From: smullins@cidmac.ecn.purdue.edu (Scott H Mullins)
Subject: Re: Sauropods: Swimmers or Stompers?   Source Suggestions Solicited.
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:51:02 GMT

In article <2717@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>In article <csqj!b_@lynx.unm.edu), rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:
>) Some time ago, before he rode off into the sunset reading War and Peace
>) (I never did like Tolstoy; Solzhenitsyn is better, IMO) Mr. Holden had a post
>) concerning how sauropods who were once considered to be water dwellers
>) are now considered to be terrestrial beings.  I thought this was interesting
>) and have tried to do some reading (superficial, alas) on the subject.
> 
>) Now, my copy of _Dinosaurs of the Southwest_ by Ratkevich, published in
>) 1976, in discussing Sauropoda, says:
>) 	Once thought to have been the largest of the land vertebrates,
>) 	species of sauropods like Brachiosaurus,...are now considered to
>) 	have been completely, or almost completely, water animals.
>) 	Their tremendous weights...would surely have damaged vital body
>) 	structures had they ventured onto dry land for very long.
>) A nice full-page picture of a sauropod paddling merrily along follows.
> 
>) I have also been looking at _Dinosaur Tracks_, by Thulborn, 1990.
>) On page 172 of this book, the author mentions tracks found by a researcher
>) named Bird ('40s) who interpreted tracks he had found as being those of a
>) swimming sauropod, and again a floating sauropod is shown.  Mr. Thulborn
>) does not mention anything about how controversial this proposal of Bird is,
>) and indeed gives a reference to a paper by Ishigaki.  It looks like Mr. 
>) Thulborn is much more concerned in this book with methodology than
>) interpretation.
> 
>) So I looked up Ishigaki's paper in _Dinosaur Tracks and Traces_,
>) 1989, _Footprints of Swimming Sauropods from Morocco_, where he says
>) in the abstract that "This supports R. T. Bird's theory of sauropod
>) swimming ability."  And here I thought "Wow!  This blows Mr. Holden out of
>) the water (as it were)!  If the dinosaur is swimming you don't need
>) the felt effect of gravity."
>
>I still have one or two evenings a week for usenet; I simply  don't have time
>for reading pure bs, e.g. papers concerning ice cores, varves etc.

Why are you so proud of refusing to learn anything about what you criticize?
Your attitude is very puzzling to me.
  
>Your book is dated, the ideas in it long since disproved, other than for the
>rather obvious fact that sauropods could not, as your book stated, live
>on land TODAY IN OUR WORLD, GRAVITY BEING WHAT IT IS NOW.  That much ofwhat you read is indeed correct.  

How strange that you think a book published in 1976 makes research papers
presented in 1986 (the year of the conference for Ishigaki's paper)
outdated. Conference papers generally represent the leading edge of 
research and thought in a particular area (at least in _my_ area of
research they do). Books tend to lag a number of years behind. The book
you are citing was published in 1976 indicating that the research that it
cites was probably at least a year old and perhaps more.

This of course does not indicate which one might be correct; however, your 
criticism is not well founded on this point.

>Adrien Desmond's "Hot Blooded Dinosaurs" is the real book you need, and 
>does a pretty thorough job of destroying the notion of sauropods as water
>dwellers.The idea of using their long necks as snorkels while keeping much of
>their bodies submerged doesn't work for reasons Desmond gives.  There is the

[deletions]

>There you have it.  No happy answers.  The one notion obviously doesn't
>work, and the other obviously doesn't work either.  The only thing which
>does work is to understand that these creatures lived on land and, yet,
>did not experience gravity as we do.  The solar system was different,
>the world was different, and the entire nature of reality as experienced
>by earthbound creatures was different.

Oh absolutely. If there is disagreement on how the sauropod's lived that
would definately indicate that we should throw out the law of conservation
of angular momentum. Definately. Without question. The only way the giant
300,000 lb Bill "dino" Kazmeiers could roam the earth is if the felt
(or perhaps a nice poly-cotton blend) effect of gravity were less
during their lifting events thousands of years ago. :-)
(for those of you who do not follow TH's posts Ted recently proved that 
you could not scale a weightlifter up to 1,000 times their present size.
Not only could you not feed him at that size but the amount of chalk 
dust needed for their hands would be more than the sum total of all
the chalk used in all the schools all over the world. Fascinating stuff.)

>Again, books worth reading include Desmond's book, McGowen's "Dinosaurs,
>Sea Dragons, and Spitfires", and Talbott's "Saturn Myth".  The last book
>explains the nature of the antediluvian solar system to some extent.
>
>Ted HOlden
>HTE


Scott