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Back in 1930, George Gaylord Simpson, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, collected some rare and fantastic reptile trackways in Alabama. The tracks were more than 300 million years old, but they disappeared, and were never seen again. Never, that is, until a present curator of the museum, Carl Mehling, looked at the book that Ron Buta and I wrote about the Alabama tracks, entitled "Footprints in Stone." He realized that the unlabeled crate of tracks he had found in a storeroom were the missing set from almost 90 years ago. A mystery from the last millennium: solved! I must confess that my contribution to this discovery was minimal: Ron did the historical research that went into the book.

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Walking for science!


Years ago I did this workshop, which I borrowed from another source that I have since forgotten, about tracks and track analysis. You roll out a long piece of paper on the floor (blank newsprint or unused plotter paper both work well — there are usually pretty long pieces at the ends of rolls that, for some reason or another, can't be used for their intended purposes) people step in tempera paint (which will not wash off clothing!) and then walk down the paper. Or run. Or hop. After all, animals don't always walk the same way either. Anyway, then you use a meter stick to measure foot length, pace, and stride. There's a pretty standard ratio in humans between foot length and leg length and because you have the actual legs handy, you can calculate it for the particular group. (It's a fun exercise to then use the number for dinosaurs and compare.) Then using some well-known formulas you can calculate walking speed and fun things like that. Kids always enjoy the first part of the project even if they don't necessarily enjoy the calculations. If they don't want to get paint on their feet they can wear gallon Ziploc bags with rubber bands holding them on. But come on, who doesn't want red or blue feet!

This is a fun activity with major implications for hunting, biology, and paleontology. Students of trace fossils, ichnologists, do this all the time.

If you want the guidebook I wrote for the activity, drop me a line and I'll send you a PDF email me at jopnquog at gmail.

Book signing today

So, the second signing for Footprints in Stone is tonight, at the Alabama Museum of Natural History at 6 PM. Come, if you can. I'm a little concerned because it is on the same weekend as the first home football game, and at the University of Alabama, football is the most important academic department there is. They close all the parking lots at  5 PM. They are going to let us and our millions of fans into one small parking lot behind the museum, but it will fill up fast. If anybody comes at all. So, if the good turnout I hope for comes to pass, people will have to hike over from a parking garage several blocks away. Maybe some of them will appreciate the opportunity for some exercise.

Invitation to a book signing and reception

More Pennsylvanian traces, Minkin site

Barnes and Noble in Tuscaloosa has signed copies of "Footprints in Stone," my book (with Ron Buta) about this great trace-fossil site.

Amphibian trackways (small, four-toed, forefeet)

Reptile trackways

Gas bubbles, large trackway (right), small trackway (middle)

New book about the site:

https://www.amazon.com/Footprints-Stone-Fossil-Coal-Age-Tetrapods/dp/0817358447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469578003&sr=8-1&keywords=kopaska-merkel

Alabama Paleontological Society meeting

I think about 25 people attended the lecture Ron Buta and I gave about Footprints in Stone, our new book about the Steven C Minkin Paleozoic Footprint site in north Alabama. Most members of the group know all about the site, but most had not yet seen the book, which only came out a week ago. We went through the history of the site, which was discovered in 1999 and preserved for posterity in 2005, and talked about the major players involved. We ended with a discussion of some of the unanswered questions, such as population dynamics of the organisms that made the common trace fossils (amphibian and reptile trackways, and trackways and Burrows made by invertebrates), and group behavior in vertebrates and (possibly) invertebrates, demonstrated by trace fossils from the site. Everybody seemed to be very interested and we all had a good time.