Walking with sauropods at Copper Ridge (video)
December 14, 2016
In the summer of 2015, Brian Engh and I stopped at the Copper Ridge dinosaur trackway on our way back from the field. The Copper Ridge site is 23 miles north of Moab, off US Highway 191. You can find a map, directions, and some basic information about the site in this brochure. The BLM has done a great job of making this and other Moab-area dinosaur trackways accessible to the public, with well-tended trails and nice interpretive signage. Brian has gotten to do the art for interp signs at several sites now, including Copper Ridge, and he put together this video to explain a bit about the site, what we know about the trackmaker, and the lines of evidence he used in making his life restoration. I’m in there, too, yammering a bit about which sauropod might have been responsible. We weren’t sure what, if anything, we would end up doing with the footage at the time, so I’m basically thinking out loud. But that’s mostly what I do here anyway, so I reckon you’ll live.
Stay tuned (to Brian’s paleoart channel) for Part 2, which will be about the Copper Ridge theropod trackway. And the next time you’re in the Moab area, go see some dinosaur tracks. This is our heritage, and it’s cool.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
December 14, 2016 at 7:45 am
Nice work!
BTW., there’s an incorrect photo credit in there: I know I never took the photo of Matt with the Denver Diplodocus because I’ve never been to Denver (or anywhere in Colorado except when we crept across the western border from Utah during the Sauropocalypse.)
December 14, 2016 at 8:39 am
Ha, yeah, good catch. That photo was taken by me, using the timer on my camera (and lucking out in getting a couple of minutes when that hall was otherwise empty).
December 14, 2016 at 4:51 pm
Very cool – many thanks for sharing! I wonder, for the irregular theropod track – limping is probable, but wondering if it was skipping. Doubtful, but .,,
December 14, 2016 at 10:51 pm
Gah, yeah Mike I foolishly assumed you took the pic of Matt with the Denver mount & only realized I had it wrong once I had already uploaded the video and was adding blog links to the video information section. My dedication to proper crediting found it’s limit as I was unwilling to re export, re convert & re-upload the entire 11 minute video (an 2+ hour process) to fix what ultimately ammounted to giving you a bit of Matt’s credit in a video that his name and face is all over!
So thanks Mike for taking that nice picture! You did great work!
December 14, 2016 at 10:59 pm
Hey, my pleasure! Glad to have helped!
December 15, 2016 at 5:23 pm
Superb video! My only disappointment is that #DinoChick did not get a chance to share more of her experience.
December 16, 2016 at 5:59 pm
This is completely irrelevant to the dinosaur topic, but on the subject of open access: apparently there is now a call for papers for a special issue on open access, in a journal that is itself not open access. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/153120/cfp-special-issue-open-access
December 17, 2016 at 7:26 pm
It’s amazing how much of the literature about open access is behind paywalls. For a while people drew attention to such articles using the hashtag #OpenAccessIrony, but there were so many it became a chore to keep up. It’s a stupid world.
December 20, 2016 at 8:20 am
The only reason ReBecca isn’t in this video is because I had no intention of making any of these videos back when I got involved in these illustration projects. These paleoart videos are a total afterthought resulting from me realizing “oh i have amassed a huge library of HD footage of animals and plants and fossil sites and it’s never going to be seen by anyone. maybe i could make something with all this.”
If these videos get a decent viewership I will keep doing them and I will be sure to record more paleontologists talkin for future projects.