The UMNH team has been preparing for our colleague and friend's lecture in Salt Lake City this evening. Scott D. Sampson, paleontologist and UMNH research curator, is launching his new book, Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life, in Salt Lake City tonight! This public event kicks off of over six months of visits, lectures, signings, special appearances and more across the continent. Not the lost one, but the one we currently know as North America!
Reading through the first hundred pages of Scott's book -- and working on the communications materials for Scott's visit -- has been great fun because we can see how Scott's ideas, research topics, themes, and, quite frankly, passion that we know from working with him have come together into a new, bold, and very public forum. For Scott, it's not just about dinosaurs (although, he does love them!). It is about how we, the human species, can learn from dinosaurs -- the way they lived, the way they lived together, the ways in which they went extinct or evolved into species alive today -- a deeper understanding of our own intricate relationship with the natural world.
Scott and I have been conversing electronically over these past several weeks, and we'd like to bring you into the conversation:
JF: Scott, as a dinosaur paleontologist who often thinks in terms of millions of years of deep time, your work tends to unfold at a relatively slow pace. How is all that going for you these days?
SS: 2009 has been an action-packed year both for the study of dinosaurs and for me personally, with plenty of new discoveries and projects. Dinosaur Train, an animated kids show produced by the Jim Henson Company and now airing daily on PBS, premiered on Labor Day following an intense year of production. As the science advisor and on-air host of the series, "Dr. Scott", I have had great fun with this project, and those of us involved have been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response received both from children and parents. Two days before the show first aired, I had the pleasure of kicking off this national series for an audience of families right here in Salt Lake City at the Utah Museum of Natural History.
This month, my book, Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life, will finally be published, the culmination of several years of work.
JF: I am enjoying working my way through the opening pages of your book. Can you give us an overview of the story you've set out to tell?
SS: This book describes both the ancient world of dinosaurs and the present-day world of paleontology. It represents the first attempt to provide a general audience summary of the entire field of dinosaur paleontology in about a generation—a generation that has witnessed more discoveries of “new” dinosaurs than in all prior history combined. More important, at least from my perspective, the book utilizes these amazing creatures as a window into understanding not just the ancient Earth of the Mesozoic, but today’s changing world as well.
It is perhaps ironic that long-extinct animals like dinosaurs can inform our present-day situation, but that is exactly my contention. Dinosaurs lived in a hothouse world characterized by climates that far exceed the most dire present day climate predictions. They suffered the last major extinction endured by our biosphere, although we may now be in the middle of another such event. And, through their living descendants, the birds, dinosaurs help anchor us into the story of everything, from the Big Bang to us, a story that needs to be communicated today more than ever before.
JF: I can't believe that after, what 150 or so years, paleontologists are still discovering new dinosaurs! And, in listening to the UMNH paleo team, it seems that what we know about them, even how they are drawn or portrayed in museums, is changing!
SS: One of the key points I try to make in the book is that the body of scientific knowledge is always changing. This does not mean that all scientific ideas are tentative or prone to easy dismissal. But new findings are made all the time that cause us to re-evaluate long-held assumptions.
In the realm of dinosaur paleontology, Utah is an exemplar in the realm of shifting ideas. Research conducted over the past decade by our group from the University of Utah -- through the Utah Museum of Natural History and the Department of Geology and Geophysics -- has unearthed a previously unknown assemblage of dinosaurs, from ornate horned herbivores to giant tyrannosaur meat-eaters. Many of these beasts are so new that they have yet to be given names.
Most of these discoveries are being made in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah; this fall, UMNH crews working in a single quarry unearthed the nearly complete skull of a giant duck-billed dinosaur (to go with the skeleton found previously), the skull and partial skeleton of an huge armored dinosaur, a nearly complete turtle and crocodile, and some other strange bones that may turn out to belong to some sort of flying reptile.
JF: Where does the "lost continent" come into the story?
SS: Well, around 75 million years ago, near the end of the Cretaceous Period, these dinosaurs and many others lived on an island continent of sorts, formed by the flooding of the central region of North America, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. The marooned western landmass, today known as Laramidia, witnessed what is arguably the greatest known florescence of dinosaurs.
All of these finds and more are causing us to question some long held ideas about the world of dinosaurs. Why did so many different and wondrous varieties of dinosaurs evolve here? How were so many giants able to co-exist on a chunk of land less than one-fifth the size of present day North America? Why should we care about animals that disappeared so long ago? Those are the questions that I've started to address in my book, and, in my lectures will try to answer.
JF: You have been working with these themes and ideas over the past decade of your involvement with the Museum. Now that the book is released, what happens next?
SS: Well, in support of the book, I will be conducting a North American speaking tour that will include at least 15 cities in the US and Canada. I am very excited to be launching this tour in the same locale that the book found its origins - Salt Lake City, Utah! So, if folks want to learn more about Utah’s pivotal role in the world of dinosaur paleontology, please join us for the event or one that will happen in another city.
And we are, too! We hope you can join us with Scott this evening and continue to follow the development of his ideas and research in the months ahead! Event details, including location and times, can be found at www.umnh.utah.edu/dinos.
The UMNH Book Group will be discussion Dinosaur Odyssey both at the Museum and online in January 2010. Follow the blog or join our mailing list to be notified of details!
Scott D. Sampson is research curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History, adjunct associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah, author of several articles and books including Dinosaur Odyssey, scientific advisor and on-air host of Jim Henson's Dinosaur Train, and much more!
You can follow Scott's book tour and blog at www.scottsampson.net. And we'll check in on him from time to time on this blog as well!
