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no little dinosaurs carne out of the
cggs ... in a few of the Mongolian
eggs .. . are traces of
fossilized embry-
onic
bone, and indication that devel–
opment had at least gone on for sorne
time beforc the hatchi ng of the eggs
was
JNTERRUPTED" (
DinOStlltrs,
Edwin
Colbcrt, pp.
216, 2l7).
What "interrupted" the hatchiog ?
The aoswer is vcry revealing and ex–
plains
how
the dinosaurs were ki lled.
Condrtions of Burial
BrieAy, let's notice the conditions
undcr which the dinosaur eggs of
Mongolia were preserved. One of the
actual discoverers wrote thi s interesting
account.
"Our real thrill came on the second
Jay, when George Olsen reported ...
that he was sure he had found fossil
eggs ....
''These eggs were in a
GREAT DEPOSIT
FULL OF DINOSAUR SKELETONS
and
containing, so far as we could discover,
no remains of other animals or of
birds ... the deposit was unbelievably
rich. Seventy-fivc skulls and skeletons
were discovered,
SOME OF THEM ABSO·
LUTELY
PERFECT.
Obviously the Flam–
ing Cliffs were a region of
great
concentra/ion
of dinosaurs during the
breeding season"
(On
the Trait of
Ancient iHan,
Roy Chapman Andrews,
pp.
228-231) .
How docs onc explain all this - on
the basis of slow evolutionary burial
over thousands of years?
Onc must account for severa! factors.
First, there was a
greal projusio11
of di–
nosaur bones here- as though another
one of those "local" catastrophes over–
whelmed thcm. The spccimens were in a
very fi ne state of preservation. The
words "absolutely perfcct" were used of
sorne of the bones. The burial must
have been
faid)
l'apid.
Then there is the problem of dino–
saur eggs. What stopped the embryo
from developing? A smali sandstorm
wouldn't. The large dinosaurs would
not have been trapped in such a storm.
Yet, a catastrophic burial and accom–
panying temperature change
WOULD
H
ALT
thc development of the embryo.
The only answer is obvious.
Rcmember, the author told us there
The
PLAIN TRUTH
was a
"great concentration
of d.ino–
saurs." Catastrophes of various dimen–
sions overwhelmed, killed and buried
the dinosaurs and the eggs. The em–
bryos ceased to devclop, most of the
eggs were smashcd - but a few being
already buried in sand, survived. They
survived as a witness that a catastrophe
indeed did occur in the region of
Mongolia as part of a worldwide pat–
tern of violence and destruction.
T he Remarkable Dinosau.r
Footp rints
Another intriguing type of dinosaur
fossil - if we can call it that - is the
footprint.
Such tracks are worldwide .in extent.
They are found in wcstern North
America and in New England. In the
lattcr, the tracks have been commercially
quarried and sold to tourists.
Dinosaur tracks are also found in
South America, especially Argentina.
England also has them. And so has Ba–
sutoland, down in the southern part of
Africa. In this out-of-the-way place, di–
nosaur tracks are quite abundant.
The dinosaur hunters have also found
tracks in such diverse places as Morocco,
Por tuga l and Australia. Canada has
not been neglected either. Dinosaur
footprints are also found in British
Columbia.
As is quite clear, dinosaur tracks are
rather common occurrences the world
over. What many of these tracks seem
to reveal is even more intriguing. Are
they giving us a glimpse of the fin al
moments in the lives of these great
beasts - just before they were ex–
tinguished by a worldwide catastrophe ?
Tracks Made in Water
Let's begin with the tracks in the
Glen Rose Formation near the towns of
Glen Rose and Bandera, Texas.
"These great tracks must have been
made
in
shallow water,"
says Edwin
Colbert, "for there are no traces of tai l
marks, whích means that the tail was
floating
instead of dragging on thc
ground. Yet, the water was not deep
enough to have reached the bellies of
the animals that made them" (
Dino–
sallrs,
Edwín Colbert, pp. 187, 188).
January,
1970
Next, Jet us skip to the Connecticut
Valley in New England. The thousands
of dinosaur tracks tell us a fascinating
story. They reveal the actívity of the di–
nosaurs in that omínous and distant
past.
"Most of the tracks and trackways
show us dinosaurs on
the move,
either
walking or running. Some of them
show that their makers carne to sudden
stops; sorne of them show how they
slipped
in
the mud.
"At least one set of tracks, of
Ano–
moep/IJ
show the dinosaur restíng with
all four feet and the belly on the
ground. Many of the footprints are su–
PERIMPOSED
UPON RJPPLE
MARKS,
showing that the dinosaurs wandered
across the mud Bats following the re–
treat of shallow waters; perhaps tidal
waters or perhaps high waters caused
by heavy rainstorms"
(Dinosa11rs,
Edwin Colbert, pp.
185, 187).
An amazing story indeed
!
What I t
All
Means
But what do we see here? Let's add
more factual material.
"Most dinosaur footpriots would
SEEM
to have been made on mud flats,
along the shores of lakes. The tracks are
commonly associated with
RJPPLE
.MARKS ANO RAINDROP IMPRES–
SJONS,
all preserved in stony immobil–
ity, yet in such vivid records of
waves
and storms
of the distant past there are
seldom bony remains to be found"
(
Dinosat~rs,
Edwin Colbert, pp.
181,
183).
Why are tracks commonly associated
with ripple marks, rain, waves, storms,
floods, mud ? Are these arcas former
lake bottoms-
oc
land inundated by
water due to a convulsing earth?
Other footprints were made across
surfaces broken into polygonal shapes
- indications of mud cracks made by
HEAT.
This heat- whatever its source
- would have baked the footprints into
stony immobility.
And why aren't tracks and bones
found together? Could intense heat have
cremated the dinosaurs and preserved
their footprints? Or was it because the
dinosaurs tbemselvcs were
FLOATED
and