RE: Clastic or Carbonate

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of James Farlow
> Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 8:26 AM
> To: acnorthrop@gmail.com; tholtz@umd.edu; 'Dinosaur Mailing List'
> Subject: RE: Clastic or Carbonate
> 
> If push comes to shove, though, take clastics if you are 
> interested in dinosaurs, other terrestrial vertebrates, and 
> land plants; and carbonates if you are interested in anything else.
> 
> 
> 
> I second Tom's recommendation, albeit with a minor proviso:  
> If per chance you are interested in dinosaur footprints, 
> carbonates might well be of interest.  A lot of very 
> important tracksites are in limestones, and knowing something 
> about said carbonates might be useful in interpreting what 
> the beasts might have been doing as they stomped around on 
> the mudflats.
> 
Good point!!

Plus, you have a better chance of a really nice field trip if your
carbonates course has a "modern depositional environments" component. (e.g.,
the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, the Caribbean, etc.) Okay, so you'd have to
poke around in smelly mangrove swamps, but you'd also get to snorkle.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/
Fax: 301-405-0796

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA