The other thing about limstone is that it leads to karst topography -
sinkholes, caves, blue holes and such. In the park along the
creek is one such blue hole, where the cool underground waters
meet the warmer ones flowing along the creekbed. I'm not sure
how deep it is; we didn't venture a swim. Signage throughout the
park warned of the brain-eating amoeba which can enter through
the nose being in these waters. This did not stop a number of
hispanic families who were also enjoying the park from indulging
though. I felt a little bit silly defering to the advice of
likely overcautious park staff
rather than these locals, but did not let that distract us too
much from our scientific mission there.
According to Jasinski, trackways were not the first fossils to
interest farmers who came there in the 19th and early 20th
centuries. That honor goes to the abundant petrified wood in the
area, which was useful as a building material. Dinosaur
Highway includes several photos of these buildings, although
I did not notice any during our trip there.
The trackways attracted some attention from tourists and
theropod footprints where removed from the creekbed to sell for
a number of years until R. T. Bird from the American Museum of
Natural History came and realized what the locals thought of as
potholes where actual saurpod tracks - the first ever discovered!
Bird's work there in the late 1930s and early 1940s settled a
number controversies about the animals regarding their gait and
aquaticness.
The interesting thing is that the work was funded in part by
Sinclair Oil. Anyone who's driven around out West will
immediately recognize their trademark green dinosaur. In the
1950s the company build some giant dinosaur sculptures for the
World's Fair, touring them around the country afterward for
publicity. When Dinosaur Valley became a state park, a couple of
them were donated to the park to put on display. People found
them exciting in the mid-20th century, but today they just look
kinda lame standing in a field near the park entrance.
Jasinski also does not shy away from telling the tale of
creationists who assert & falsify human tracks in the same
Glen Rose Limestone where the dinosaur tracks are found. If you
visit the park you can't help but pass their large signs on the
road in. It is amazing how far people will bend evidence to suit
their beliefs. Alas, it is a facet of humanity none of us are
really immune from.
After the founding of the park, Jasinski relates how an old
friend of mine enters the story in 1980 to rekindle research on
dinosaur footprints. Okay, so I have never met James O. Farlow
in person, but his and M. K. Brett-Surman's The Complete
Dinosaur was my formal introduction to paleontology back in
1998. Nearly two decades later it is still a reference I keep
coming back to. Surely enough, when I picked it up again tonight,
there is plenty about the tracks in the Paluxy creekbed, including
a photo of Bird's excavation of sauorpod trackways.
Hopefully many others will follow in Jasinski's path writing
great local history.
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