Dinosaurs In My Backyard: Smithsonian NMNH GeoTour Mystery Cache

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Smithsonian NMNH: Thanks to all who have enjoyed this geocache and tour

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Hidden : 4/2/2013
Difficulty:
4 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY GEOTOUR

NMNH GEOTOUR TO END DECEMBER 31, 2017

Passports must be received, and the required photo (for the geocoin) must be posted, on or before January 31, 2018. There is no guarantee that passports received after January 31, 2018 will be processed.
The NMNH GeoTour was launched April 2, 2013; and we’ve appreciated the support and positive feedback on the NMNH GeoTour from the Geocaching community. We have enjoyed reading your logs. We hope; and I believe we did, through the cache pages and puzzles, provided a different look into the National Museum of Natural History. We wish it could continue but that will not be possible. We wanted to let you know, at this time, so that if you wish to do the tour it should not be put off. As of Dec. 1, 2017; 80 geocoins remain to be awarded.

The National Museum of Natural History GeoTour, launched on April 2, 2013, consists of nine caches in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Caches need not be accomplished in any particular order; each can be treated and logged as a stand-alone cache. Geocachers must download passport, in which the code word(S) from each cache must be recorded. Each cache will take a greater time commitment than most caches due to the nature of the puzzles being a combination of web research and field puzzles. Some caches are in high traffic area and will be extremely difficult to retrieve without drawing attention. Be prepared to explain what you are doing to lots or passersby. If you intend to do all the caches in one time, it will serve you well to read each cache page and determine the various locations that information for each of the final cache locations must be gathered. Information may have to be gathered from the web (cache-specific sites are listed on the appropriate cache page), in the museum, on the individual cache pages, and in state parks or forests. Each of the nine caches will feature a department but it will be seen that in nature, the subjects of these caches are not so easily pigeon-holed. This cache features the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Paleobiology and Prince George's County Dinosaur Park.

The cache is not at the listed coordinates. There are two different ways to collect the data necessary to obtain the final coordinates.
1) Go to Waypoint 1 and visit the exhibit in the dinosaur halls or
2) Go to Dinosaurs in Our Backyard
Dinosaur Park south of Laurel, MD may be a great place to find dinosaur fossils, but it has other geologic points of interest too. Originally this area was mined for the bog iron and clay to use in the manufacture of fired bricks. Only during the mining of these materials were fossils first discovered here.

Geologists have named these clay deposits the Arundel Formation. The clay was deposited on the edge of the expanding Atlantic Ocean basin about 110 MYBP (million years before present) during a span of time called the Aptian, which lasted about 13 million years during the Early Cretaceous period. The Arundel Formation did not take 13 million years to deposit; deposition probably took less than one or two million years.

At that time the Atlantic Ocean was about half as wide as it is today. During Aptian time, this area was a broad flat plain crossed by streams carrying sediment which became the Arundel Formation. Today these rocks are being exposed for the first time in over 100 million years. When the Arundel Formation was being deposited, this area was similar to the present day coastal regions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Appalachian Mountains stood higher than they do today as they were not as worn down by erosion. There were however, no rivers here approaching the Mississippi in length or volume.

Then and Now The National Museum of Natural History web site Dinosaurs In Our Backyard where you will view artistic reconstructions of the plant and animals that have been found in the Arundel Clay and lived nearby at the time the clay was being deposited. Visiting the museum’s website is one way to obtain the final coordinates to this puzzle.

On this website, you can see how the world was quite different. Evidence of these differences is seen in the fossils preserved in the clay. If you visit the park at the appropriate date and time you will have the opportunity to prospect for fossils. The area surrounding the Dinosaur Park was, until a few years ago, a commercial clay pit. During mining of the clay many large logs and pieces of tree branches were exposed. This woody material has not been fossilized in the way one usually imagines when that term is used. The fossil trees remain woody, burning easily when dry but producing an acrid sulfurous smoke.

A variety of plants grew in this area at that time including the redwood conifer "Sequoia", Dioonites (cycad), Ginko (ginko), and Selaginella (a ground plant descendent of the giant lycopod scale trees that grew in the coal swamps 300 mybp during the Carboniferous), and others less common plants. Selaginella can still be found in the woods in the immediate area today. But the three other plants mentioned are no longer native to the area.

What we find today
The most commonly found bones are those of Maryland’s state dinosaur, the herbivorous Astrodon johnstoni, a small brachiosaurid. A second brachiosaur, Pleurocoelus is known from only a few bones.

A third herbivore Tenontosaurus, an ornithopod, is present but rare. Propanoplosaurus,a nodosaur . Carnivorous dinosaurs are represented by a few teeth, probably from a Dromaeosaur, a feathered theropod. The other carnivorous dinosaur, known from one tooth, is the archosaur Pricondon. Tracks of non-dinosaurian reptiles have also been reported and assigned to the ichno-genus Pteraichinus. This name indicates that the tracks have been interpreted as those of a pterosaur or flying reptile. Ichno fossils are trace fossils, such as footprints, feeding burrows, coprolites, nests etc. or in short, any evidence not directly part of the organism, which would indicate the presence of past life.

As you can see in the exhibit at the museum, the Arundel Formation has yielded no complete dinosaur skeletons. Why is this? For the most part, this is due to taphonomic processes. Taphonomy is the study of what happened to an organism from its death through the fossilization process. Most taphonomic processes are destructive and work strongly against preservation of complete skeletons. These processes include scavenging by other organisms, both large and small, transportation of bones by water or wind (if the bones are small), and weathering, among others. A human factor may account for this lack of articulated specimens, as well. During mining for bog iron or clay for bricks, fossils usually do not fare well; though without these human activities, we would know very little about the organisms that lived here in the Early Cretaceous.



To solve the puzzle in the museum, visit the exhibit “Dinosaurs in your Backyard.” This exhibit has been moved to the Second Floor's NW corner - see the red X in the floor plan above. On the Information labels next to the specimens there are specimen identification as well as a specimen number. Locate the specimen number that corresponds to the specimens indicated here as A – I.
Example the number 2013 would be represented as E2, H5, G1, I4. Use the 2nd digit in specimen number E, the 5th digit in specimen number H, the 1st digit in specimen number G, and the 4th digit in specimen number I.

North F2 I6° B4 G3. E1 H1 C4’ West H5 A4 D2° C1 I3. G1 F4 D5’
The checksum digit for the latitude is 2. The checksum digit for the longitude is 4

A) Arundelconodon hottoni
B) Ornithomimid shin bone and claw
C) Propanoplosaurus skeleton impression
D) Therapod toe bone (the smaller of the two numbers)
E) Pleurocoelus thigh bone from Adult and Juvenile (the smaller of the two numbers)
F) Crocodilian armor and tooth (the smaller of the two numbers)
G) Conifer cones and branch (the smaller of the two numbers)
H) Fern Cladophlebis constricta
I) Flowering plant Rogersia angustifolia

Web site coordinate puzzle: Dinosaurs In Our Backyard web solution – not the content of this cache page.
Latitude (A though G)

North AB° CD. EFG’ West HIJ° KL. MNO

A) How many types of obligatory herbivorous dinosaurs are pictured?
B) Number of types of non-dinosaurian reptiles figured X 3?
C) How many types of fossil birds have been found at the Maryland Dinosaur Park?
D) Mussels and snails are each preserved as an internal ____________. How many letters in the answer?
E) How many different obligatory carnivorous dinosaurs are pictured?
F) A+E
G) On how many continents did Ceratodus live during the Early Cretaceous?

Longitude (H through O)

H) L*0(number)
I) How many types of Mammals are pictured? + J
J) Even though no frogs have yet been found in local deposits, on how many continents have frogs from the Early Cretaceous been found?
K) Early_______ had begun to evolve by the end of the Cretaceous, but there was no _____ at all during most of the time of the dinosaurs. How many letters are there in the common name of this plant (Singular form) hint: answer is not fern?
L) How many types of large conifer trees were the most common in the Early Cretaceous?
M) How many types of possible omnivorous (could eat both meat and plants) dinosaurs are pictured?
N) O(letter)-J
O) Rare fossils, of one of the earliest flowering plants, have been found in the Arundel Formation. How many letters are in the name of this plant?

Checksum digit for the A through G = 2; Checksum digit for H through O is 4.

Additional information about the Maryland’s Dinosaur Park can be found by following the linksprovided.
Peter Kranz, who was one of the moving forces behind the establishment of this park, has a web site full of information based on his long interest in the area

The National Museum of Natural Histories Department of Paleobiology has produced several Dinosaurs In Our Back Yard podcasts that feature the Maryland Dinosaur Park.

Current information on times, programs, and group visits can be found here Maryland’s Dinosaur Park


This cache was placed with the approval of the MNCPPC. Thanks to Senior Park Ranger Christopher S. Garrett.

NMNH GEOTOUR GEOCOIN.
Critical requirements and rules for the award of the geocoin are here. The NMNH GeoTour Passport can be found here.

1) The Original 9 caches of the NMNH GeoTour must be completed.

2) Two (2) photographs are required. Posted with your found log. (This is not an ALR as you may log a find on these two caches without posting a picture. It is a requirement to be awarded a geocoin. In other words – no photos no coin but your found log will stand).
a. Photo of an adult at GC3RRWA "CINMAR" with the log book clearly next to the face. Do not expose the code word in the photo.
b. Photo of an adult at GC3T24J “Leave it to Beaver” with the log book clearly next to the face. Do not expose the code word in the photo.

3) A completed Passport with the required code words sent to the address listed on the Passport.

4) One (1) coin per household or mailing address. If there are multiple geocachers in a household who have completed the tour, only one (1) coin will be awarded to that address.

5) The passports that have been received prior to January 1, 2016 will be awarded one coin without having to meet item 1 above, and these rules were not in effect for the NMNH GeoTour at that time.

6) January 1 will be the date of publication of these requirements to earn the geocoin.



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