cover image Dinosaurs of the East Coast

Dinosaurs of the East Coast

David B. Weishampel. Johns Hopkins University Press, $35.95 (300pp) ISBN 978-0-8018-5216-9

The East Coast, the cradle of American dinosaur paleontology, has a fossil record rich and significant both historically and scientifically. Weishampel, associate professor of cell biology and anatomy at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Young, senior science writer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, have written a comprehensive guide to eastern dinosaurs. They review 200 years of fossil-hunting and point out that most sites have been exposed by human activities at quarries, tunnels, canals and building and bridge foundations. From the fossil record, we learn that dinosaurs appeared in the early Jurassic (208 million years ago); after a 50-million-year gap, they reappeared in the Cretaceous (145-65 million years ago). The authors describe each species and its location; sites range from South Carolina to Nova Scotia, with New Jersey and Maryland the most productive. Since the 1960s, scientific collecting has revived on the East Coast, and the authors offer advice on where to look for fossils. This makes an admirable textbook for readers seriously interested in dinosaurs. Illustrations. (Apr.)