THE ATLANTIC: What Fossils Alone Can’t Explain About Dinosaurs

Description

At the base of a pale hill in the badlands of northeastern Wyoming, Susie Maidment hits her hammer against stone. She breaks off a fist-size chunk, grabs a loose piece between her fingers, and places it on her tongue. “Silty,” she announces, as the sediment brushes the roof of her mouth.

...

She first visited this fruitful formation as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge in 2006, and has since returned five times to study fossil beds and sleuth out the Morrison’s ancient environmental history. “That’s going to be amazing information she can bring,” says Victoria Egerton, a paleontologist with positions at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the University of Manchester, and one of the lead organizers of the Mission Jurassic dig.