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DUCK-BILL DINOSAURS (HADROSAURIDAE, ORNITHISCHIA) FROM THE NORTH SLOPE OF ALASKA KYLE L. DAVIES Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, Balcones Research Center, 10100 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas 78758
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"HADROSAUR BONES have been found on the Colville  River north of Umiat on the North Slope of Alaska. This find represents the first report of dinosaur bones in Alaska and their northernmost reported occurrence."

 [. . . .]  "The hadrosaur bones were collected in 1961 by the late R. L. Liscomb while working for Shell Oil Company."     "Renewed research around the Colville River led
to the bones being sent to the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, where they were tentatively identified as hadrosaurian by C. Repenning."

 [Note: this "renewed research" must have been many years later, since Kylie L. Davies wrote to K.Schneider that];

"The real reason it took over twenty years for the bones to be identified at all is that the petroleum geologist who collected them tragically died up there in Alaska the following year.  The bones sat in dead storage at the oil company HQ in Houston for all those
years until finally someone reopened investigations in that area in the 1980s and the bones were sent to the USGS for identification."

 The statement about "renewed research" therefore was over
TWENTY YEARS later! i.e.;

[. . . .] "The FIRST paleontologist to see the bones  [presumably over twenty years later! lka] QUICKLY REALIZED that they were dinosaur, not mammal, [note: so  what does it matter whether they were Mammoth bones or  Bison bones - or both! lka]  and they were sent to Dr. Langston at the University of Texas for comfirmation of that identification. That was how I got to see and  work with them as Dr. Langston was my supervisor at the time."

 Notice here that Kylie L. Davies had said in her published article that; "they were TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED as hadrosaurian by C. Repenning." This is significantly
different from what she wrote to K.Schneider recently, about "quickly identified by the FIRST paleontologist to see the bones!" (my emphasis)

"All of the original bones collected were duck-bill dinosaur.  The other dinosaur types were only found by the quarry work done by Clemens and Gandalf starting in the mid to late 1980s."

 [. . . .] "The bones were found on the Colville River at approximately 70 deg. N, 151 deg. W (Figure 1), and the site was relocated in 1984 by two U.S. Geological Survey field parties (C. Repenning. personal commun.).  The site is easily accessible by float plane or helicopter, common means of transportation in the area,  and to deter possible vandalism it is felt best not to reveal the exact location of the site. Precise locality information is on file at TMM."

[. . . .] "The quality of preservation is remarkable.  The bones are stained a dark red brown but otherwise display little permineralization, crushing, or distortion."

Like to take a guess what "little permineralization" means? For bones that are claimed to be at least 65 million years old, that has to be remarkable indeed, doesn't it?

(p.198    Journal of Paleontology, v. 61, no.1, January 1987

0022-3360/87/0061-0198501.00)