Here it is; my (borrowed) laptop isn't complying, so perhaps you
would be kind enough to forward it to DML on my behalf? Thank you!
Please forward the following message to everyone on the planet:
There are some unusual and very important dinosaur tracks at sites
along the western coast of the Dampier Peninsula, near Broome, in
Western Australia, and I've been pursuing research into them for more
than 20 years. One of those sites happens to be James Price Point,
which as you might know, is a place that's been earmarked for
industrial development to exploit natural gas reserves of the offshore
Browse Basin. The proposed development is a pet project of the WA
premier, Col Barnett, and it's being defiantly rejected by the
traditional land-owners who want to keep their country, and by
conservationists intent on defending the integrity of the Kimberley,
one of the few great wilderness areas remaining on the planet. The
situation is potentially explosive, with profound social and economic
consequences, and it just so happens that some dinosaur tracks lie at
the very centre of this whole sordid affair.
In 2009 I started supplying information about the dinosaur tracks to
both the State and Federal governments, in the hope of securing some
protection for all those truly important but sometimes endangered
sites along the Dampier coast, including James Price Point. As an
independent researcher, without affiliation to (or support from) any
of the concerned parties, I tried as far as possible to remain
completely impartial. In my estimation the track-sites are valuable
scientific resources, and I feel that they should be preserved intact.
Those views happen to coincide with those of the traditional
land-owners and conservationists. We are all heading in roughly the
same direction - preservation and conservation - but I'm occupying a
different seat on a different bus, and I'm definitely not part of
anyone else's campaign. Moreover I continue to insist that we could so
easily have a win-win outcome, by shifting the proposed industrial
development elsewhere, to existing facilities. But here I will leave
aside my personal opinions and get back to the science of dinosaur tracks.
The information I supplied proved to be of assistance to the
Australian National Heritage Council, and National Heritage listing
was approved in August 2010 for dinosaur track-sites along the entire
Dampier coast, including James Price Point.
Unfortunately heritage listing doesn't prohibit industrial
development: it requires only that developers proceed with appropriate
care (to "mitigate impact on the heritage values"). So, I've also been
supplying information about the dinosaur tracks to the WA EPA
(Environmental Protection Authority), which has been charged with
assessing (and approving, modifying or rejecting) the measures that
have been proposed to ensure protection of the dinosaur tracks and
other heritage values. There's a lot of money at stake - something
like $30 billion - and advancement of the Premier's pet project is
being delayed by the need to protect a few old dinosaur tracks. You
can imagine the scenario, which I described. in Nature News online in
May last year, in response to a hopelessly inaccurate news report by
J.M. Crow.
In sifting through my backlog of information on dinosaur tracks - in
order to provide information for the EPA - I discovered something
truly surprising. The bits and pieces of information I'd gathered over
the past 20 years suddenly clicked into place and released a pattern
that had been scratching at the back of my mind for some time. The
pattern was startling and unprecedented. So far as I'm aware, no one
had ever seen anything like it. My findings have now been published in
the open-access online journal PLoS ONE - doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0036208
PLoS is open-access, which seemed very appropriate, as I'd discovered
something that might affect a decision of national importance and to
me it seemed only fair that everyone should have the opportunity to
see the evidence for themselves. PLoS also offered the opportunity to
use lots of colour images.
So take a look. The whole rocky foreshore at James Price Point is an
ancient Cretaceous landscape, about 130 million years old, which has
been preserved more or less intact, much as the dinosaurs would have
seen it in their life-time. In places (though not precisely at the
point itself) there are even ancient soils, with stumps and roots of
plants still in place, undisturbed for 130 million years. (The details
have been destroyed by erosion, of course, but the overall picture is
still there - for those with eyes to see it.) But, most important, the
whole landscape has been remodelled by dinosaurs: it is marked with
enormous troughs and basins where the ground collapsed and buckled
beneath the incessant heavyweight traffic of sauropod dinosaurs
('brontosaurs'). It is literally unprecedented. I can't find anything
like it elsewhere in the world, and since it is unprecedented, no
other scientists noticed it - until I pointed it out to them. This
information went to the EPA when they were preparing their report and
recommendation, as did constant updates and, eventually, the published
paper.
I had my fingers crossed. If the rocky shore at James Price Point is
all one big coherent site, the developers can't really start drilling,
blasting and dredging for a deepwater port facility... can they? The
EPA said thanks for the report. Oh, and by the way, they planned to
import two dinosaur track specialists from the USA, just for a few
days, to give them an independent assessment of the James Price Point
site. Yes, of course, I said. No worries. I even helped with some
advice about the persons best-qualified to do the job for them.
The EPA Report came out on Monday, 16^th July. It's about 1,650 pages
long, of arguable legality (as explained in the news media), and there
are 14 days allowed for appeal (if you're sufficiently adept at
speed-reading). Here's what it says about my paper in PLoS ONE:
Section 3.7 Heritage. Description (p. 129)... "A recent publication
illustrates the impact of dinosaurs on the form of present day rock
surfaces in the area (Thulborn, 2012)."
That's it. In total. It's not exactly what I would call a graphic
description. The EPA report goes on to maintain that the dinosaur
tracks are few, poor, patchy in distribution and cites (with approval)
a few papers to that effect - papers which I had previously shown them
to be incorrect, and even one which transpired to be a "desk-top
study" (i.e. nobody actually visited the site).
There was an even greater surprise: the two specialists who were going
to provide an independent assessment for the EPA had suddenly evolved
into four (with support from a fifth, incorporated locally). The "few
days" of study had expanded into a few weeks. And instead of examining
James Price Point, this research team was actually gathering data from
dinosaur track-sites as far as 80 km (50 miles away)... and PUBLISHING
their studies of the dinosaur tracks in the EPA Report, with the
generous assistance and support of the WA Government. In short, masses
of my research data (hundreds of slides and photos, aerial photos,
charts and maps, lots of measurements, casts and replicas, even a
complete manuscript which had been reviewed and accepted... but which
I'd withdrawn temporarily to free up some more time), all accumulated
over the past 20 years, had now been pre-empted and rendered next to
worthless. I asked the EPA what the [bleep] was going on here, but I
haven't yet received a reply.
But I think you can see for yourself what's happened. The WA premier
insisted repeatedly that any decisions about his pet project at James
Price Point would be based on science, nothing but science. [As I
write this, the Australian Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, is chanting the
very same mantra for the benefit of the news media, just to reassure
the public. But the federal decision-making process has yet come.]
And, being sufficiently gullible to believe that a decision would be
based on science, and only science, I spent an awful lot of time and
effort feeding the best available information to the WA State
Government, even at cost to my own research. Alas, it wasn't the
/right/ science. It didn't fit with the premier's pet project. So it
was put aside, and the WA Government imported some more compliant
retailers of science, gave them all the facilities they required to
produce the desired results... and there we go. And, of course, I have
no legal redress. The gurgling noise you hear in the background is
20-odd years of my research dribbling down the plug-hole. No matter,
we must take these things philosophically.
I'm not into conspiracy theory, but I can't help wondering. It wasn't
NECESSARY for the imported team to actually PUBLISH their findings in
the EPA report. All they had to do was confirm or deny what I'd
already told the EPA. In rushing ahead to publish their own study,
they achieved nothing extra... beyond gaining a bit of credit for
themselves (and incidentally pre-empting and destroying my work - just
collateral damage). But, you know, there are some longstanding rumours
about the premier of WA exacting retribution on those who obstructed
his plans in the past... No. I can't be so uncharitable as to
suspect... Couldn't be payback for daring to obstruct his pet project?
No, surely not. Anyway, none of my colleagues would ever agree to
participate in such an evil and dastardly plot.
Of course, that's not quite the end. One perplexing fact had been
troubling me ever since May 25^th , when my article appeared in PLoS
ONE, but the answer arrived on Monday in the form of that EPA report.
It suddenly became clear that my revelations in PLoS ONE were
potentially dangerous to the WA Government: if my findings leaked out,
God forbid, and the public got hold of that news... people might start
wondering if there really IS no reason to worry about the destruction
of James Price Point. But if you have determined politicians, lots of
money and a bunch of heavyweight corporations (Woodside, Chevron,
Shell, BP, Mitsubishi... it's a long list) all itching to get at all
those lovely mineral resources, you can stifle any undesirable
information and keep it out of the media. So my unprecedented
discovery of enormous dinosaurian trace fossils at a site of national
economic importance got a mention on local radio, then promptly died.
No national broadcaster will touch it. One optimistic journalist
interviewed me and wrote it up, only to see his story spiked by the
editor of a national daily. It "didn't get a run".
So nobody knows. The public is reputed to have an insatiable appetite
for all things dinosaurian, but they are being kept in the dark about
this story. I discovered the biggest dinosaurian trace fossils on
Earth, and nobody wants to know about it.
Let me make it clear that I am NOT grumbling and crying about some
nasty people who made off with "my" research area, or about the
less-than-forthright responses from the WA government. Nobody "owns"
any areas or fields of science. There's a vast amount of research
material out there along the Dampier coast, and I'm happy to work
co-operatively with anyone, providing that they are competent and
honest). I happen to work slowly and carefully, in the belief that one
good trustworthy scientific paper is worth 20 quick-fire superficial
ones strewn with error. Others may disagree. There is no such thing as
"too slow" or "too fast" in research: all that matters is the result,
however long it takes.
No, my point is this: I have just witnessed (and described for you)
the manufacture of science. And that is bad news for everyone on this
planet. Instead of moulding the decision about James Price Point to
fit the scientific evidence (as promised in public), the State
Government of Western Australia has manipulated the science to fit a
decision that was already settled. They stifled the science they
didn't like (mine, in PLoS ONE), and spent a lot of money to obtain,
and publish for themselves, the science they wanted. In other words,
the decisions are made beforehand, and the science is manufactured to
fit (and apparently "justify") the decisions.
Both lots of science are presented to the public in the EPA report, so
everyone can see for themselves that the WA Government is being open,
honest, impartial and even-handed. My interpretation of James Price
Point (PLoS ONE) is presented in less than 20 words about 'rock
surfaces'. Their own (hastily purchased) version of the science is
more than 120 pages long, in glorious technicolour. That presentation
is, perhaps, a wee bit lop-sided. So let me redress the imbalance a
little and amplify that remark about 'rock surfaces': my paper in PLoS
ONE says "James Price Point may be the only site on Earth where one
may gaze out over an Early Cretaceous landscape that has been
extensively reshaped by the everyday comings and goings of sauropod
dinosaurs."
I'm not questioning the validity, veracity or quality of the science.
And I have no doubts about the integrity of those who produced it. My
concern is that the science has been manipulated and moulded to fit
certain political requirements.
And that means we are getting into trouble. Because once powerful
political and business leaders begin to manipulate the science to fit
their requirements, there are no limits.
We end up with Lysenko, or Auschwitz, or ... who knows?
Back to the swamp [or is it a gulag?]
Tony Thulborn
Thulborn T (2012) Impact of Sauropod Dinosaurs on Lagoonal Substrates
in the Broome Sandstone (Lower Cretaceous), Western Australia. PLoS
ONE 7(5): e36208.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036208