This is a great place to take kids and and adults alike. After all, who doesn't love dinosaurs? This park in the Connecticut River Valley was discovered by accident during a construction dig and fortunately, preserved as a State Park for our enlightenemtn and viewing pleasure.

There are several trails with tracks around the park that are worth looking at. The main attraction, of course, is the dome shaped arboretum which houses a number of preserved dinosaur prints and has a bunch of instructional material on the geology of Connecticut and how these tracks were preserved. The video's are definately worth watching as well. They are filled with informational gems of the geological variety.

There are a number of different preserved dilophosaurus tracks here made by several different dinosaurs. There are four sites which can provide you with a wealth of information on this park: It's Wikipedia entry, the Connecticut DEP entry, Wesleyan University's Dinosaur State Park field trip page and the Official Site.

• Dinosaur State Park Wikipedia Entry
• Wesleyan University Dinosaur State Park Page
• CT DEP Official Dinosaur State Park Site
• Official Dinosaur State Park Site
  
  

Instead of repeating all that information here I put together a few pictures and a ditto I hope to hand out to students when I become a teacher. It asks a host of interesting things about Connecticut and makes sure you have a firm grasp on the basic message of Dinosaur State Park. Go to the park with these questions in mind and look for their answers. Of course, my answer key follows the questions here. If you want to learn about the CT River Valley and be able to know why many footprints are preserved in Dinosaur State Park but no bones are, read on.

Just remember the store in the arboretum is closed on Monday. That probably means that the exhibit is closed as well and only the trails are open to the public.You don't want to come here just for the trails. The arboretum is awesome.

Dinosaur State Park Worksheet

Geologic Time Walk:

• -1st thing you will see before entering the arboretum (dome)
• -Note the length of the Precambrian era (88% of Geologic time).
• -Mankind encompasses a small fraction of the Earth's history.
• -On a 24 hour scale we would have arrived just before midnight.

Questions to Answer:

[1] Our state has highlands in the east and west with a lower lying river valley in the middle (aka the Connecticut River Valley). Why does CT have the geology that it does?

[2] The surface of the earth is always changing. Even the continents are moving at the rate of fingernail growth (2" per year). Around 200 mya what latitude was Connecticut situated at and next to what present day landmass?

[3] How does the existence of the CT river valley support the idea of continental drift and plate tectonics?

[4] When we step into the sand at an ocean our prints are washed away. Why after millions of years are these footprints there? Hint: What conditions are required for the preservation of a dinosaur track? (give at least 4)

[5] The CT river valley in central Connecticut extends from New Haven (southern coast) all the way up into Massachusetts. The footprints tell us that dinosaurs permeated these lands millions of years ago. Why are there lots of footprints at Dinosaur state park but no bones of ancient dinosaurs? Hint: What conditions are required for bone preservation?

[6] In Geologic Terms, what is the Connecticut River Valley?

[7] What is the difference between a negative and positive print?

[8] Dinosaur means "terrible lizard". Why is this a misnomer?

[9] At one time some dinosaur experts thought the dinosaurs were slow, stocky, tail dragging beasts (like Godzilla). How do the track-prints at Dinosaur State park allow paleontologists to dispel with such theories?

[10] Why would some dinosaurs have slow reaction times?

[11] What type of rock is found in Dinosaur State Park? How old is it and how did it form?

PS: Don't forget to check out the Demonstration room and the full dinosaur skeleton with visible bones in its ribcage (its lunch!)!

Teacher's Answer Key:

[A1] Around 200 Millions of years ago the continents were all conjoined into a super continent called Pangaea. It slowly broke apart and the tension on the crust formed a rift valley in the center of Connecticut. Rift valley formation:

---Tensional forces stretch and thin the crust
--- Molten rock ascends from asthenosphere and initiates surface volcanism
--- As crust is pulled apart large slabs of rock sink generating a rift valley
--- This is how ocean basins and ridge systems are created.

[A2] Connecticut was located about 15 degrees north of the equator (tropical climate anyone?). It was adjacent to Western Africa (notice the fit) and the now forming Atlantic ocean was just a tiny sliver cutting partially between them.

[A3] Rift valley basins are found all the way from Nova Scotia to the Carolinas and similarly in corresponding West African areas.

[A4] Footprint preservation requires a number of conditions:

---Good track impressions are usually found near an ancient shore
---Right amount of moisture in the mud for softness without sloppiness.
---Right amount of clay in the mud to bond it together and maintain the shape.
---Right amount of sand or silt to give it substance and avoid later shrinkage.
--- Coating of Mica or Algae on surface which allows foot to lift cleanly (no mud).
---Brief drying time without significant weathering.
--- Covering of track gently with successive thin layers of mud and sediment.
---Sinking of area to allow for deep burial and lithification

Lithification is stone making: unconsolidated sediments are compacted (or cemented) into sedimentary rocks.

Pangaea the super continent broke and a rift valley formed in Central CT. The surrounding highlands were weathered and eroded sediments down into the river basin which contained water and this made for soft shores. The right conditions were met in certain areas that dinosaurs walked in and these tracks were allowed to briefly dry without disturbance. They were covered by sediments brought from weathering or rising water levels bringing mud. Surface fault eruptions continually reburied material in the rift valley which allowed for the sedimentation of the prints. They were then later found on a construction site in Connecticut.

P.S. These tracks were made by a dilophosaurus in case you forgot.

[A5] The processes that lead to good track preservation are harmful to bone preservation and vice versa. In other words, good conditions for one are poor conditions for the other. As the answer to question four entails, track print preservation requires slow covering with sedimentation. Good bone preservation required the opposite:

---Rapid burial under thick deposits (e.g. flash flood of a mountain stream)
--- This seals the bone from the atmosphere and slowing decay
--- Dissolved minerals seep into the bones & partially replace its organic tissues.

Thus, conditions for bone formation will not allow track prints to preserve. We could find bones in the CT river valley as it may have flooded and later been buried by surface fault eruptions but they should not be found in the same layer or coincident with track-prints.

[A6] A continental rift valley.

[A7] A positive print is the depression made by the dinosaur (the indentation). A negative print is the sediment that is pulled out from that print that makes the shape of the print.

[A8] Dinosaurs are reptiles, not lizards.

[A9] There are no tail indentations anywhere near the track prints. If these dinosaurs dragged their tails then we should see such indentations. Rather, dinosaurs did not walk like Godzilla, but leaned forward a bit with their tails in the air.

[A10] Reaction time depends on information being sent to our brain. It would take that information a lot longer to reach the brain of something a third the size of a football field than a human. The horned stegosaurus had the brain the size of a walnut. The herbivorous Brachiosaurus was humungous ( ate giant trees for lunch! ) but had the brain the size of a kitten and a real slow reaction time (maybe a minute). Thus it and most all dinosaurs could easily classify as big dumb dumbs.

[A11] The rock is of the east Berlin formation and is about 200 mya. It is sedimentary, being lithified sand and mud that most likely was deposited in the lakes of the river valley/rift valley to the weathering of the eastern and western highlands of Connecticut.

Each Foot along the 90 foot walkway represents

50 million years of Geologic Time!