LOOK! DINOSAUR TRACKS!
Hitchcock Ichnology Collection
Beneski Museum of Natural History, Amherst College, Amherst, MA
(taken Aug. 17, 2013)
Several pictures I took while wandering around the Beneski Museum of Natural History. (more to come later!) These pictures are of slabs that caught my eye in the Hitchcock Ichnology Collection, which is basically a giant library of dinosaur tracks, although that’s quite a simplification. Technically it’s like…any tracks and/or traces of various things living during that time period.
The last picture shows the mechanics of the library. In addition to the slabs mounted on the walls, there are also a number of slabs on these metal structures which are on rails in the floor. Theoretically I think the metal things can move so that people can look at all the slabs without having to move giant heavy pieces around. But when I tried to move one, I wasn’t able to budge it, so they might have something in place to prevent random people moving the pieces. It’s also possible that I couldn’t move it because I’m a weakling, haha. I have very little upper body/arm strength thus moving giant rocks might be a bit difficult even when they’re on tracks.
From the website:
Ichnology is the study of tracks and traces. Over 1,100 individual slabs with numerous tracks and traces of early Jurassic (~200 million years ago) lifeforms comprise the Hitchcock Ichnology Collection. Edward Hitchcock amassed this collection beginning in 1835 from his own work in the sandstone deposits of the Connecticut Valley, as well as collecting efforts of people such as Dr. James Dean, Roswell Field and Dexter Marsh. Most famous are the dinosaur tracks, but equally common are smaller reptile and amphibian traces, and invertebrate trails.
