Mesa Southwest Museum Symposium Report

["Jennifer R. Muncy" <jmuncy@dcn.davis.ca.us>]

Hello,
    I was lucky enough to attend this small but interesting meeting and not
only saw Tracy give his talk but several others. The morning was kind of
dinosaurs (some other stuff thrown in) and the afternoon talks were mammals,
the reason I was there was to assist my prof. with his talk on some evidence
of moose origins.

Tracy did a nice job of talking about possible reasons for the unusual
number of hadrosaurs and ankylosaurs preserved in marine environments, I'll
leave it to him to elaborate. There was also a sauropod talk, some idea on
gait and elbows swinging out during the stride. The one talk that was
unconventional (to me) but very cool was the different Native American
mythologies that may be efforts to explain fossils found in ancient times.
This included a very compelling photo of a Mongolian griffin and a
protoceratops skull, very neat and a nice distraction from mathematical
formulas.

Tracy and I went to lunch and talked about all of you :-) . . . Ok, not
really much about most of you. He also has the coolest pens and night lights
no less ( I bought two, I get REALLY lost in my home ;-).

Anyway, the best part of the whole thing was the intermittent "flood" that
runs through the museum display going off periodically and sounding like an
angry head of dinosaurs might have from a distance.

The museum itself is small but nice, I would suggest a closer look at the
feet of T. battar in the foyer, oddest set of digits I ever saw.

My prof. and I then spent the next day in pursuit of taking photos of many
antlers at a rather unsettling (my personal opinion, please do not write to
be about the joys of managed hunting, I choose not to listen) Safari Club
type museum and a trip to a zoo for Chinese Water Deer photos, and a few
kisses from a pair of rather tame tapirs. Then a long drive back to
California. Just got in and am going to bed. So, that is my report on the
event, anyone wants to more, I would be happy to respond off list.

Jennifer Muncy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>
To: "Dinonet (E-mail)" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 12:53 AM
Subject: Mesa Southwest Museum Symposium


> I hope to see those of you who can make it to the Mesa Southwest Symposium
> on Saturday. I've been going to it for at least 5 years and enjoy it. It's
> in Mesa Arizona (must be where the Mesa in the Mesa Southwest Museum comes
> from :) ).
>
> I'll be talking about the possibility that some dinosaurs were aquatic.
>
> Tracy L. Ford
> P. O. Box 1171
> Poway Ca  92074
>
>