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example for my students of how one step forward in scientific investigations can
cause two steps back in public relations.
Perhaps the most important perspective gained from this last visit, though,
camewhenoneofmystudentslaterrelatedanepiphanyhehadwhilewestoodthere
on the walkway, looking at the tracks. At some point he realized, “Wait a minute.
There were dinosaurs
right here!
” With that stunning insight, he felt the primordial
and compelling power of dinosaur tracks, behavioral remnants showing us exactly
where dinosaurs had lived, breathed, walked, run, or swum, pulling us back into
those freeze-frame moments of time yet still leaving us with unanswered questions.
Was there a stampede? Who left the big tracks? Did they all go for a swim? What
else can we learn from Lark Quarry and its tracks as a place where dinosaurs were
right there and then? One thing is for certain, though: without these footprints there
would be no such questions, and our lives would be considerably duller.