of the face. It took two people about a week to vacuum the entire quarry surface, both bone and rock. Without the crane there could be no cleaning. Of course, no cleaning was done once the building was condemned and closed in the summer of 2006.

For most of the last 18 months the quarry has been enclosed within a immense plywood and scaffold sarcophagus (see several earlier posts about that structure). This protected the fossils from damage from tools and equipment but could not be made airtight. As a result, some dust from the demolition and construction work over the last year and a half got into the box and settled on the face. In addition, some rodents and bats found the sarcophagus a comfy place to hang out and defecate in.

A short while ago the sarcophagus came down and the fossils and rock were exposed again within the building. However, quarry lacked its former splendor because of all the dust, dirt, and small bits of construction material on it. Bones could be seen but they did not stand out and the entire surface was a dull gray color.

But cleaning up was more than just grabbing a broom. The dust posed several potential threats. There was the possibility of infectious agents from the bat and rodent feces. Of greater concern was the level of radon in the dust. The quarry and its bone naturally emit radon which is a radioactive, colorless, gas byproduct of the decay of uranium. The radon particles become attached to dust particles, which if breathed in, can become lodged deep in the lungs and cause cancer years later. Fortunately, scientific testing of the dust revealed that there was little infectious threat and the radon levels were quite low.

Nevertheless, personal protective equipment was required for the cleanup. Disposable tyvek suits kept dust off the clothes. Similarly, gloves protected the hands and safety glasses did the same for the eyes.

An appropriately sized and fitted respirator with filter canisters prevented breathing in any dust. A hardhat was required against the inevitable noggin knocks.

However, once fitted out in this equipment, an employee looked eerily like a lab researcher from a biohazard facility.

"Did anyone see where I put that vial of Ebola Reston."

Those working from the lifts were harnessed up and leashed to the basket.

Even the vacuum cleaners were somewhat special. They needed HEPA filters to prevent the finest dust particles from being blown around the building.

The quarry face is about 50 feet tall and the upper third is nearly vertical to overhanging, so we needed to use lifts to get us up to and hold us in place while cleaning the highest levels.

The lower third of the cliff could be vacuumed from ground level.

In some places near the bottom the dirt and gravel on ledges was so thick it could be swept up and dumped into buckets.

The middle third of the cliff could be walked across with a backpack HEPA vacuum, as long as one was carefull in placing your feet.

This vacuuming was pretty successful. This is especially true for the sandstone matrix which is light gray, golden brown, purple, or green, depending on what minerals were deposited where in the quarry. It all looked a dull tan until each sweep of the vacuum revealed crisp new coloration, as can be seen in this photo:

The bones however, retained a thin layer of more intractable dust that the vacuums didn’t completely remove. This could only be removed by hand wiping each of the 1500+ bones with a damp cloth.

Surprisingly it took just five days to clean the entire 150 foot long, 50 foot high surface. That was less time than anticipated, which was a nice surprise, given the tight deadlines we were working under. The results are spectacular and the cliff face now looks better than it has in probably 15 or more years.

However, photos cannot do it justice --- so come and see it for yourself.

My heart felt thanks to all those who were involved in this effort, it could not have been done without them: April Wood, Noel Mays, Pat McElroy, Carla Lopez, Barbara Tallman, Clark Tallman, Jesse Hutchinson, Matt Mateo, Andy Mesko, Joel Brumm, Jake White, Zach Parkes, Marian Yazzie, Stuess Leeds, Zach Elkins, Angell Britt, Merlin Mott, Gary Mott, Wayne Prokopetz, and Dinosaur’s Superintendent Mary Risser.

Photos: NPS

MAN, IT’S BEEN CRAZY AT THE DINOMON

2011-09-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Things at the DinoMon have gone crazy. It's busy with people all over the place like some crank laced anthill.

There are all these Men-In-White, wrapped up in biohazard suits and warning vests with helmets and face masks and filters like they were some kind of hemmorhagic fever chasing viral cowboys from the Level 4 Biohazard Containment facilities at the CDC.

And like whatsup with this lady? Man I swear I saw her in that movie Contagion.She was vaccinating sick people. Or maybe she was piling bodies up in the mass graves. I can’t remember exactly but she totally wigged me out.

Can anyone tell me what insane weapon is this guy carrying? Is that a flame thrower for decontamination? Or for killing zombies? I sure didn't like the way he kept staring at me.

Then, out of nowhere more people with helmets came and began bringing boxes and all kinds of strange stuff in and laying it on the floor.

Later a couple of guys rolled into the place with this thing.

An hour later they suddenly vanished without a trace ... but left this behind!

Some of the mysterious, Men-In-White, government agents used this blue Imperial Walker to do who knows what work up on the dino bones.

It looked to me like they were sucking DNA out of the bones for some kind of freakin’ genetic cross breeding experiments, like the aliens do between humans and turtles and aardvarks. I know because I read all about that on a TV show.

Other guys were putting wires and other objects in the ceilings and walls, like maybe x-ray cameras disguised as smoke detectors. Very black box kind of stuff.

Anyway, like I said, these are whack crazy days at the QVC, but it is really Really, TOTALLY AWESOME dudes!

Photos: All these top secret photos are from agents within the NPS.

Stego On The Move

2011-09-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

Dinosaurs were the dominant large terrestrial vertebrates for about 160 million years. During that time they occupied all landmasses, a wide variety of environments, and became quite diverse both ecologically and biologically. Those living, in what was then the polar regions, faced severe seasonal changes and evolved a number of strategies to cope with those changes. As recent histological work by Woodward and colleagues shows, some polar dinosaurs hibernated and others stayed in the area but remained active, suggesting an elevated body temperature (“warm-blooded” if you wish). Of course, another strategy was to undergo grand migrations, heading towards the more temperate areas in the winter and back to the polar regions in the summer.

Here at Dinosaur National Monument we have our own dinosaur migration and although it only involves one specimen of a single species, it is of immense significance. A mere 18 months or so ago, our life-sized Stegosaurus model underwent an arduous migration of nearly ¾ of a mile from the closing temporary visitor center to the west border of the Green River Resource Center. Now, as the end of the building rehab projects at Dinosaur approaches, it’s time for this beast to once again prepare to greet visitors.

To prepare it for its move, we first remove the long anchoring spikes in each of the footplates.

Next an eyebolt is threaded between the dorsal plates and into the internal armature.

A chain is attached to the eyebolt and a front end loader and the Stegosaurus is gingerly lifted up.

Ropes are slung around the legs to stabilize it during transport.

Then, as Jackie Gleason so famously said “….and away we go!”

Fortunately we don’t have to move it cross country but can take a paved road to the new Visitor Center at the bottom of the hill (not the visitor center enclosing the Carnegie Quarry).

Once there, it is placed in its new display area in front of the building and, given the known proclivities for wanderlust in Stegosaurus, the feet are pinned to the ground.

All visitors who come to the Monument will pass by this ancient reptilian plant-eater with a walnut-sized brain.

However, as constant readers are well aware, our Stegosaurus made a more spectacular migration nearly 50 years ago. In 1963, our model (along with models of Tyrannosaurus, Apatosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Coelophysis, Corythosaurus, and Hadrosaurus) rode a barge across New York Harbor on their way to a 2 year stint at the Sinclair Oil Company Exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. That’s our model third from the right.

After the World’s Fair ended, the Sinclair dinosaurs toured the US. Here’s our Stegosaurus at the East Hills Shopping Center in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Eventually the Stegosaurus-that-could arrived at Dinosaur National Monument where for the next half-century it met visitors coming to look at its remains and those of its contemporaries.

Now that it is back in place, things can start to go back to normal. So in recognition of this great moment, raise a glass to the next half-century, Salut!

Literature Cited

Woodward H.N., Rich T.H., Chinsamy, A., and Vickers-Rich, P. 2011 Growth Dynamics of Australia's Polar Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 6(8): e23339. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023339

Photos:
NY Harbor and Missouri: http://www.monsterbashnews.com/SinclairDinosaurs.html
All others: NPS

MR. SANDMAN BRING ME A DREAM, BRING ME A FLOOR LIKE I’VE NEVER SEEN

2011-09-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

With nearly all the work inside the QVC completed, the floor installation has started. The bugabear of the old building was water, more specifically water leaks. Leaks caused the expansion and contraction of the hygroscopic mudstones beneath the building with the concomitant shifting and twisting of the building. This should not be a problem in the new visitor center, but if there is any slight shifting and heaving a different kind of floor should avoid some of the problems.

If we installed a new concrete floor, future movement might crack it and cause sections to rise up or drop down, resulting in an irregular floor with both safety hazards and threats to the new exhibits. The solution to this potential problem is to install a different kind of floor, one using sand and pavers made of recycled rubber.

The first step in this flooring project was to excavate and remove the soil within the building to a depth of about 12 inches. That was replaced with dirt that was compacted to form a solid surface.

However, the base for the new floor is, maybe surprisingly, sand.

Sand is dumped.

Then raked out.

Next a compactor is used to compact the sand.

Careful work levels the sand and keeps it to a consistent thickness.

The floor is made up of two parts. First black squares are laid down. These have pegs and slots for the pavers themselves.

Next the pavers are put down and locked into the peg system of the base plates.

A metal side plate is installed near the irregular base of the cliff to hold the floor in place along the irregular sandstone layer.

Work started at the east end of the building on Monday and by Tuesday nearly half the floor had been laid down. It will be completed by the end of the week.

The advantage of this type of flooring over a concrete floor is that it any shifting occurs, the affected part of paver system can be taken up, the sand beneath it leveled out and the floor made level again.

Next week the last major stage of the QVC project begins --- the cleaning of the cliff face and the installation of the new exhibits. These projects will go on simultaneously so that we can be ready for the grand re-opening on Oct 4!

Photos: NPS

SUMMER TIME AND THE LIVING IS BUSY

2011-08-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here, but that isn’t a manifestation of Dante’s apathetic listlessness acedia (often used as a temptation by the demon Belphegor). Rather it’s been a wildly hectic and successful summer for fieldwork.

Crews have been working here from the University of Nebraska, University of Utah, Harvard, the American Museum of Natural History, Brigham Young University, and three Geologists-in-Parks via the Geological Society of America. Paleontological and geological research underway is looking at reptile fossil footprints in the Permian Weber Sandstone, the paleontology and paleoenvironments of the Late Triassic Chinle Formation and the Early Jurassic Nugget Sandstone, marine reptiles of the Stump Formation, and the small reptiles, amphibians and mammals that lived with the dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation. We’ve also been finishing up the exhibits and artwork for the new Quarry Visitor Center.

"Very nice.” you say “How very interesting and good for you … now tell me what's up with the damn construction project.”

With the opening about 5 weeks away the project is close to completion. The mezzanine is now floored, the railing attached, and it will soon be carpeted. The new mezzanine has been extended several feet closer to the quarry face, giving a closer and more spectacular overview than previously available.

The ramp at the west end has also been floored and will also soon be carpeted.

Because of the past problems with the heaving of the cement floor the new building will not have a solid concrete floor pad. Instead, that floor will consist of small, thick paver blocks that will set onto a sand base. To prepare for this, the dirt in the building was excavated down 12 inches, hauled away, and replaced with new fill that was compacted as a base for the sand. The sand and new floor should be in place in a few weeks. Only a few small concrete pads have been poured and those will be used to anchor specific exhibits.

Suspended heating units have been installed above the upper mezzanine.

The ductwork for the HVAC system has been installed in the lower gallery ……

… and is now behind drywall.

The roof of the shade structure outside the QVC is now in place and resurfacing of the roads and parking lots should be done in a few weeks.

Once the paver floor is installed, all construction inside the QVC will be completed and we will start cleaning the cliff face and installing the new exhibits. There is close to a decade’s worth of dust on the quarry and covering the bones, making them dull and flat.

The bones do not stand out in their proper glory, so a good cleaning is in order. More about that later.

Photos: NPS

FREE AT LAST!!!

2011-07-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

Well the sarcophagus is finally down and the quarry completely exposed once again. The scaffolding and plywood are stacked outside and being loaded onto trucks. The crane and basket used to put it up and take it down has left the building for the last time. This is a momentous event but I'll just let these photos do the talking.

Photos: NPS

LAYING DOWN THE GOLDEN SLABS

2011-07-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Last year we saw the demolition and removal of the rotunda and ophidian entrance ramp leading up to the second floor of the glass enclosure around the Carnegie Quarry. Those features will not be replaced but we wanted to retain the dramatic experience of entering the building and suddenly seeing, all at once, the entire sandstone face and its 1500 dinosaur bones. So the second floor entrance has been retained but will be accomplished in a different way. A wide sidewalk will lead visitors to the far west end of the building where they will then go up a 150 foot long ramp that rises from ground level to the second floor at the east end of the building.

The sidewalk and steel framework for the ramp has been in place for some time. We recently completed this project by putting in precast concrete slabs. The slabs weighed between 10,000 - 20,000 pounds apiece, so this was a task requiring both heavy equipment and a delicate touch.

The slabs arrived on a number of flatbed trucks with several slabs on each. They were made near Tooele Utah, some 200+ miles and several mountain passes away. After getting the slabs to the QVC the first challenge was to turn the flatbed around and back it into a narrow space on the south side of the building, between the newly installed bathrooms and the sidewalks. This is no mean task because with all the various projects currently underway at the Quarry, the parking lot is crowded and space is at a premium. So this was a tricky bit of driving.

Once the truck was in place a large crane, with a lifting capacity of 70,000+ pounds, swung its arm over the trucks.

Chains at the end of the crane’s cable were attached to the four corners of each slab.

Once in place, each slab was lifted up and swung northwards to the ramp framework.

Then the slab was gently swung over the framework then slowly lowered, pushed, and guided into place.

Once the slab was in in place the chains were detached and the arm swung back to the get the next slab.

Metal connectors built into each slab are then welded to the steel framework.

Eventually all the slabs were in-place and attached. The double doors have been installed where the ramp joins the building. In a few months they will be swung open to let visitors once again gaze upon the Jurassic rocks and bones of the Carnegie Quarry.

Photos: NPS

DRAINING THE GULL WING ROOF

2011-07-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

The gull wing roof is one of the architectural signatures of the Quarry Visitor Center. It’s pretty spectacular but poses some problems that might not be obvious.

Unlike your home, water from melting snow and summer thunderstorm toad floaters does not run to the edge of the roof and off the side down rain gutters and drain pipes. Instead it runs to the bottom of the V of the gull wing and down a drain at the center of the roof, into horizontal pipes near the ceiling, and down into a drain system that carried it away from the building. Remember that many of the problems of the old QVC were related to the expansive soil beneath it getting wet. So getting the water on the roof away from the building is critical.

While the sarcophagus is being dismantled work goes on nearby inside the building assembling the new roof drainage piping system. Given that much of this is 40 feet above the ground, the new piping is installed, anchored and connected primarily working on a scissor lift.

Photos: NPS

OPENING THE SARCOPHAGUS IN THE VALLEY OF THE LIZARD KINGS

2011-07-06T06:58:00.000-07:00

Well the day of joy has finally arrived! Just before the long 4^th of July weekend crews began to take down the plywood sarcophagus which has hidden the quarry sandstone and its treasure of dinosaur bones for so long.

In one sense this is just a simple reversal of how the sarcophagus and its scaffolding framework was erected. However, this is fraught with just as many dangers for the fossils as when it was put up. Each sheet of plywood, each pipe and connector of the scaffolding, each layer of netting, fireproof blanketing, foam padding, etc. has to come off without being dropped.

Some work rules will reduce the danger. Each tool is on a lanyard so that it won’t go to the ground (or fossil face) if dropped. Every piece of pipe is held with two hands as it passed from one person to another. Each piece of plywood is hooked to a cable and lowered to the ground or into a basket on the end of a crane.

As the parts are taken off they are stored outside in the parking lot.

Some work is done on the scaffolding itself. However, higher, more difficult areas are reached by a crane with a terminal basket.

Taking this down will take less time than putting it up, but we are still looking at 2-3 weeks before all the plywood and scaffolding is down and completely outside the Quarry Visitor Center. At that point all the dinosaur bones will, for the first time in 16 months, be bathed again in natural light.

Photos: NPS

CUTTING OFF YOUR TOE TO SHORTEN YOUR FACE

2011-06-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

One of the improvements in the new Quarry Visitor Center is that the mezzanine will be wider. This will allow visitors to get much closer to the quarry at mid-height and so better see the multitude of bones along the top and center of the sandstone face. But nothing comes without a price, in this case smaller working space.

As constant readers will recall, last summer we removed the 14,000 pound moveable crane from the building because it was no longer safe to operate. In the new building we will use some sort of extending lift with a basket to reach the more inaccessible higher parts of the cliff for cleaning, conservation, and research. The widened mezzanine lessened the space available for the crane, so anything that can buy us some space would help with that problem.

The outer surface of the sandstone is irregular, with some portions jutting out further than others. Those parts that haven’t been excavated down to the bone layer jut out at ground level, like the toe of the face. Areas excavated all the way back to the main bone layer do not stick out. By removing the toe we can move the face back about 12 inches in the most critical areas, buying some room for the wheels and body of the lift to operate in.

To get this done, some of the bottom sheets of plywood of the sarcophagus were removed, providing access to the toe. Paleontologists Dr.Brooks Britt and Dr. Rod Scheetz, of Brigham Young University, helped us with the excavation.

Pneumatic chisels and drills were employed, although their use was complicated by the fact that Rod and Brooks needed to work in and around the metal scaffolding that forms the support for the sarcophagus. After a few days of struggle about 30 feet of the toe was cut back 12-15 inches. Every inch counts!

With this work completed the plywood was put back up. Work continues in getting the glass completely installed in the walls. Once that is completed, the next big step will be the dismantling of the scaffolding and plywood sarcophagus, allowing sunlight onto the quarry face for the first time in 18 months.

Yes, he may be a paleontologist with a Ph.D. but Brooks still has to abide by the rules, or else.

Before becoming a paleontologist, Brooks Britt was the drummer in the moderately successful punk rock / Lawrence Welk polka music fusion band called The Provo Accordion Cannibals.

Photos: Brooks Britt, Rod Scheetz

THE JURAPPIAN WAY

2011-06-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

Work progresses slowly on the installation of the framing and windows, with about ¾ of the windows now in. However, the pouring of concrete around the Quarry Visitor Center is completed.

A long, wide walkway leads from the parking lot to the base of the entrance ramp that runs up and along the south wall of the building.

Sidewalks and curbs connect that walkway with the exit doors, visitor shelter, and restrooms. Decorative landscaping blocks, some with Thalassinoides trace fossils, are in place.

These concrete blocks are the bases for the beams that will support the roof of a shade structure where visitors can comfortably wait for the shuttle bus.

There is a saying about ancient Rome that “All roads lead to Rome.” There is a similar truth for Dinosaur National Monument, where all roads lead to the Quarry Visitor Center, although getting to the Carnegie Quarry from the Echo Park campground deep in the Monument’s river canyons may take some creative route finding.

Photos: NPS

ICHNOFOSSILS AS INADVERTENT LANDSCAPING ELEMENTS

2011-05-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

The new QVC, like the 1958 one, will be a striking and unique building, both pleasing to look at and be in. However, another consideration is the building’s surroundings. The gull-wing roof mimics the cut that the quarry sits in and the hills surrounding it. While designed to fit the terrain, limited landscaping elements will be added to improve the overall look and feel of the site. Among those elements are a series of large blocks of rock. While larges pieces of blocks are not unusual landscaping fare, these blocks do hold some surprises.

The rocks came from a quarry near Maybell, CO. They are pieces of Paleozoic limestone, carbonate rich rock formed of sediments deposited on an ocean floor well before the Age of Dinosaurs. They are grey-beige-brown and match the color of the rocks in the area of the QVC.

However, closer inspection of the bedding surfaces of the blocks reveals some interesting features. These surfaces are quite irregular, showing a dense pattern of thick sinuous ridges that branch and intersect, separated by depressions. The causal observer might be forgiven for thinking they are ripple currents or infilled mudcracks, if the casual observer would even notice the texture at all.

But the ridges are actually ancient burrows made by marine arthropods living on a seafloor hundreds of millions of years ago. The scientific name for these burrows is Thallasinoides. They are common fossils in marine rocks worldwide. In modern day oceans Thalassinoides-like burrows are made primarily by decapods, especially thalassinid shrimp, in intertidal and shallow subtidal marine settings (1). However, Paleozoic crustacean fossils are rare and many Paleozoic Thalassinoides may have had other makers (2)

So when you come to visit the QVC after it reopens in October 2011, remember to take a look at the landscape rocks and their burrows when you are waiting for the shuttle bus. It may be the first time that you have seen this interesting kind of fossil, although they are nowhere near as interesting as the nearby quarry full of majestic dinosaur bones.

Thanks to Tony Ekdale (paleontologist, University of Utah) for identifying the burrows as Thalassinoides.

References

(1) Myrow, P. 1995. Thalassinoides and the enigma of Early Paleozoic open-framework burrow systems. Palaios 10: 58-74.

(2) Ekdale, A.A. and R.G. Bromley 2003. Paleoethologic interpretation of complex Thalassinoides in shallow-marine limestones, Lower Ordovician, southern Sweden. Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeoecology 192: 221-227.

700 PANES

2011-05-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

Work progresses on installing the walls of windows on the four sides of the Quarry Visitor Center. The north wall is complete and the east side is well along. Installing the glass involves several steps.

The individual planes of glass are much smaller than the space delineated by the vertical and horizontal structural beams. So smaller metal framing is first put in between the structural beams, then gaskets and flashing around each opening, and finally the glass is installed. This is a slow and time consuming process, especially when one realizes that there will be nearly 700 panes of glass (each 3 feet x 3 feet) in the new QVC!

And, of course, because of the height of the walls, many of the frames and panes need to be put in from a crane and basket, which makes the work go slower.

The glass is high efficiency and will help with heating and cooling and the tint will improve the ambient light inside the building. Having thus taken care of your visitor needs at the upper end of your body, what about the other end?

Water leaks were the bane of the 1958 QVC. Water causes the bentonitic mudstone beneath the building to swell, which makes the structure to twist and crack over time. To avoid those problems in the new QVC, virtually all water has been excluded from it, which means no inside toilets. Bathrooms have been built outside the building, near the drop off and pick up point for the shuttle that will take visitors up to the building.

Photos: NPS (with special thanks to Justin Jones for that great first photo)

AND YOU THOUGHT THEY WERE JUST FOSSILIZED BONES

2011-04-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

Most people see the great wall of dinosaur bones at the Monument as what it is: a great wall of dinosaur bones. However, some see our fossils in other ways. I once had a crank tell me that the bones had been placed in the sandstone by Satan to deceive us. However, here I am more interested in writing about how some artists look at fossils, especially those at and from Dinosaur.

Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist who has been “exploring how objects achieve public and personal meaning in a world constituted in mass production, focusing most recently on collaborations with small community historical society museums in different parts of the world.” (1) He has been exploring exhibits using replicas, both natural and man-made, of various sorts for a number of years. However, here we’ll just look at his project Lost Objects which involves fossils from Dinosaur National Monument.

McCollum was involved in a project at the Carnegie Museum of Art when he became aware that the art museum was affiliated with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The latter houses one of the great collections of dinosaur bones and so the artist approached the museum with an idea he had been thinking about for some time, a project that became Lost Objects.

Lost Objects is an exhibit involving 750 replicas of 15 original sauropod bones in the Carnegie’s collection (technically enamel paint on glass fiber-reinforced concrete). The exact locality for all 15 originals is not known to me, but many, if not all, of them came from the Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur. These 750 replicas were painted a variety of earth colors that could conceivably be seen in real dinosaur bones. No bright primary colors!

Actually, the exhibit is similar to how one might find collections of large sauropod bones in the non-public museum collection storage areas. Given that a large sauropod femur can weight 500 pounds or more, such a storage approach would make them easy to study and photograph. For those who care, the casts in the photos are from both adult and juveniles sauropods and include humeri, radii, ulnae, femora, tibiae, and fibulae. At least some of them are from Camarasaurus.

The casts were laid out in groups on bases. As recounted by the art critic and historian W.J.T. Mitchell “The installation of these bones in the neoclassical atrium of the Carnegie Museum is … an uncanny resurrection of Thomas Jefferson’s lost ‘bone room’ in the East Wing of the White House, as if we were privileged to go back in time and see the mastodon bones replaced by their cultural descendants, the dinosaur.” (5 p.270).

What is the artist exploring with such exhibits? McCollum talks about fossils as symbols of enormous absence and loss and how what we produce and collect displaces our fears of death, etc. I’m not about to try and explain what the artist is communicating through his work, that is best understood by reading what McCollum himself has to say in interviews in print and on video (2, 3) and at his website (4). Mitchell (5 p.269) writes that “Traditional notions of the relation of copy and original, not to mention the status of the artists ‘authorial’ function are clearly under considerable pressure in these works…” I guess I see that.

A Note on Sources

For this blog I have drawn heavily on the chapter entitled Coda: PaleoArt in Mitchell 1998. A reader interested in exploring the artistic themes of Lost Objects and dinosaurs in modern art would do well to read that chapter in full.

REFERENCES

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_McCollum

(2) http://www.allanmccollum.net/allanmcnyc/Lynne_Cooke_Carnegie.html Excerpts from an interview with Allan McCollum by Lynne Cooke, curator at large for the Dia Art Foundation in New York, and chief curator at the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain

(3) http://www.artbabble.org/video/art21/allan-mccollum-lost-objects-natural-copies A 4 minute video interview with McCollum. Although he talks mostly about Natural Copies, an earlier fossil exhibit involving dinosaur footprints from coal mines in Price, Utah, those concepts and ideas also lie behind Lost Objects.

(4) Allan McCollum’s website: http://www.allanmccollum.net/allanmcnyc/

(5) Mitchell, W.J.T. 1998. The Last Dinosaur Book. The life and times of a cultural icon. University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 321 pp.

Photo Credits

Lost Objects
http://blog.art21.org/category/artists/allan-mccollum/
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/finch/Images/finch5-8-2.jpg
http://m2museologie.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/cliche-2010-10-12-19-06-57.jpg

Allan McCollum http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/mccollum_allan.jpg

ALUMINUM, RUBBER, SILICA, AND A TOUCH OF PAINT

2011-04-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

Currently the major effort at the QVC is getting the glass into all the walls of the building. Once enclosed and secured the plywood sarcophagus and aluminum scaffolding can be taken down.

Work is starting on the north wall, will progress down the east and west sides, and the south wall windows will be the last installed. Before starting this, all structural beams were painted. The minimum temperature for painting is 50^oF on the beam surface. While that can be reached in sunlight on most walls, the north wall does not get direct sun. So, just as with the curing of the cement south wall during the winter cold snap, the north wall beams were enclosed in blankets and propane heaters used to keep the temperature up during painting.

All the supplies for the window project are stored in the QVC parking lot and lifted by crane up to behind the north wall. There pieces are cut to size.

Individual panes of glass are about 3 feet by 3 feet, smaller than the large spaces between the structural beams. So the first step is to install vertical window frames between the structural beams.

Next, the horizontal window frames are put in.

Then the rubber baskets for each window frame is set into the aluminum frames.

Once this is completed for the entire north wall, then the new glass, which is more energy efficient thanthe old plexiglass, will be lifted to the north side and installed. Work will then proceed to the other walls. Given the vast expanse of glass in the QVC walls, it will take about a month to get all the windows in.

While the ceiling inside the QVC will be white, the eaves outside the building are being painted a light sandstone brown and the vertical structural beams will retain their original chocolate brown.

Given the height of the building, the eaves and the beams are painted from the crane basket.

Photos: NPS

GOODBYE DESERT ROSE

2011-04-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

We have completed the installation of the steel for the north side, exterior ramp, mezzanine, interior ramp, east wall, west wall, and south wall. Some of the steel is new, some of it is recycled from the previous QVC walls, and much of it has been left in-place throughout the project. Priming and painting has already started on the eaves and the ceiling inside the building. The north wall was tented and heated while the primer coat was applied. Hopefully warmer temperatures will arrive and tenting will no longer be needed. One would hardly think that the painting of beams and ceiling would be the reason for employee celebration, but for those of us who worked in the old QVC this is momentous.

The north wall and adjacent ceiling then ...

... and now.

In 1986 the old QVC was listed as one of the properties in the National Register as part of the Dinosaur National Monument Multiple Resources Listing. In January of 2001 the QVC was specifically listed in the National Register as a National Historic Landmark. The latter listing is especially important because it cites the time period 1957-1958 as the “period of significance” for the building. During that time the structure was constructed and first opened to the public. As a result, the recommendations laid out in the Dinosaur Historic Structure Report Quarry Visitor Center(1) relied heavily on the original design as “the look” that needed to be preserved:

“Known alterations, implemented after the period of significance, are recommended to be removed. Conversely, known historic … design features are recommended to be restored to, or retained at, their historic 1958 appearance. With that in mind, this report recommends restoring the structure to its initially-constructed appearance, the only variance from the original design being accessibility, egress, and structural treatments.”

These directives caused all kinds of problems, but for the present let’s look at the seemingly insignificant issue of paint colors. As described by Allaback (2, p: 51):

"The "finish and color schedule" for the visitor center paints a colorful picture of the building's original interior surfaces. The visitor gallery walls and trim were surf green and the ceiling vernal green. The lobby was surf green with varnished birch trim, and the rotunda and stairway were also green. Offices had walls painted starlight blue and honey beige. Less significant spaces, such as corridors, vestibules, and storage spaces, were tusk ivory. These brightly painted surfaces were intended to relieve the monotony of the valley's gray surroundings and, perhaps, create the effect of an oasis in the desert."

Oddly, this “oasis imagery” was lost on most employees. I remember the faded blue and puke surf green when I came to Dinosaur in 1979. I assumed they were the result of poorly thought out painting schemes and nothing more than a hodgepodge of crappy colors. Over the years, walls were covered with shelves for books, specimens, and storage. Walls were replaced, removed, or installed. Eventually many of these colors were replaced with white or some variant of that.

A stand of majestic desert rose beams on the east wall of the QVC support the vast expanse of desert rose ceiling and eaves.

Who would dare go Behind the Pink Door?

So after the QVC was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 2001, movement started to return to the original “oasis” color pattern. The worst result of this was the painting of many of the beams of the QVC and the ceiling of the exhibit area over the cliff face a pink color. The preservationists told us this was actually a color properly described as “desert rose” but nearly everyone at the Monument simply rolled their eyes and referred to as “that pink”. It was, quite simply, pretty awful. Many of the photos in past blogs show the remarkable expanses of “desert rose” in the old QVC.

With the destruction and removal of the rotunda and administrative wing, it is no longer possible to retain the 1957-1958 appearance and, thankfully, we are liberated from the oasis diktat. Sane colors will be part of the new interior, allowing the visitor to focus on the quarry face without being distracted by an immense framework of glaring pink beams and window frames. So the simple act of priming and painting in the QVC is more momentous that one might think.

Honestly, does this look "gray and monotonous" to you?

While I’m ranting, I’ll also take exception to the above cited statement that “These brightly painted surfaces were intended to relieve the monotony of the valley's gray surroundings and, perhaps, create the effect of an oasis in the desert.” When I look around at the landscape surrounding the QVC, I see the golden buff Navajo Sandstone, the intense brick red of the Carmel Formation, both the brown and golden river sandstones of the Morrison Formation, the variegated maroon and grey banded mudstones in the Morrison and Cedar Mountain formations, and the shimmering silver of the Mowry Shale, to name just a few. So the landscape is hardly gray and monotonous. I guess some people just can’t see that. Then again, the old ramp leading into the second floor of the rotunda was supposed to be an architectural element reminiscent of the tail of a sauropod dinosaur, one of the common residents of the Carnegie Quarry. Funny, I thought it was simply a ramp to get people into the building – what an ignorati.

Practitioners of the dubious science of color psychology claim that the color pink has a calming effect (3). However, this is apparently only and initial reaction, because when used in prison, inmates often become more aggressive as they become accustomed to the color (3, 4). While employees at Dinosaur didn’t become more aggressive with exposure to pink….er “desert rose”, one of the long term effects of exposure is that we tended to look down at our feet rather that looking at anything above shoulder height.

Amusingly enough, the belief in the calming effects of pink has also been used in college athletics. As recounted at one website (4):

“University of Hawaii associate head coach George Lumkin was a member of the 1991 staff that saw visitor locker rooms at Iowa and Colorado State painted pink in the belief that the color made players passive. Now the WAC has a rule that a visiting team's locker room can not be painted a different color than the home team's. In other words, it can be pink, black or any color of the rainbow, as long as both locker rooms are the same color.”

References
(1)Dinosaur Historic Structure Report Quarry Visitor Center http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/dino/hsrt.htm

(2) Allaback, S. 2000. Chapter 1. Quarry Visitor Center, Dinosaur National Monument, Jensen, Utah. in: Mission 66 Visitor Centers: The History of a Building Type. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resource Stewardship and Partnerships, Park Historic Structures and Cultural Landscapes Program, Washington, D.C.: pp. 39-66. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/allaback/vc1.htm

(3) http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_pink.htm

(4) http://www.colormatters.com/body_pink.html

Photos: NPS

EARLY MORNING EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES QUARRY VISITOR CENTER AND DINOSAUR BONES

2011-04-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

At 4:47 AM Mountain Standard Time a 2.8 magnitude earthquake occurred in northeastern Utah. While not a powerful quake, the epicenter was shallow and only 4 miles south of Dinosaur National Monument. Two of the I-beams beams in the center of the north wall of the QVC failed and dropped onto the quarry face. About 40 percent of the roof and three roof I-beams also fell onto the quarry. Because it was before the start of the work day there were, thankfully, no injuries. However, with light of day preliminary examination of the quarry shows extensive damage to fossils, many of which probably cannot be repaired. April Fools!