A Dinosaur Graveyard in the Smithsonian's Backyard
At a new dinosaur park in Maryland, children and paleontologists alike have found fossils for a new Smithsonian exhibit
- By Abby Callard
- Smithsonian magazine, February 2010, Subscribe
Last november, at the recently opened Dinosaur Park south of Laurel, Maryland, the Block family went searching for fossils. Karin Block, the mother, asked the park’s resident paleontologist, Peter Kranz, for tips. He suggested looking for porous, spongy-looking stones.
No sooner did he say that than 9-year-old Gabrielle came across a curious thumbnail-sized object. She showed it to Kranz, who immediately pegged it as a 110-million-year-old bone, a vertebra from the tail of a small carnivorous dinosaur, possibly a raptor.
For the time being, the bone resides in a plastic bag that Kranz carries with him. But it will eventually make its way to the back halls of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. “Kids are really good at fossil-hunting because they don’t have preconceptions of what things are supposed to look like,” says Matthew Carrano, the museum’s curator of dinosaurs.
In the paleontology department’s warren-like offices and labs are drawers teeming with bone fragments, teeth and other fossils—many found in nearby Maryland. Some of the specimens (but not Gabrielle Block’s) will be featured in a museum exhibit opening in February, “Dinosaurs in Our Backyard.”
Dinosaurs thrived in what is now Maryland from the Late Triassic period to the Cretaceous, 228 million to 65 million years ago. The primordial landscape—tropical lowlands and a shallow sea—created ideal conditions for the preservation of animal and plant remains, which were buried beneath layers of clay and silt deposited by water flowing into the low-lying terrain.
Today Maryland is one of the richest fossil-hunting sites east of the Mississippi. The earliest recorded discovery was two teeth, found in 1858 near Beltsville by an agricultural chemist, Philip Tyson. He gave the fossils to a dentist named Christopher Johnston to investigate. After cutting into one, Johnston observed that the cross section resembled a star. He named the dinosaur Astrodon, or “star tooth.” Seven years later, the paleontologist Joseph Leidy would formally record the species as Astrodon johnstoni—a large, long-necked, plant-eating sauropod, like the Apatosaurus.
In the following decades, a veritable who’s who of paleontologists journeyed to Maryland, including O. C. Marsh of Yale University. His assistant, John Bell Hatcher, described his work in Muirkirk, Maryland, in an 1888 letter to Marsh: “The past week I have taken out about 200 teeth....In collecting what I have, I don’t think I have moved over a bushel basket-full of dirt.”
The most spectacular discovery was made in 1991. Arnold Norden and his two children visited the Cherokee Sanford clay pit near Muirkirk. After seeing what looked like a bone, Norden called the Smithsonian, which sent three researchers from the Natural History Museum’s paleobiology department. They uncovered the largest dinosaur bone found in the northeastern United States: a three-foot-long, 90-pound section of an Astrodon’s thigh.
Carrano is not anticipating many more spectacular finds. “We tend to get small, isolated bones,” he says—enough to help piece together the picture of local dinosaur species. Carrano attributes the shortage of large bones to the numerous ponds once in the area. The pools attracted predators and scavengers, which disposed of animals and their remains, and, what’s more, pond bacteria hastened bone decay.
Meanwhile, Gabrielle Block’s younger sister, Rachael, 7, is undeterred. She wants to return to the publically run dinosaur park and one-up her sibling: she’s determined to find a “complete dinosaur.”
Subscribe now for more of Smithsonian's coverage on history, science and nature.
Comments (6)
I have a question
I found what I think was a very good dino fossili took pics but I want to see if this is a fossil and what kind it is its about 15inches long had very good detail. Where do I send my pics I am in Md
Posted by bryant brooks on June 27,2011 | 09:38 PM
Palin never said Dinosaurs were running around a few thousand years ago or a few hundred years ago. She simply said she wasn't a strict Darwinist. Neither am I. God can use nature to make dinosaurs and people and planets and aliens and stars. If it takes billions of years, fine. If it takes a few thousand years, well, this is God, remember?
Enjoy your fossils and your dinosaurs. Skip all the strict Darwinist and strict Fundamentalist nonsense.
Posted by Black Sabbath on May 6,2010 | 09:57 AM
Have you seen the articles about the soft tissue samples from dinosaurs discovered in partially fossilized condition in sedimentary strata in Montana supposedly millions of years old? For obvious reasons, these discoveries are not much discussed, it's like a bad dream for the darwinists.
Cassius Dio reported that "the roman army led by Regulus encountered a dragon in North Africa (campaigning against Carthage), which was killed, and the skin was sent to the roman senate where its length was measured 120 feet, its girth commensurate to its length."
King Morvidus of Britain (circa 330 b.c.) was "gulped down by a dragon like a big fish consumes a small one," and there are many more accounts such as these, including in the book of Job, so it seems Sarah Palin is correct.
Posted by James I. Nienhuis on February 20,2010 | 09:59 AM
Edward and Margaret (and all other interested parties),
From the Maryland Dinosaur Homepage ( http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~gdouglas/ )
"The Dinosaur Park in Prince Georges County is open to the public the 1st & 3rd Sat. of the month 12-4 pm. After 1/1/10 groups may call (301) 627-7755 to schedule visits at other times . Currently there is no charge."
More information on this site and other Maryland fossil locations can be found on my site as well ( http://superoceras.blogspot.com/2009/12/maryland-dinosaurs.html )
Best
Posted by David Tana on February 18,2010 | 12:53 PM
I agree with the comments submitted by Ms. Lord. My grandchildren and I would love to explore the site.
Posted by Edward Greenberg on February 17,2010 | 04:01 PM
Why don't you include information on the location of Dinosaur Park, hours of opening, phone number, etc. and dates and location for the exhibit "Dinosaurs in our Backyard"?
Posted by Margaret Lord on February 4,2010 | 09:37 PM