RE: Sauropods in wet versus dry environments... a tip of the hatto some past artists (Was Re. Lost Worlds)

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of Ray
Stanford
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 7:08 PM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Sauropods in wet versus dry environments... a tip of the hatto
some past artists (Was Re. Lost Worlds)

    I had said in the first post on this subject, "Of course, there may be a
preservational bias in all this..."

    Jeff Hecht responded, "It's not really a preservational bias -- it's a
bias in where the tracks could be made in the first place."

    Give me a break!!!

    If one doesn't think an even slightly grown-up sauropod would leave some
type of readable effect upon almost any type of ground on which it was
walking, one should go back to Tracking 1.1 (speaking only figuratively).
But some situations are just not conducive to preserving effects of that
walking, at least not in a form easily recognizable to humans.  So there is
a preservational bias, as well as a perceptional challenge.<<

Ok, take us through tracking 101 (now I'm being nic picky).  Sure even we
can leave tracks in dry sediment, but not all the time. What about the
modern equilvent, elephants? Do they always leave tracks? How deep the
tracks were laid is another thing. I doubt a sauropod would sink several
centimeters into the ground with each step it took.

    >>The term I used has been employed with precisely the same meaning in
many papers on paleoichnites which I have read, written by persons probably
far more experienced in describing this kind of thing in writing than is
Jeff, or am I.  Are they wrong, too?

     Personally, I tire of such nit picking (whether aimed at statements of
others, or at my own), and suspect I'm not alone in that feeling.  We see
too much of it on this list.  Writers should be careful.  Even if -- as is
probably the case here -- it is not intended as a personal put-down, others
might read it as evidence of a psychological ploy to boost one's own ego.<<

Spoken from experience? Come on Ray ease up here, I hope your not having a
bad day.

    Ray Stanford

Ok, educate us. How could a terrestrial, dry track be fossilized without it
being covered up by sediment from an aquatic force? (Had to think how to
write that one :) ).

I doubt Jeff Heckt (who is a writer) was being deliberately nit picking,
just stating that tracks need to be laid down, presumably a damp or wet
environment, the track hardened to some degree (I guess), then covered up by
sediment carried by water.

Have we missed something? I'm not being nic picky, just need to understand
ichnology better.

Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074