The great dinosaur bone beds of the American and Canadian West are world famous and have yielded spectacular fossil finds. But the eastern United States and maritime Canada, where dinosaurs also roamed in great numbers, have been equally important to the study of these extraordinary creatures. Some dinosaur fossils have come from the bog iron and clay pits of Maryland and New Jersey, while others have been discovered in the riverbanks of North and South Carolina. Dinosaur footprint sites have been found from central Virginia to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. In Dinosaurs of the East Coast, David Weishampel and Luther Young restore East Coast dinosaurs to their rightful place on the paleontological map. They describe such dinosaurs as the plant-eating Astrodon johnstoni, which browsed in a tropical Maryland jungle 100 million years ago; Anchisaurus polyzelus, which lived in New England some 200 million years ago; Eubrontes, the first large therapod on the East Coast; Pekinosaurus olseni, a primitive ornithischian found in North Carolina; and Hadrosaurus foulkii, a duck-billed dinosaur that lived in New Jersey some 70 million years ago. In addition, they chronicle the long and colorful history of dinosaur fossil hunting along the Atlantic coast and profile the modern-day fossil hunters-both professional paleontologists and amateur collecters-who continue to make important discoveries today. Richly illustrated with more than one hundred photographs and drawings, Dinosaurs of the East Coast combines science and history to offer a new look at an always fascinating subject.
A meticulous, well-structured and thoroughly referenced account of 200 years of activities... This book also serves as a field guide, complete with site maps, lists of museum displays, sources of information on sites and advice on fossil collecting. Much information has been drawn together to create a comprehensive reference source for eastern North America. -- Angela Milner Science Well-written and richly illustrated... [Weishampel and Young] have succeeded admirably in capturing both the importance and the romance of the little understood and barely touched 'lost world' that lies hidden beneath the verdant but secretive eastern American landscape... An indispensable reference for anyone interested in the prehistory of eastern North America and the dinosaurs that inhabited this part of the world. -- Robert E. Weems Quarterly Review of Biology [Weishampel and Young] have written a comprehensive guide to eastern dinosaurs. They review 200 years of fossil-hunting and point out that most sites have been exposed by human activities at quarries, tunnels, canals, and building and bridge foundations... The authors describe each species and its location; sites range from South Carolina to Nova Scotia, with New Jersey and Maryland the most productive. Since the 1960s, scientific collecting has revived on the East Coast, and the authors offer advice on where to look for fossils... An admirable textbook for readers seriously interested in dinosaurs. Publishers Weekly An enjoyable and stimulating study of a subject that has gotten little attention. Weishampel and Young present a wealth of information about the Eastern seaboard's scattered dinosaur fossils, the area's surprisingly common fossil footprints and tracks, and the collectors, both professional and amateur, who have discovered so much in an apparently unpromising region. -- John R. Alden Philadelphia Inquirer
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