Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
of Knowledge Creek. This time we had plenty of daylight ahead of us, though, and
Mike's help as a geologist to double-check my field results.
This trip was well worth it, as we noted what might have been yet a third par-
tially preserved dinosaur burrow. It was shorter than the other two but almost the
same diameter and had a similar sandstone fill. This implied that all three had once
beenhollowstructuresandhadlikelybeenfilledbythesamesedimentaryprocesses
at the same time. Elsewhere on the outcrop, in strata above the supposed dinosaur
burrows, we also measured and otherwise documented dozens of invertebrate trace
fossils,allsmall-diameterburrows.Withonlythreeofusthere,weevenhadenough
time after my data collection to explore our gorgeous surroundings.
It was a magical experience, a sense of wonder evoked by walking on the
remains of polar rivers from more than 100 million years past, as waves from a
present-day sea churned violently against these same rocks just behind us. All pale-
ontologistswhohavedonefieldworkenduphavingfavoriteplaceswheretheyfeel
lucky to learn and realize something new about the history of our planet. Know-
ledge Creek had become one of mine.
OncebackintheU.S.,Ifinishedtherevisionsofthemanuscript,wrotearebut-
tal to the reviewer remarks that nearly eclipsed the length of the manuscript itself,
inserted a mention of a possible third burrow at the same site, and resubmitted it.
Gratifyingly, the editor accepted the paper the following week, which had the title
“Dinosaur Burrows in the Otway Group (Albian) of Victoria, Australia, and Their
Relation to Cretaceous Polar Environments.” Unexpectedly for me, though, the ac-
cepted manuscript was also posted online only a week after that, which meant that
science reporters began calling me, asking about these dinosaur burrows in Aus-
tralia, the oldest interpreted from the geologic record.
My university media folks and I scrambled to put together a press release, and
we used edited video footage from Knowledge Creek to accompany it as a sort of
modern-daynewsreel.Asofthiswriting,thevideohadthemostviewsofanyinthe
history of my university, and the press attention was flattering. So two places in the
