Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 11
Dinosaurian Landscapes and
Evolutionary Traces
The Living Trace Fossil
We all live in a dinosaur trace fossil. It's not a trace fossil in the conventional sense,
like an ankylosaur trackway in Bolivia, a pro-sauropod nest in South Africa, tooth-
marksonabonefromCanada,orasauropodcoproliteinIndia.Norisitatracemade
by modern cryptic dinosaurs, which no doubt will be reported breathlessly by actors
playingscientistsonamade-for-TV“documentary.”It'snotsomethingmorehuman-
made, either, such as the worldwide cultural trace of dinosaurs related to their endur-
ingandmultigenerational popularity.Instead,thetracefossilisinfusedinthetotality
of terrestrial environments, what we sense from those environments, and even some
of the earth resources we use. Where we live and what we do today is all somehow
related to the former existence of Mesozoic dinosaurs and the continued presence of
Cenozoic dinosaurs, birds.
With regard to resources and a cultural presence of dinosaurs, in the 1960s I
grew up hearing the statement “Oil is made from dinosaurs.” Sinclair Oil Corpor-
ation encouraged this illusion by sponsoring dinosaur exhibits at the Chicago and
NewYorkWorld'sFairsin1933-34and1964-65respectively,inwhichtheyovertly
connected “dinosaurs” and “oil” in the public mind. (As a legacy of the 1964-65
Fair, statues of
Tyrannosaurus
and
Apatosaurus
constructed for it can still be seen
in Dinosaur Valley State Park, Texas, less than a kilometer from real Early Creta-
ceous theropod and sauropod tracks.) Sinclair even adopted a green
Brontosaurus
as
asymbolofitscompany,usingthislogoonservicestationsignsandinmagazineads,
while also selling plastic dinosaurs at their service stations. The plastic, of course,
