DINOSAURS
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Introduction:
I have made this page in order to be able to infodump to the wider internet about one of my special interests: dinosaurs. I think my family is sick of hearing me talk about sauropod neck positioning and the fact that therapods (and really most dinosaurs) couldn't properly chew.
I will be doing my utmost to ensure that the information I present here is as accurate and up-to-date as possible, but I am imperfect and therefore cannot guarantee anything. Please do your own research and don't just take my word for it. I will be linking back to my sources throughout this page.
I would absolutely be a paleontologist if the work was just in academia, but the reality of that career path includes far too much digging in the desert for my liking, so learning about the world through deep time has become just a hobby for me. I took a class about paleontology in community college (still my favorite class that I have ever taken), but I was suddenly hit with the urge to revisit the subject, ergo the creation of this page.
Because I am just doing this for fun, it will likely be slow to update, but in the meantime, the PBS Eons YouTube channel is a great way to casually learn about paleontology.
I. Phylogenetic Stuff:
(wip; essentially either birds are reptiles or crocodilians aren't)
(I really wish I could find my notes from that paleontology class; they would literally be so helpful rn)
For now enjoy this massive phylogenetic tree.
II. Paleontology and its Drama:
II.1 Paleontology:
(wip)
II.2 Its Drama:
II.2.1 The Bone Wars:
I don't have anything for this section yet, but I do want to mention that I will be fully spelling out the name 'Othniel Charles Marsh' as much as humanly possible. I don't know why everyone abbreviates it when 'Othniel' is such a funny-sounding name.
I suppose I just spoiled what the drama is with that haha.
II.2.2 Modern Fossil Ownership:
(wip)
III. Dinosaurs in the Media:
(I will start working on this part as soon as I finish reading Jurassic Park.)
IV. Geology (so I can infodump about it too):
IV.1 Notable Quotes from my Hilarious 1897 Geology Textbook:
I found this textbook on the shelves of a local secondhand bookstore and it immediately intruiged me because it was published long before many of the core ideas of geology and paleontology had been firmly established. The author can be seen still defending Lamarckist ideas to some extent as well as being wildly incorrect about the source of mountain formation due to writing the book roughly half a century before continental drift was widely accepted by science. Even evidence for human evolution is met with heavy skepticism.
"Origin of Mountain Ranges- It is here assumed that the cause of the movements in mountain-making is the contraction of the cooling globe. Although that theory is not without difficulties, and is not universally accepted, it gives a far more satisfactory explanation of the facts than any other theory which has been proposed.
That contraction must be going on within the earth, follows from the high temperature which has been shown to exist there. Heat must escape to the surface by conduction, and there appears to be no internal source of heat which can make good the loss. Hence the earth's skin, like that of a drying and shriveling apple, comes to be continually too large for the shrinking interior." (pg. 207)
"Portions of skeletons referred to this era have been found in various countries of Europe. In many cases, however, the evidence of age is more or less dubious. Some of the skulls and other bones present features which are somewhat simian; but this is not true of all the supposed Paleolithic remains. The skull found at Engis in Belgium is pronounced by Huxley 'a fair average human skull'; and the same authority declares that 'the most pithecoid [monkey-like] of human crania yet discovered' (the skull found at Neanderthal in the Rhine valley) can in no sense 'be regarded as the remains of a being intermediate between Men and Apes.' The antiquity of neither of these famous relics is free from doubt." (pg. 436-437)
For some context, I found the following quotes humorous because they nonchalantly assume the antiquated notion that more complex organisms are inherently better than less complex organisms, with humanity being the pinnacle of all life on Earth, and that the purpose of biological life is to progress to more complex forms.
"The Reptiles of the Permian belonged mostly to the comparatively low order of Rhynochocephala. The more highly organized Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs did not come in till Mesozoic time. The Birds of the Jurassic, and some of those of the Cretaceous, still retained characteristics allying them to Reptiles. The Mammals of the Triassic were probably all Monotremes, and those of the Jurassic and the Cretaceous probably all Monotremes and Marsupials. The higher subclass of Placentals probably made its first appearance in the Eocene, and Man himself marks the culmination of all living nature in the Quaternary." (pg. 453)
"In some cases evolution has involved a degradation, so that relatively low forms have appeared later than allied forms of higher grade. The Ichthyosaurs, Reptiles degraded to fishlike form and habit, did not appear till the Triassic, although Reptiles of more normal structure were already in existence in the Permian. And, while the true Lizards appeared in the Jurassic, the Snakes, which are essentially Lizards that have suffered degradation in the loss of limbs, did not appear until late in the Cretaceous. So, among Mammals, although a number of the comparatively normal orders of Placentals were represented in the earliest Eocene, the Whales did not appear till later in the Eocene; and the Edentates, whose degraded character is shown in the imperfection of their teeth, did not appear till the Miocene." (pg. 455-456)
IV.2 Rock and Mineral Identification:
(I'm going to fill out this section more properly once I get my (current) geology textbook from the class I took last year out of my storage unit in August. Yes, I could Google it, but I like the way the textbook is laid out.)
Fun trick: you can drop some hydrochloric acid on a rock and if it fizzes, it has calcium carbonate in it (stuff like calcite and limestone). Please be safe with the acid. You won't believe the things people were allowed to do with it in my geology class haha.
Also if you lick a rock and it tastes like salt it is salt.
