Morrison Formation

  

  

S T E G O S A U R U S

Skull of the Stegosaurus, a Jurassic dinosaur with 

bony plates lined upright along the crest of its

back and ending with four menacing spikes

at the tip of its tail.  Its profile is iconic.

Its fossil remains populate a Jurassic layer

in western North America known as the 

Morrison Formation.  T. rex and Triceratops

are among the notable fossilized dinosaurs

discovered here.

 

M O R R I S O N       F O R M A T I O N

 This red layer over grey near Green River, Utah

shows the boundary between the Jurassic and 

Cretaceous Periods.  Jurassic is the red layer,

so the more recent Cretaceous would be deposited

above it.  The red is the Morrison Formation, a 

layer containing the fossils of over seventy species

of dinosaur from the Late Jurassic. 

J U R A S S I C - C R E T A C E O U S     F O S S I L S

 Each name on this map identifies a proven spot for

good fossil hunting.  Arid terrain.  Little water for

soil erosion and for encouraging plants to explore

all about with their intrusive roots.  The fossils

here have remained unmolested for over 60 million

years.  Compare that with an ancient Egyptian mummy,

barely a rookie at ten thousand years.

 

 

D I P L O D O C U S

 Standing on its hind legs keeps the throat

out of reach of these two attacking allosaurs.

The long whip of its tail delivers a supersonic

papercut to its target.  You don't know you're cut

until your top half slides off the half holding your legs.

After all, the Diplodocus did not grow to over a 

hundred feet by feeding all the neighborhood

with its flesh.

This is another Jurassic hall of famer found amidst

the Morrison Formation.

A L L O S A U R U S

 It looks like the T. rex skeleton.  Allosaurus

is an apex predator much like Tyrannosaurus.

They share the same basic design, but Allosaurus

lived 77 million years prior to T. rex.  We are 

closer to T. rex at 66 million years.  Either way.

it is all a stack of infinities in human terms. 

After all this time, the apex predator has changed

little in design.  T. rex is essentially a scaled up version

of the 70 million year old Allosaurus body plan.

It has upgrades but nothing radically new.

The DNA strategy here:

Don't fix what ain't broke.

T Y R A N N O S A U R U S

T. rex.  Nine ton maniac in the forest.

Smells your presence from a thousand feet,

and more.  Binocular eyes gives it sharp, 3-D

vision.  Its powerful forearms smother your

frantic efforts to break free, drawing you up

to its waiting mouth.  Sixty spike-like teeth

cut short your dying words.

 There is no empathy shown towards those

we delight in eating.

*   *   *   *   * 

©  Tom Taylor 

 

OVER   EASY

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