for an article in a major professional 

 journal. It is one example of the 

 museum's ongoing collaborative 

 research with universities and institu- 

 tions around the world. 



Exploration and research has been 

 stepped up in recent years, in part 

 prompted by public interest and 

 support. Schneider, a museum 

 volunteer for more than 16 years, 

 became the museum's first full-time 

 curator of paleontology about five 

 years ago. At the same time, Dale 

 Russell, a renowned dinosaur re- 

 searcher, accepted a joint position with 

 the museum and North Carolina State 

 University. 



The partnership offers new 

 possibilities for discovery and interpre- 

 tation of untapped natural treasures 

 beneath the state's expansive Coastal 

 Plain. Participants of museum-led field 



studies probe surface sediments rich in 

 Cretaceous deposits along the Cape 

 Fear, and other riverbeds, mines and 

 quarries that are abundant with marine 

 and river fossils. 



Importantly, the new museum 

 provides ample space for fossil 

 laboratories and collections. Until 

 recently, important finds often went to 

 other museums, including 

 Smithsonian's National Museum of 

 Natural History, where the first 

 dinosaur bones unearthed in North 

 Carolina in 1869 reside. 



Now, lightening, thunder and the 

 screeches of winged reptiles heighten 

 our sense of danger as we move deeper 

 along the Cretaceous path toward the 

 great fossil hall. Raptor-like dinosaurs 

 peer anxiously from mangrove ferns 

 into the "Terror of the South" exhibit. 



Suddenly, we encounter 



Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, the 

 museum's 1 10 million-year-old 

 predatory dinosaur, fully engaged in 

 an unmerciful attack on a towering 

 Pleurocoelus, a plant-eating sauropod. 

 The fearsome scene follows an actual 

 prehistoric attack "scripted" by 

 fossilized dinosaur footprints, 

 Schneider says. Casts of those prints 

 are incorporated in the scientifically 

 accurate recreation. 



"Aero," the most complete 

 specimen of its kind, was found in 

 Oklahoma and purchased for the 

 museum collection in 1997. The early 

 Cretaceous monster lived nearly 45 

 million years before Tyronnosaurus 

 rex., was the only giant North 

 American carnivore of its time, and 

 ranged across low, coastal plains 

 from Texas to Maryland. The "high- 

 spined" lizard is the centerpiece of 

 the museum's impressive collection 

 of dinosaurs that roamed North 

 Carolina's prehistoric coastal environ- 

 ments for millions of years. 



As we walk around and under the 

 awesome "Aero" and compare our 

 shoe size with the mighty prints, we 

 imagine the sudden cataclysmic force 

 that caused these giants to disappear 

 from Earth's horizon. 



C o n t i n u e a 



WILLO IS SAID TO BE THE MOST 

 COMPLETE THESCELOSAURUS EVER 

 FOUND. THE SMALL SWINE-LIKE 

 HERBIVORE WAS BURIED MILLIONS OF 

 YEARS AGO IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 





LATE CRETACEOUS PERIOD TERTIARY PERIOD 



QUATERNARY 



mi-' 





1 00 million 







50 million 









PRESENT 



!- 



CENOZOIC ERA (includes Paleocene, Eocene, Pliocene and Holocene Epochs) 



COASTWATCH 23 



