Like most kids I was fascinated by dinosaurs. Perhaps unlike most, I read everything I could about them, and prehistoric life in general (including an incredibly boring book about fossil shells). I dreamt of finding fossils like the the great dinosaur hunters of old, big time bone hunters such as Marsh and Cope; inspired no doubt by the birthday gift of the book, Men and Dinosaurs, by Edwin H. Cobert, from a family friend.
I found this on a dredge spoil pile in northern Delaware, along the Chesapeake and Delaware canal. Imagine looking for fossils in a file of sand, pebbles, and rocks. Now realize that the fossil shown here is rather small.
Really small. I found it in a sand and gravel pile. Think about that. Needle in a haystack? This was a pebble in a pebble pile.
The fellow leading the trip, Ned Gilmore, found one as well, and he thought these were the prizes of the trip. I'd have rather found a dinosaur. But Ned is the Paleontology Collections Manager at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, (or as my nephew likes to call it, "the Dinosaur Museum"). And if a guy who daily works with dinosaurs thinks this is a cool fossil who am I to argue?
It was a fun day. I got to dig in the dirt and look for fossils. I was a kid again. Yep, I'll definitely be signing up for the next trip. And who knows, the first complete dinosaur skeleton, Hadrosaurus foulkii, was found less then fifteen miles from where I sit, maybe I just will find that dinosaur.
3 comments:
Pretty cool find, Steve! You must have very good eyes!
~Julie
Fascinating - I love how you photographed it on a dime to show how small it is.
nice specimen! Good to read that C&D is still collectible.
Don in NC
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