1. Professor, Student, Land Big Dinosaur Evidence
The Colorado College Bulletin, March 2005
By Jennifer Kulier
You are what you eat and drink, geochemically speaking.
The same goes for dinosaurs.
Geology Professor Henry Fricke and his CC students are putting into practice that well-used
dictum and uncovering important information about the way dinosaurs lived and moved through
the landscape 65 to 75 million years ago.
Every summer, Fricke takes five or six students — a combination of first-years, sophomores,
juniors, and seniors — to locations in North Dakota, Utah, or Montana to collect fossilized
remains of dinosaurs that lived near an ancient seaway that ran from Mexico to Alaska.
The research they do takes advantage of the fact that the carbon chemistry of a plant is different
depending on local conditions — arid or wet climate, dense forest canopy or open grassland. The
chemical makeup of oxygen in river and lake water also varies. Thus, when a dinosaur ate the
local vegetation and drank the water, their special chemistry was passed on in the animal’s tooth
enamel, leaving a geochemical record from which researchers can infer what the dinosaurs were
eating and drinking.
Fricke and the students grind the enamel off the dinosaur teeth, send it off to a lab for chemical
analysis, and then interpret the data.
The geochemical data they have collected provides the first solid evidence that different types of
dinosaurs ate different types of plants, rather than competing with each other for the same food
— a concept called “niche partitioning.” They have also found evidence that indicates dinosaurs
tended to stay in one area, rather than migrating long distances as some scientists have posited.
In the long run, Fricke, his students, and other researchers hope to create a geographic database
that will allow them to look at patterns in dinosaur geochemistry across a broad swath of North
America.
Interestingly, Fricke and his students are finding evidence that the more well-known dinosaur
researchers — paleontologists — can’t uncover on their own.
“Traditional paleontologists infer a great deal from the shape and relation between different
bones, and so they are most excited to find complete dinosaur skeletons. However, complete
skeletons don’t help us much,” Fricke said. “With one skeleton, you might have 50 teeth, but
they’re all from one individual. We’re looking for isolated teeth from a larger number of
individuals that get collected in deposits, because it tells you more about a population of
organisms. That’s worked out well because our work complements the paleontologists’; I don’t
require anything valuable so I can use their scraps.”

2. While Fricke says the first-year and sophomore students act as field assistants and “get to see
some rocks and see what geologists do,” juniors and seniors have more hands-on involvement in
the research, collecting samples, interpreting the results of chemical analysis, and sometimes
writing theses or having the option to present the research at a national conference.
The National Science Foundation and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund
help support Fricke’s research.
Sidebar
Just Your Average Dinosaur-hunting Day on the Block Plan
First there’s the highway driving — getting from Colorado Springs to a remote part of North
Dakota or Montana. Then comes the dirt-road driving, sometimes for 50 miles or more, on
Bureau of Land Management land.
When they finally reach their destination, the party sets up camp close to where they’ll be
prospecting, generally near a river or creek bed. Other researchers have already identified these
areas as rich in fossils. Surviving a one- to two-week dinosaur expedition requires not just an
inquisitive nature, but a hardy one too. Everyone sleeps on the ground or in tents, cooks their
own food, and uses nature’s own “facilities.”
The next day, the party sets out on foot to the fossil-producing outcrop where the area’s history is
revealed on a steep slope containing layers of remains of former residents. Walking slowly
along, eyes cast downward, the prospectors search the ground for teeth and bone fragments that
have washed out of the slope during spring and summer rains.
For the first couple of days in the field, Fricke teaches the students to identify the ancient animal
remains. The fossil fragments they find don’t always belong to dinosaurs; they might be a piece
of turtle shell or a crocodile tooth, so it’s important for the students to know what they’re looking
at.
Prospecting can last for four hours or all day, depending on how rich a site is.
It truly is a treasure hunt, says Fricke. “Sometimes you can walk around for hours and not find
much. If you find a nice big tooth, it can make your day!”