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RMDRC News
 
 
February finds us scurrying to get ready for our annual trek to
Tucson, Arizona,
for the world’s largest gem, mineral and fossil show. This is an awesome
event that I whole-heartedly recommend everyone attend at least once.
However, if you do get the opportunity to go once, you’ll be hooked for
life. This show takes place over a
3 week
period beginning late
January each year and
encompasses over 30 hotels and
motels with vendors exhibiting
their wares in their sleeping rooms, the ballrooms and around the pools. It
also takes place in 2
convention centers, huge tents
(10, 15, 20 thousand square feet) in numerous parking lots and even street
corners. Tents and tables are erected on every available empty space.
There
are vendors from every
corner of the world with raw
minerals, meteorites, geodes as big as a person, gemstones piled in paper
plates and diamonds that are cut and set in fabulous findings of silver and
gold as well as sold loose for your own mounts and literally tons of beads.
Petrified wood slabs for tables and countertops, fossil stone sinks and
fountains are displayed alongside
Moroccan Mosasaurs,
Trilobites
and Spinosaur teeth.
You will find things here that you didn’t know existed and you will want to
buy it all!
In
2009,
Triebold Paleontology celebrates their
20th
anniversary.
We have been attending the Tucson show for as many years. During that time
we have exhibited our original and casts skeletons at 4 locations around the
city. Our first exhibit in 1989
was in our hotel room at the Pueblo Inn. In that room we only had room for
some small specimens like Mosasaur
and Xiphactinus
skulls. Since then we have graduated to the ballroom at the Inn Suites where
we have had complete skeletons
45 feet in length.
It is at this annual
event that we have met and made great business contacts with our customers
including Disney’s
Animal Kingdom. Museums send
representatives to the show and many of our skeletons were placed as a
result of those meetings. We have made lifelong friends and acquaintances
from around the world that we only see this one time a year so it’s kind of
a reunion of sorts.
Since the opening of
the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur
Resource Center, we have
become buyers at the show as well as sellers. Now the
RMDRC’s
gift store manager, Janelle Livingston, and I spend at least a week scouting
the entire show for new and unique items for the store. Each year we comb
through acres of Moroccan fossils, amber, turquoise, carved fossil ivory,
and gemstone jewelry until we almost go blind from the
BLING!
In order to make
room for all of the wonderful new items we will find this year, we are
having a Valentines special of
20% off all jewelry in the
RMDRC
gift store, Prehistoric Paradise. The sale is from
Feb. 1-14
and if you are a member, you can combine it with your
10%
member discount for a whopping
30% discount. Now is the time
to take advantage of this opportunity.
The
Cheyenne Mountain Zoomobile
will be here Saturday January 31st with some fun animals to help
us celebrate Ground Hog Day
a little early. They will be on hand from 1-3PM so bring the kids in for a
fun day. We look forward to seeing you soon at the
Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center.
Sincerely,
JJ Triebold
President, RMDRC
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From the Education Desk
Since
2009 will be the 200th
birthday of Charles Darwin and the
150th anniversary of the
publication
On
the Origin of Species, I
thought it would be appropriate to
talk about Darwin this month.
On the Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection,
was a groundbreaking scientific work
by British naturalist Charles
Darwin, and was published in England
on November 24, 1859. Darwin’s
theory argued that organisms
gradually evolve through a process
he called “natural selection”.
Darwin, who was influenced by the
work of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste
de Lamarck and the English economist
Thomas Mathus, acquired most of his
evidence for his theory during a
five year surveying expedition
aboard the HMS Beagle in the 1830s.
Visiting the Galapagos Islands and
New Zealand, he acquired a knowledge
of the flora, fauna, and geology of
many lands. This information, along
with his studies in variation and
interbreeding, helped to develop his
theory of organic evolution.
Although this theory had been
suggested by others earlier, it was
not until Darwin that science
presented a practical explanation of
evolution.
Darwin
had formulated his theory of natural
selection by 1844, but was reluctant
to reveal his thesis to the public
because it contradicted the biblical
account of creation.
In
1858, Alfred Russel Wallace
published a paper that essentially
summarized Darwin’s theory. Darwin
and Wallace gave a joint lecture on
evolution and Darwin released
On
the Origin of Species for
publication. It sold out
immediately. By the time of his
death in 1882, his theory of
evolution was generally accepted.
Even
though there had been modifications
in accepted evolutionary theory,
Darwin’s ideas remain central to the
field. In honor of his work,
he was buried in Westminster Abbey
beside other illustrious figures
from British history.
We do
hope you will be joining us at RMDRC
for the premier event on Saturday
April 4, 2009, with lecturer Dr.
John van Wyhe, renowned Darwin
scholar. Our Darwin exhibit will be
unveiled following the lecture and
will feature a collection of
Darwin’s First Editions, artifacts,
papers, letters and much more, (see
our website for details and ticket
information).
I
leave you with a quote from Charles
Darwin that says,
“It is not the strongest of the
species that survives, nor the most
intelligent that survives. It is
the one that is the most adaptable
to change”.
Regards,
Geri LeBold
Education Director
geri@rmdrc.com
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From the Business
Development Desk
Book your
school group today!
Don't forget about
our CAST Program
"Community and Students Together"
Registration Required Call 686-1820 x 104
Elementary School Days Cost: $7
Middle School Days Cost: $8
Feb. 25 - Craft & Fossil Day
April 15 - Dino Day
What a great place
to celebrate your birthday! For a small price children and adults get to
enjoy a party in the company of dinosaurs.
RMDRC Paleo Patch
Program meets all the requirements for the Girl Scouts Dinosaur badge, the
Jr. Girl Scout Try-It badge, and some requirements for Boy Scout badges.
Call and book your
Tour, Birthday Party or Paleo Patch today!
Contact us at 719-686-1820 x 104.
See you soon!
Business Development |
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From
Triebold Paleontology, Inc.
See you at the Tucson Show!
Tracie Bennitt
Sales
and Marketing
Triebold Paleontology, Inc.
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You may notice a few specimens are
gone from our displays, due to our yearly attendance of the Tucson Gem
and Mineral Show. Never fear though, they will return in February. In
the meantime we've added and returned a few specimens to the display,
including our in-situ mount of Dromaeosaurus albertensis in the
Dinosaur Room, and a brand new cast of Plesiosaurus hawkinsii in
the Marine Room. Plesiosaurus hawkinsii is a British plesiosaur
from the upper Jurassic period, which looks similar to the long necked
plesiosaur Elasmosaurus, though much smaller.
In the lab we have been working on
a number of projects, including the preparation of a spiny ammonite in
the hardest concretion I have ever experienced. Though not a dinosaur or
marine animal, this is still a very interesting specimen. Our assembly
of the Protostega is complete, and we will be painting and
crating it in the weeks to come. We are also ready to begin working on a
mounted Champsosaurus cast and a Pachycephalosaurus skull
as well. Things will be changing often in the lab, so come by and see
what progress we've made!
New Plesiosaurus
display in the Marine Room
Anthony Maltese
Curator, Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center
719.686.1820 x106
anthony@rmdrc.com |
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Prehistoric Paradise Store - NEW Arrivals
Visit the web site to send great gifts to all your family and friends.
Don't forget that Feb 1-14th is 20% off all our jewelry!
Click here to start your shopping experience!
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News links for February 2009
15 Evolutionary Gems” #3 – The origin of feathers
Examiner.com - USA
Although Archaeopteryx is commonly seen as the earliest known bird,
many suspected that it was better seen as a dinosaur, albeit one with
feathers. ...
Evolution Expert Comes to State Museum
Free Times -
Columbia,SC,USA
“They just haven’t done the work [and don’t] understand the fossil
record.
This is a field that is constantly changing with new discoveries; just
recently ...
Think pink: Galapagos' rosy lizard is new species
The Associated Press
Park rangers ignored the pink and black-striped reptiles after
accidentally
happening upon them in 1986. Some thought the stripes were just stains.
...
Oldest known turtle swam with just underbelly armour
Varsity -
Toronto,Ontario,Canada
... fossils in marine deposits in southwest China has “opened
up a new
chapter in the study of the origins and early history of these fascinating
reptiles. ...
Decline of carbon dioxide-gobbling plankton coincided with
ancient ...
Insciences
Organisation - Basel,Switzerland
"It's a pretty standard correction in some fields, but it hasn't been
applied to
planktonic paleontology up till now." More than 90 percent of known
diatom ...
How big Jurassic flying reptiles got off ground
The Associated Press
Habib's research — published in a German journal called Zitteliana -
combines paleontology and flight dynamics. James Cunningham, a
Collierville, Tenn.,
Scientist who discovered ‘SuperCroc' wins Andrews
Beloit Daily News -
Beloit,WI,USA
In 1987, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago,
where he teaches paleontology and evolution to graduate and
undergraduate students and human ...
Diversion becomes serious quest for new knowledge on extinct
...
University of Chicago
Chronicle - USA
When Levi-Setti resumed his Manuels River excavations during his
two-week stay, a Memorial University paleontology student provided
assistance, ...
CAT scans reveal how extinct animals behaved
Planet Earth -
Swindon,Wiltshire,UK
Dinosaur experts at the Natural
History Museum
have hit on a way to
estimate the sensory capabilities, such as hearing ability, of long-extinct
creatures. ...
Through DNA, breathing new life into museum
pieces:
From marsupials to manuscripts, researchers are
dusting off old specimens to learn their secrets
using genetics.
Mistaken Identity: Texas State Dinosaur Needs Name
Change
LiveScience.com - New
York,NY,USA
"I think it's going to be good for Texas paleontology and dinosaur
research in general," said Aaron Pan, the museum's curator of
science. ...
Fossil illuminates jaw evolution
BBC News - UK
By Tanya Syed It is one of the earliest known jawed fish in the
fossil record, a scientist from
Uppsala University, Sweden,
reports in the journal Nature. ...
Darwin's Evolution Darwin's life and his contribution to
science
Science News - USA
Geology was trapped in an ante-diluvian paradigm, psychology hadn’t
been
invented yet and biology still seemed, in several key ways, to be infused
with ...
Scientists Find a Missing Link
Popular Science - New
York,NY,USA
Scientists examining a news specimen of the dinosaur Beipiaosaurus
have found imprints of a proto-feather that looks like the missing link
between primitive ...
Dinosaur fossil reveals creature of a different feather
Science News - USA
By Sid Perkins Paleontologists have discovered a fossil partially
covered
with broad, unbranched filaments — a type of structure previously theorized
to ...
Birds 'used brainpower to survive extinction'
Times Online - UK
“Birdbrained is a dreadful misnomer," said Dr Angela Milner, of the
Natural History Museum in London. "It’s really quite an insult to birds
when you think ...
Dinosaurs might have died out
rapidly
Thaindian.com -
Bangkok,Bangkok,Thailand
London, January 20 (ANI): An analysis of fossils that were recently
found in the Arctic suggests that the dinosaurs might have died out
quickly, ... |
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