Recent Advances in Understanding Dinosaurs with Dr. Paul Olsen - Earth2Class 20 Feb 2021

Recent Advances in
Understanding
Dinosaurs
with Dr. Paul Olsen

Earth2Class 20 Feb 2021

Paul Olsen
• Is the current Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor
• Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Biology and Paleo Environment
• Paul earned his B.A., M. Phil., and Ed. From Yale University
• He developed an interest in Science during his childhood in Livingston, NJ

• In recent years my students and I have engaged in multidisciplinary
  projects including: drilling and recovering more than 20, 000 feet of core
  from Triassic lake deposits in New Jersey to understand the influence of
  variations of the earth's orbit on tropical climate, detailed analysis of the
  great mass extinction 200 million years ago that set the stage for the
  dominance of the dinosaurs, excavations at major fossil vertebrate sites
  throughout eastern North America and Morocco, and the evolutionary
  processes mediating global carbon cycling. My approach is to use
  whatever techniques are available to understand ancient earth's biological
  and physical systems, and consequently, students involved in these areas
  have used a broad range of disciplines including structural geology,
  palynology, geochemistry, geophysics and paleontology.

The Earliest Dinosaurs
                         http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/biodiversity/loe/page_121.htm

Humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist

 • Contrary to what you learned
   as a child
 • Sorry to destroy your
   childhood dreams

                                  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/612489618052730302/

But some children’s dreams of finding
 evidence of dinosaurs does come true
 • In 1970, two 14 year olds in
   Livingston NJ found footprints of
   Eubrontes giganteus. Tony Lessa
   and his friend, Paul Olsen, made
   this cast at what is now the Riker
   Hill Fossil site in Roseland, NJ,
   which they sent to President
   Richard Nixon as a “thank you”
   for presidential commendations
   they got for their work to save
   the site. . The site is now a
   National Natural Landmark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riker_Hill_Fossil_Site

Of course, this also
    means that you don’t
        really have to
       continue those
     nightmares you’ve
     had since 1993, or
     whenever you first
     saw Jurassic Park.
•   https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=jurassic+park&form=HDRSC2&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover

Today, we recognize two main groups of dinosaurs:
saurischians and ornithischians

                  https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/dinosy.htm

Earliest discoveries
• Robert Plot is credited with finding the first dinosaur bone, although
  he thought it was from a giant human (1677).
• William Buckland (Geology Professor Oxford) first named
  Megalosaurus bucklandi, but did not know it was a dinosaur, as the
  name had not yet been invented (1815).

• Mary Ann Mantell, wife of geologist Gideon Mantell, discovered
  bones that was named Iguanodon (1822).
• Sir Richard Owen named these organisms “dinosaurs” (1842).
               https://www.discovery.com/science/First-Dinosaur-Fossil-Name

• Meet Hadrosaurus, the NJ State Dinosaur
               • This plant-eater lived during the Cretaceous Period, probably in
NJ Dinosaurs     swamps and forests.
               • It was described in 1858 and was the first fully-mounted dinosaur.

NY (area) Dinosaurs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytosaur#/media/File:Smilosuchus-reconstructions-Jeff-Martz-600-px-tiny-Oct-2014-
Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg

The Bone Wars (“Great Dinosaur Rush”)
• In the late 19th Century, many fossils were discovered in the American
  West.
• Rival collectors--Edward Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences
  of Philadelphia) and Othniel Charles Marsh (of the Peabody Museum of
  Natural History at Yale)—ruthlessly collected specimens for their
  institutions, sometimes robbing and murdering rivals to be first on the
  scene in the “Bone Wars.”
• They obtained many specimens, but also destroyed many others, and their
  science was faulty, to say the least. Once Cope placed the head of a
  dinosaur on its tail.
• https://www.grunge.com/304625/the-crazy-story-of-the-bone-wars-
  explained/

Saurischian vs. Ornothischian dinosaurs
• During the Triassic, two major groups of dinosaurs separated.
• The ornithischians (‘bird-hipped’) included large herbivores that probably travelled in
  herds, such as Triceratops.
• The saurischians (‘lizard-hipped’) included predatory theropods, such as carnivorous T.
  rex.
• At the AMNH, they are now displayed in separate halls
• Hall of Ornithischian dinosaurs and
• Hall of Saurischian dinosaurs

AMNH
Dinosaurs
• Probably every NYC area school
  child and many foreign visitors to
  NYC has visited the 4th Floor of
  the American Museum of Natural
  History.

Examples of
Saurischians

Examples of
Ornithischians

• In the 1920, the AMNH
   dispatched an expedition under                                                            https://youtu.be/HDdqd8c_-
   the leadership of Roy Chapman                                                             hY
   Andrews to the Gobi desert to
                                                                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkrCK7hRgiI
   collect dinosaur fossils
         • http://fossilhistorypaige.com/201                                                 There are many                            https://www.amn
                                                                                                                                       h.org/explore/scie
           5/01/meet-the-naturalist-roy-                                                     other videos                              nce-
                                                                                                                                       topics/dinosaur-
           chapman-andrews/                                                                  available at                              discoveries

                                                                         http://fossilhistorypaige.com/2015/01/meet-the-naturalist-roy-chapman-andrews/
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/amon-fde061520.php

The Titanosaur

• In 2016, the AMNH erected a replica
  (because the original bones would be too
  heavy for the floors) of a Titanosaur that
  is so large its head and part of the neck
  stick out of the room into a hallway by
  the 77th St. elevators.
• https://youtu.be/nTIJc4j5F9c

What are not dinosaurs (but often thought of
as dinosaurs)?
• Ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs are not dinosaurs.
  •   https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrC5pno2ypgCW4AjgA0nIlQ?fr=yhs-trp-001&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-
      001&hspart=trp&type=Y61_F1_148993_122620&p=ichthyosaurs%2C+plesiosaurs+and+mosasaurs+are+not+dinosaurs.&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asp-qrw-corr-
      top&norw=1#id=6&vid=fcd7a87933c831a4e012e7aca1475391&action=view

• Pteranodon, pteranodactyls, and other ‘flying reptiles’ are not
  dinosaurs
• Mammoths and mastodons
• What are “living dinosaurs”? Birds?

                                                                       https://www.google.com/search?q=archeopteryx&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwj3hYXwt-zuAhWxSt8KHdxICPoQ2-
                                                                       cCegQIABAA&oq=archeopteryx&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADI
                                                                       CCAA6BQgAELEDOggIABCxAxCDAToECAAQQzoHCAAQsQMQQ1DShQFYsKQBYI2nAWgAcAB4AIAB5gGIAbQHkgEG
                                                                       MTEuMC4xmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=ObIqYLeFLLGV_QbckaHQDw&bih=380&biw=
                                                                       877&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS887US887#imgrc=FtCJsr6lOhca0M

Before hearing about recent advances in
understanding dinosaurs, we will take 5
minutes for your memories

Some additional videos to view on your own:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBQmTdElva
  s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIo7cG0Mt4s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIX_Pr9ufR8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFHNHBzM
  MF0
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoTwDfXZ6c
• https://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-
  perry/watch/new-science-shows-dinosaurs-had-
  feathers-463792195798
• https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/2/3105916/3
  d-printing-dinosaur-fossils-drexel-lacovara
• https://sites.rowan.edu/edelman-gift/fossil.html