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Expedition 27
Dinasours in Alabama
2005
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The University of Alabama Museum of Natural History Expedition
27 was held in Greene County, Alabama
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Lurking in the depths of the sun-streaked, murky water a pair of
cold, lidless eyes stare toward the surface watching for the next
victim. A 500-pound giant sea turtle swims past, oblivious to the
stalker. Suddenly, the 30-foot long, dark, shadow knifes upward,
its double-hinged jaws gaping open more than two times the diameter
of its pointed head. The turtle turns on its side and begins to
dive, but it is too late. The powerful jaws clamp shut, piercing
the shell with spear pointed teeth, and within seconds the struggle
is over.
More than 60 million years ago, much of Alabama was covered by a
shallow sea and the shoreline was covered with tropical vegetation.
Duckbilled dinosaurs ten to fifteen feet tall rooted around in the
soft mud searching for a happy meal while keeping a close lookout
for tyrannosaurus rex. Just a few miles south the seas were home
to the most ferocious, cold-blooded, aquatic reptile of the Cretaceous
time period – the mosasaur.
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| When dinosaurs died, their bodies
were usually lost to predators or decay. Sometimes one might
become covered by mud or silt and eventually preserved as
a fossil. It’s a rare occasion to find dinosaur remains
around here, but during the 150 million years that they roamed
on the earth, the Black Belt in south Alabama became a rich
source of fossils.
Museum Expedition 27 focused on exploring the Black Belt Region
of Greene County, Alabama in search of dinosaurs and Cretaceous
marine fossils. Under the guidance of paleontologist and field
scientist, James Lamb members of the expedition team roamed
the chalk gullies surveying fossilized remains. With each
fossil hunting outing , one can nearly always return with
a handful of finds; shark’s teeth, turtle bones, shells
and occasionally the most prized find are the fossilized remains
of mosasaurs.
Referred by some as the tyrannosaurus rex of the sea, the
mosasuar could grow to be more than fifty feet long and weigh
as much as fifteen tons. Most of those found in Alabama were
much smaller, but equally as fierce – they were the
ruler of the seas. If rex had ventured into the water, there
is no doubt that it would have had its hands full. Like other
meat eaters of that time period, the mosasaur was well equipped
with rows of teeth and once the jaws clamped down the prey
was likely not to wiggle free.
Although they lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, mosasaurs
are a different group of
reptiles. Paleontologists believe the ancestors of these marine
lizards may have once been on land and then returned to the
water, where their legs evolved into flippers. They swam with
snake-like lateral movements of their body. They had four
flippers that served as directional rudders and a powerful
tail used for propulsion. These lizards probably had good
eye sight but poor smell, and they lurked in shallow waters
waiting to ambush fish, sharks, turtles and even other mosasuars.
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