Paleontology in Massachusetts
Paleontology in Massachusetts refers to
Prehistory
No
History
Indigenous interpretations
The local fossil
Scientific research
Among the earliest major fossil discoveries in Massachusetts occurred during the spring of 1802, when Pliny Moody uncovered a piece of reddish sandstone with bird-like three toed footprints while ploughing on his father's farm in South Hadley.[4] More fossil footprints were discovered a few decades later, in 1835. At the time, the town of Greenfield Massachusetts was laying paving when residents noticed footprints on the sandstone slabs that resembled those of turkeys. The rocks used in the project had been excavated at Turners Falls, and this location would turn out to be the most productive dinosaur tracksite in the Connecticut Valley.[5] Later that year, the fossil footprints discovered while paving in Greenfield were brought to the attention of local naturalist and physician James Deane, whose curiosity was piqued.[6] Deane wrote a letter to Amherst College geology professor Edward B. Hitchcock.[6] Hitchcock spent the rest of the summer traveling through the Connecticut Valley examining the fossil footprints.[7] The next year Hitchcock wrote a scientific paper on the fossil footprints of the Connecticut Valley; he thought the tracks were made by giant birds.[8] Later, in 1843, James Deane began publishing on the Connecticut Valley track fossils with a paper in the American Journal of Science.[8] In 1847 the ichnospecies Otozoum moodi was named after Pliny Moody.[4]
In the mid-nineteenth century came an
Massachusetts paleontology saw major events occur early in the twentieth century as well. In 1904, Richard Swann Lull published his first study of the Connecticut Valley fossil footprints.[15] Five years later Massachusetts paleontologist Mignon Talbot became the first woman elected to the Paleontological Society,[16] and during October of the next year, Mignon Talbot discovered a partial dinosaur skeleton in a gravel pit near the South Hadley Center belonging to John A. Boynton. The discovery has been called "the most prized specimen" in Mount Holyoke College's geological museum.[16] It has also been regarded as the last major find in the "Connecticut Valley 'bone rush'".[17] That December, Talbot gave a presentation to the Paleontological Society about her dinosaur discovery in South Hadley. She interpreted the skeleton as belonging to an herbivore.[18] The next year Mignon Talbot collaborated with Richard Swann Lull collaborated on a description for the recently discovered dinosaur at South Hadley. They corrected Talbot's previous misidentification of the specimen as an herbivore and reclassified it as a theropod. They named it Podokesaurus holyokensis.[18] Six years later, a fire consumed Williston Hall at Mount Holyoke College, destroying the bones of Podokesaurus holyokensis. However, casts previously taken of the bones survive in Yale's Peabody Museum and New York's American Museum of Natural History.[18]
Almost two decades later, Carlton S. Nash discovered Early Jurassic dinosaur footprints in Portland Formation rock near South Hadley, not far from Pliny Moody's early dinosaur discovery.[19] Around 1939 Nash bought the site of his 1933 dinosaur footprint discovery starting Nash Dinosaurland and selling dinosaur tracks to a worldwide market.[20]
People
Births
- Henry Nathaniel Andrews was born in 1910.
- Frank M. Carpenter was born in 1902.
- West Upton on September 26, 1912.
- Boston on 6 January, 1808.
- James Hall (paleontologist) was born in Hingham on September 12, 1811.
- David M. Raup was born in Boston in 1933.
- North Dighton on January 26, 1826.
- Samuel Wendell Williston was born in Boston on July 10, 1851.
Natural history museums
- Amherst College Museum of Natural History, Amherst
- Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield
- Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, Brewster
- Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge
- Marion Natural History Museum, Marion
- Museum of Science, Boston
- Natural Science Museum in Hinchman House, Maria Mitchell Association, Nantucket
Private and commercial enterprises
- Nash Dinosaurland[20]
Events
- East Coast Gem, Mineral & Fossil Show[21]
See also
- Paleontology in Connecticut
- Paleontology in New Hampshire
- Paleontology in New York
- Paleontology in Rhode Island
- Paleontology in Vermont
Footnotes
- ^ Murray (1974); "Massachusetts", page 156.
- ^ Springer and Scotchmoor (2010); "Paleontology and geology".
- ^ Mayor (2005); "Fossil Footprints", pages 47-48.
- ^ a b Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", page 58.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", pages 58-59.
- ^ a b Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", page 59.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", pages 59-60.
- ^ a b c Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", page 60.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "The East Coast Awakes", page 72.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "The East Coast Awakes", pages 72-73.
- ^ a b Weishampel and Young (1996); "The East Coast Awakes", page 73.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "The Great Institutions", page 79.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", page 61.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "Footprints in Stone", pages 60-61.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "More Early Footprints", page 61.
- ^ a b Weishampel and Young (1996); "The Dinosaur Lady", page 81.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "The Dinosaur Lady", pages 80-81.
- ^ a b c Weishampel and Young (1996); "The Dinosaur Lady", page 82.
- ^ Weishampel and Young (1996); "More Early Footprints", page 66.
- ^ a b Weishampel and Young (1996); "More Early Footprints", pages 66-68.
- ^ Garcia and Miller (1998); "Appendix B: Major Fossil Shows", page 195.
References
- Garcia; Frank A. Garcia; Donald S. Miller (1998). Discovering Fossils. Stackpole Books. pp. 212. ISBN 0811728005.
- Mayor, Adrienne. Fossil Legends of the First Americans. Princeton University Press. 2005. ISBN 0-691-11345-9.
- Murray, Marian (1974). Hunting for Fossils: A Guide to Finding and Collecting Fossils in All 50 States. Collier Books. p. 348. ISBN 9780020935506.
- Springer, Dale, Judy Scotchmoor. July 15, 2010. "Massachusetts, US." The Paleontology Portal. Accessed September 21, 2012.
- Weishampel, D.B. & L. Young. 1996. Dinosaurs of the East Coast. The Johns Hopkins University Press.