Event Details
A Prehistoric Safari to the American Southwest
Frank L. DeCourten, Professor of Earth Science, Sierra College
This lecture will explore the new discoveries and interpretation that are profoundly changing our views of the dinosaur assemblages that populated in the southwestern North America for more than 180 million years. The non-technical and profusely illustrated presentation will provide descriptions and renderings of recently identified dinosaurs, some of which are completely new to science. The first skeletons were unearthed in western North America in the late 1800s. Since that time, our knowledge of the great prehistoric reptiles has grown dramatically. Nonetheless, persistent gaps in the fossil record and the imperfect preservation of dinosaur remains has left considerable gaps in our understanding of the community structure, life habits, and patterns of evolution among the dinosaurs that populated the West during Mesozoic times. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a series of dramatic new discoveries were made in Utah and adjacent regions that have transformed our understanding of dinosaurs in the American Southwest and opened new vistas into the vanished world they occupied.