Are You Sure That Enclosure Will Be Enough? New Dinosaur at MJC's Great Valley Museum!

I couldn't help but recall a certain famous movie opening: guys in hardhats unloading a dinosaur at a new park named after a geological time period...Cretaceous Park or something like that. Things went scarily wrong, and movie history was made.

Today's experience didn't end badly though, since the dinosaur in question was a plant-eating Parasaurolophus and it wasn't a living specimen. It was one of the final additions to the Great Valley Outdoor Nature Lab at the Great Valley Museum on the campus of Modesto Junior College.

The exhibit commemorates a little-known fact about our county: it was the site of the first reported discovery of dinosaurs in California. Back in 1936 17-year-old Al Bennison was exploring Del Puerto Canyon in the Coast Ranges along the western part of Stanislaus County looking for shell fossils when he found bones scattered on a slope. He showed them to his science teacher who reported them to the paleontologists at U.C. Berkeley. It proved to be the partial remains of a Saurolophus, which was one of the last dinosaurs that ever lived on our planet, one the last groups in existence when the gigantic asteroid hit the planet (or when the volcanoes blew, or whatever else did them in). They lived in the latest part of the Cretaceous Period, which is well represented by sedimentary rocks in our region. The rocks are marine in origin, which tend not to be good places to search for dinosaurs, but sometimes a carcass would float out to sea, as this one did.

The creatures were gigantic, on the order of thirty to forty feet long, weighing several tons (our model is a 1/2-sized replica at 16 feet long). They were plant-eaters, with teeth well-adapted to grinding twigs and leaves. Whether they swam or not has been a topic of discussion and debate. Some argue that they had few other defenses from predators, so that swimming was necessary to escape from being eaten. Others suggest that they lived in herds that provided protection. California designated a species of Saurolophus, Augustynolophus morrisi, as the state dinosaur in 2017.

For comparison purposes, here is what the Saurolophus looked like. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saurolophus

We thought it was important to put a dinosaur on display as we planned for the new Great Valley Outdoor Nature Lab. Dinosaurs certainly capture the imagination of our children (and not a few of our adults), and it is a good thing for our students to know that our county played an important part in the paleontological discoveries in our state. When students realize that one of their own (however long ago) made an important find, they also can visualize themselves as a paleontologist or geologist making important contributions to science. The concrete squares covered by orange tarps are mock paleontological digs where students can experience the sense of discovery that all paleontologists live for.

So why a Parasaurolophus, and not the Augustynolophus morrisi or other 'real' Saurolophus? That's easy: none of the marketers of dinosaur replicas offer any for sale, at least far as I could find. We figured that a similar species was better than none at all...

Trying hard not to be trampled to death 

What a great day for geological education in our county. I just hope the containment structure works! It just won't do to have wild dinosaurs running around on our campus...
 

Our Dinosaur is Here (More or Less). Stanislaus County's Secret is Soon to be Out!

Parasaurolophus

We are anxiously awaiting one of the last fixtures in our Great Valley Museum's Outdoor Nature Lab...our dinosaur! I hear that it is sitting in Receiving awaiting its placement near the paleontology mock dig. It's a scaled down version of the original creature, but will still be 16 feet long and 8 feet high. The model is a Parasaurolophus, which is serving as a stand-in for California's actual state dinosaur, the Augustynolophus morrisi. It turns out that our state dinosaur is rare enough that suppliers don't seem to offer them yet.

The Augustynolophus was a plant-eating dinosaur of the Hadrosaur family, the duck-billed dinosaurs. It has been found in Central California in the Late Cretaceous Moreno Formation, which is extensively exposed along the eastern margin of the Diablo Range, including Del Puerto Canyon in our county. The type specimens were found south of Stanislaus County, but fragmentary remains found in Del Puerto in 1936 are considered likely to be the same species. The 1936 discovery by teenager Allan Bennison was the first time dinosaur remains had ever been found in California. The Moreno Formation where the dinosaur remains were found was a marine environment, so the find could be considered unusual (dinosaurs were terrestrial creatures). What likely happened is that the animal was overwhelmed by a river flood off to the east where the Sierra Nevada is today, and the carcass floated out to sea where it finally sank to the bottom and was buried. Bennison found the bones, recognized their significance and reported them to his teacher in Gustine. The teacher notified paleontologists at U.C. Berkeley, and they eventually excavated 500 bone fragments, including 29 tail vertebrae and parts of the hind feet. The remains apparently reside in the University of California Museum of Paleontology (and wouldn't I love to get pictures one day!).

Augustynolophus Morrisi

The discovery site is on private land that is not accessible, but it can be viewed from the road in Del Puerto Canyon. It is perhaps very relevant to mention that plans are afoot to inundate the lower part of Del Puerto Canyon with a largely useless and possible dangerous reservoir, and the presence of this dam will make it more or less impossible to even see the location. It's a shame that one of the most important paleontology sites in California doesn't even merit a mention in the draft environmental impact report for Del Puerto dam.

There is time to have some impact on whether this dam is ever built. If you would like to be involved, please check out this Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/groups/463664377903706/?multi_permalinks=478825349720942&notif_id=1579883197857937&notif_t=group_activity. There are some important meetings of regulatory committees coming up, and the public comments period on the draft EIR ends on January 27.