Digging Those Dinosaurs on National Forests, Grasslands

From USDA:

Posted by Robert Westover, U.S. Forest Service, Office of Communication, on January 7, 2015 at 2:00 PM

Young people are made honorary junior paleontologists in the rotunda of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. (Courtesy The Smithsonian Institution)

When most folks think about our grand and beautiful national forests they probably don’t conjure up images of a fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex munching on his morning prey or a gentle Brachiosaurus chewing enough leaves to nearly fell a small forest just to fill her vegetarian stomach.

But millions of years ago this was exactly what was happening on lands that today comprise national forests and grasslands like the Thunder Basin National Grassland.

We know this because fossilized evidence is widespread on many acres managed by the agency. And, according to Forest Service paleontologist Mike Fracasso, lots of people visiting forests and grasslands want to take a piece of this fossilized history home for themselves.

“We generally don’t have an issue with the average visitor to a forest or grassland taking home a small sample or two of a common and abundant plant or animal fossil without a backbone,” said Fracasso.

Because it’s often all about that backbone.

Ancient animals that developed a vertebrae (or backbone) are rarer to find than plants or non-vertebrate animals and fossil bones that, at first glance look isolated, often lead to more complete skeletons. By collecting such fossil bones, a national forest visitor may be unwittingly destroying the fossilized evidence of a full dinosaur skeleton or worse, the only evidence of a creature new to science and yet to be discovered.

It is the job of paleontologists working for all federal land management agencies to educate visitors about the importance of what may or may not be collected from federal lands. To emphasize this educational importance, as well as to recruit young folks into the field of fossil hunting, the National Park Service and Smithsonian Institution sponsored a ceremony on National Fossil Day last fall to recognize a new crop of junior paleontologists.

“These young folks are enthusiastic ambassadors of awareness to the larger community,” said Fracasso. “They’re the ones that will be able to explain to their friends and family why they should be careful about what type of fossils to take off our national lands.”

Even small pieces may lead archeologists to great discoveries.

In Colorado, so many dinosaur fossils were being discovered in a quarry on the Comanche National Grassland that experts referred to the find as a “tossed salad of dinosaur parts.” In 2012, workers found the first Ceratosaurus tooth within the Picket Wire Canyonlands, best known for a huge dinosaur track site along the bank of Purgatoire River.

A Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth found by Barb Beasley during a 2012 Passport in Time excavation in the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation on the Custer National Forest in South Dakota.

That same year, Forest Service paleontologist Barbara Beasley was leading another crew of 20 volunteers when she found a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth on the Custer National Forest in South Dakota. The rare find is estimated to be 66 million years old.

On the Thunder Basin National Grassland in Wyoming, Passport in Time volunteers unearthed an intact nearly three-foot Triceratops horn.

Passport in Time is a Forest Service volunteer archaeology, paleontology, and historic preservation program. Through this program, students and volunteers get the opportunity to go in the field and work shoulder-to-shoulder with professional Forest Service archaeologists, paleontologists and historians on a wide variety of activities throughout the U.S.

A tooth from a meat-eating Ceratosaurus recovered from the River View Quarry in October 2012. (U.S. Forest Service Photo)

USDA-Funded Researchers Map the Loblolly Pine Genome

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Scott Elliott, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, on April 4, 2014 at 1:00 PM

During the month of April we will take a closer look at USDA’s Groundbreaking Research for a Revitalized Rural America, highlighting ways USDA researchers are improving the lives of Americans in ways you might never imagine, including research into trees that could fuel new energy solutions.

A team of researchers led by the University of California–Davis has mapped the complete genome of the loblolly pine. And if you don’t think that understanding the genetic makeup of loblolly pine is a big deal, perhaps you cannot see the forest for the trees.

Loblolly pine, the most commercially important tree in the United States, is the source of most paper products in this country and 58 percent of timber. On the surface, that might be reason enough for the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to invest $14.6 million in 2011 toward science that could increase the productivity and health of American forests.

Loblolly pine also looms large on the horizon as a feedstock for the next generation of American biofuel.  President Obama’s goal of reducing the United States’ dependency on foreign oil by 30 percent by the year 2030 will be met, in large part, by producing home-grown biofuel. According to Genome Biology, approximately 75 percent of that biofuel will have to come from non-grain, non-food sources called lignocellulosic biomass – and loblolly pine could be a major contributor to filling that need.

Mapping the loblolly genome, then, became an important part of the plan in terms of improving the health and sustainability of this important plant. But, mapping a genome is no easy task, and the loblolly pine proved to be the greatest challenge to date for this type of research. The loblolly genome is the largest ever sequenced and is about seven times larger than the human genome.

To sequence a genome, scientists must first examine the DNA of their subject and then “map” the location of each nucleotide (the “A, C, T, and G” bases) of the entire DNA chain. Scientists use this information to find the best traits, such as disease resistance, and develop better future generations.

The challenge of overcoming the sheer volume of loblolly data is a triumph of its own for the research team.  According to David Neal, team leader and professor of plant sciences at UC–Davis, the team could “read” the nucleotide letters, but only in short batches. The problem was putting together the 16 billion fragments in a way that would allow them to read the complete story of the loblolly pine.

Researchers met this task by employing a new technique developed at the University of Maryland.  Team members overlapped smaller sections of data to form larger chunks and then threw away the redundant information. The process eventually meant the computer had 100 times less sequence data to deal with. The success of this process may help speed up future genome-mapping projects.

The loblolly project team consisted of UC–Davis, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Indiana University–Bloomington, Texas A&M University, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, and Washington State University.

Their complete articles of this research were published in the March 2014 issues of GENETICS and Genome Biology.

Smokey Bear Pauses from Routine to Distribute Awards

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Smokey Bear, U.S. Forest Service, on August 26, 2013 at 12:45 PM

Hi there! Smokey Bear here. We all know that bears love to hang out in the forests, but as our Nation’s symbol for wildfire prevention, I don’t get to do that as much as I’d like. So I’m really excited to tell you about a trip I recently made to the woods of Pennsylvania.

I went to the Boy Scouts of America Camp Karoondinha to help present a Bronze Smokey Bear Award to Pennsylvania State fire wardens for their “Wardens Helping in Prevention” program.

Since 1968, the fire wardens have volunteered their time to make presentations at schools, malls, fairs, and other events as part of their firefighting duties. The fire wardens use a manual designed for all ages that focuses on basic leadership skills and includes Smokey Bear games and coloring sheets, public service announcements, and more.

This year, Forest Service Northeastern Area Deputy Director Jim Barresi went with me to present the award because my paws aren’t much good for holding statues. The Smokey Bear Awards are given annually to national, regional, and statewide groups for excellence in wildland fire prevention. My gold Smokey Bear statues are awarded to national programs, silver statues to regional programs, and bronze statues for statewide recognition. These awards are not given out lightly—those who receive them have put a lot of effort into their programs.

At the awards ceremony, I was thrilled to see more than 100 wildfire trainees in their orange vests with yellow stripes…some young and some pursuing a new chapter in their lives. They are the next generation of wildfire fighters and educators, and my heart was touched by their presence. Hope they invite me back soon!

Remember: Only YOU can prevent wildfires!

Northern Area State and Private Forestry Deputy Director Jim Barresi (second from left) presented the Bronze Smokey Award to the Wardens Helping in Prevention in Pennsylvania. With Barresi are (from left): Levi Gelnett, state fire prevention specialist, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (PA DCNR) Bureau of Forestry; Barresi; Dave Coder, Pennsylvania fire warden; Randy White, state fire supervisor, PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry; Dan Devlin, state forester, PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry; and Amy Griffith, District 7 forester, PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry.