Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
However, this experiment also served as a reminder that for scientists to stay
authentic, we should never rest on our laurels, however hard-won those might be.
For example, the effort expended to make three trips and back from Atlanta, Ge-
orgia to Knowledge Creek in Victoria, Australia, and discovering and documenting
possible dinosaur burrows in Cretaceous rocks there, does not give me the inviol-
able right to omit the word “possible” when discussing them. After all, someday
someone with more knowledge, experience, technology, and luck than me may re-
investigate those strange structures and decide that, no, they are something else en-
tirely. On the other hand, someday someone somewhere else might find far better
examples of dinosaur burrows, and that dinosaurs we never expected to have bur-
rowed made them. (Still, I am not holding my breath about sauropods or tyranno-
saurs as probable burrow dwellers.)
Allofthiswouldbeperfectly fine,ahappycircumstance ofhowpaleontology,
like any science, progresses through the slaying of old ideas and the inclusion of
newer, better-tested ones. Burrowing dinosaurs are no different in this respect, but
thanks to ichnology, a previously obscure idea about dinosaurs is now there for us
to consider, poking its head out of the ground for a look around.
