Dinosaur Footprints!
Beth's Dinosaur Footprints
by Sharon Matis
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| Dr. Elizabeth Gierlowski Circa 1986 |
Now, some of you might know that Beth has her very own fossilized dinosaur footprint! If you haven’t seen it, it’s right over there in the back of the room!
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| Beth's dinosaur footprint |
Here’s the story of how she got it.
For graduate school, Beth was getting ready to study rock formations that started out as mud and sand layers at the bottom of prehistoric lakes. The particular rocks that she was going to study were in Connecticut….which is where I grew up!
At the beginning, she had to find out exactly where you can see outcrops of these rocks. Once she figured that out, we took a little trip back to Connecticut to see my parents. We all went out for our ride on a Sunday. My dad drove, and he took me, and my mom and Beth to go and try to find “her” rocks. The easiest place to see “her” rocks was at Dinosaur State Park! So that’s where we went first. The dinosaurs went to the lakes for water, they left footprints in the mud, and the footprints were preserved in the rocks. The park was very interesting because you can see a lot of dinosaur tracks that they’ve uncovered and they’re right near the surface! So we really enjoyed looking at that.
But that’s NOT where Beth got her dinosaur footprint!
When we were driving around looking for some of the other outcrops, we came to a big vacant area that looked like it was being bulldozed….maybe for a housing development or something. It was mostly dirt and big piles of dirt AND rocks (!) pushed together. Beth knew that this was an area where “her” rocks should be. So we all got out of the car to start looking around. It didn’t take long before one of us noticed a pretty big slab of rock near the bottom of one of these huge piles that had some strange sort of “lumps and bumps” on the surface…and they looked a LOT like the lumps and bumps--- that were from the dinosaur footprints---that we just saw---at the State Park! So after we stared at it from all possible angles, and were asking each other, “Do you think this is a dinosaur footprint??? I think this is a dinosaur footprint!” “Do you think this is a dinosaur footprint????? I think this is a dinosaur footprint!!!!!”, we finally agreed-- this must be “the real thing”!
By now, we were all excited about finding this! We looked around some more, but didn’t see anything else like it…maybe some rocks with a little piece of a dinosaur footprint. But that big rock had the whole footprint right on it! It was perfect! So we wondered… could we take it home??!! We didn’t see any signs saying “KEEP OUT”. Nobody else was around… it was a Sunday! Except… it was WAY too big for us to lift up. But Beth and my dad didn’t want to give up.
Being a good geologist, Beth had her trusty rock hammer with her. Between the two of them they figured out where they might be able to break off the piece of rock that had the footprint. It took a really long time…my mom and I mostly sat in the car to stay out of the sun. I think it took them at least an hour…maybe two! But finally, the piece was free, the footprint was still in perfect shape, and my dad could lift it up and get it into the trunk of the car! Success!
A pretty good haul for a first time reconnaissance trip, don’t you think???
And THAT’s the story of how Beth got her dinosaur footprint!
I just have one more thing to add: For me, this story also highlights Beth’s approach to life:
excitement about what she did,
good preparation to start,
learn new things as you go,
grab opportunities that come along,
friends helping each other,
patience to do the grunt work,
don’t give up
and…. finally…
enjoy your rewards!
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| "A three-toed dinosaur footprint. Note the impressions for the claws!" - Beth |
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"Here I am playing with limestones that were originally sediments
in a Jurassic wetland within a rift valley." - Beth
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| Elizabeth's Family on MyHeritage.com |
Beth also has a memorialized account
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