Dinosaur Find
DINOSAUR FIND(?) NEAR ARNOLD, MISSOURI
by David Menton Oct. 1987
A few weeks ago there were reports on local radio and television stations of the discovery of a “dinosaur fossil” at a construction site near Arnold, Missouri. I missed seeing this but my wife saw the report and described what appeared to be large “bones” from the leg, foot, skull, and vertebrae of a “dinosaur.” Not hearing any further of this remarkable discovery I recently visited the site to investigate the matter myself.
Since the site of the reported finding is near Mastodon State Park, I first went to talk with Ken Cole, the park ranger in charge of developing this Park. Ken has a degree in geology and was very cooperative with my interest despite his busy schedule.
Ken was apparently one of those who were interviewed on TV at the time of the report. Ken is VERY skeptical about the possibility of the “fossil” being a fossil at all, to say nothing of being a dinosaur.
Ken took me to see the site and I quite agree with him. The “bones” give no evidence of being fossil bones but rather appear to be curiously weathered blocks of limestone with only the most superficial resemblance to limb, vertebrae and skull bones.
Neither Ken nor I are expert in
dinosaur fossil identification but I noted that none of the presumed bones had any bilateral symmetry of the type normally encountered in at least skulls and vertebrae. I should add, that there are reports of dinosaur fossils in the “bootheel” of Missouri which are being studied by a geology professor at a local community college.
The man who first discovered the putative fossils is an amateur fossil hunter who lives in an apartment near the Arnold site. He has found many excellent fossils (real ones) of plants and marine invertebrates by simply kicking leaves aside in the woods after a good rain. His seeming confusion on the matter of the dinosaur bones is understandable as is the public interest in the matter.
What is particularly interesting is that there is a paleontologist from a museum in Springfield, Missouri who has looked at the stones(?) and believes they are really dinosaur fossils. He has taken samples to be tested to determine if they are fossils or not but has not reported back. I would be curious to know how this can be done other than morphologically. What ever they are, they appear to be entirely mineral at this point. I gather that thus far, no other paleontologist or geologist has examined these presumed fossil specimens.
There is a good reason why all of this is of interest to anyone familiar with a geological map of the State of Missouri. It seems that the southeastern three fourths of Missouri is Ordovician.
Evolutionists consider Ordovician strata to be about 500,000,000 years old and to contain only the oldest primitive land plants and vertebrates as well as numerous brachiopods, cephalopods, and trilobites (i.e., no dinosaurs and certainly no mammals.) It is surprising then to find a “Mastodon State Park” in such an area.
The park is being built on the site of the famous Kimswick Bone Bed and is named after the discovery of a mastodon with an arrow head imbedded in one of its fossilized bones(!) This fascinating “bone bed” is located in an old limestone quarry.
It was the discovery that first clearly established that modern man was a contemporary of the mastodons. This fossil mastodon is now in the British Museum in London. Fossilized human bones(!) were also found in the quarry along with the bones of many other mammals, all of whom have no business being in Ordovician strata.
Evolutionists insist that this was a relatively modern (ice age) backwash from glacial runoff and that men hunted the animals that sought refuge in this area. We may conclude that in our Missouri geological column we can find fossils of everything from human to trilobites, and that there is always a way to “explain” any fossil to keep it consistent with evolutionary dogma.