Re: http://www.dinosaurextinction.com

[George Leonard <gl91bciiLt@earthlink.net>]

>New Jersey is also famous for its fabulous Cretaceous Amber,
>which is an excellent sources of insect fossils, including ants,
>wasps, beetles, midges (bloodsuckers), and moths.
>Life in Cretaceous lowlands (like NJ) must have been a living hell
>of insects. This is seldom mentioned in works on

Dear Gus, 

You made my day! It had been a pretty rough one until I got your post.

Now I picture Jersey! Your post's exactly what a novelist islooking for, 
that level of information. PLEASE, FOLKS, I'm not looking for your 
cutting edge research! It's a novel, I probably couldn't use it to begin 
with. Don't share anything you don't feel comfortable sharing. I just 
want to know, "When they're walking along, what do they see? Hear? 
Smell?" 

A novelist needs exactly what Gus gave me! Thank you, Gus. "Don't forget 
to mention...."

I'll remember to paint in the midges. I now know that there's gravel 
underfoot-- I can take it from there, the noise when you walk on it.  The 
world of the KT starts to come into focus. The Delaware River already 
exists. (Is it wider? Deeper?) You'd be surprised what a novelist can do 
with these facts. For instance, I know that the Oxygen content in the air 
is considerably higher than now. How do I stage that? (The birds take off 
more easily?)   

Make that Nyctosaurus crunching the gravel? Wings tucked? In a cloud of 
midges. But only if he's been found near there. It's fiction, but it's 
not fantasy: we start to SEE the KT. Like our esteemed illustrators, but 
prose can do sounds, smells, the oxygen, the bother of the insects.  

After two decades of the Dinosaur Revolution there are thousands of bits 
of unassembled information like that out there! 

 Gus-- thanks, man, perfect. 

Best to all the maiasaurs on their special day, 
George