Where Are Some New Places Deinosuchus Fossils Might Be Found? My Latest Thoughts

Anyone reading this who has ever known me from Dinosaur Home has certainly read my repeated and updated thoughts on this topic before, but this post deals not with the geographical range of Deinosuchus but rather which states/areas might be added to those where its fossils have already been found. Of course, those who do not know me from Dinosaur Home are probably hearing about this topic for the first time!

Deinosuchus, one of the largest crocodilians of all time, has long been one of my favorite prehistoric animals. It lived from about 82 to 73 million years ago, almost exactly matching the time of the Campanian age of the Cretaceous period, and its neighbors were dinosaurs, who were also some of its prey. It was a North American animal, and its fossils have been found in a variety of American/Mexican states stretching from Montana to Chihuahua in the west, along a crescent-shaped arc from Mississippi to North Carolina, and along a line going roughly from just east of Washington, D.C. to just southwest of New York City. The gaps in between these are what makes this topic so interesting.

Most paleontologists who have studied Deinosuchus recognize it as a shoreline animal, though it apparently existed further inland at times, as long as the land was warm and wet, just like most crocodilians today. Therefore, the starting point for me has been to look at paleogeographic maps of North America during Campanian times. There is a wonderful website called Deep Time Maps that has three different times represented that are useful for this topic: 82 Ma ("Ma" means million years), 80 Ma, and 77 Ma. I have tried in the past to extend the range along the coastlines far to the north, south, east, and west, but I'm not going to try that now, except for what I think would be an important bridge in the gap between Mississippi and Texas. (The maps are prominently copyrighted, so I'm not going to share them here; you'll have to look them up yourself). The farthest north that Deinosuchus fossils have been found in the west is in Montana, so I will assume that's the northmost it got (especially considering how Alberta, Montana's northern neighbor, has produced many Campanian crocodilian fossils but not Deinosuchus specifically). As for the southmost area, that would be either Chihuahua or Coahuila, and the fossils there are all clustered around the tri-corner of those two Mexican states and Texas. I will consider that the southmost point. Looking to the east, across the former Western Interior Seaway, the westernmost area is currently Mississippi. The northeast-most area is in New Jersey, just across from Staten Island, New York. Here, too, I will not assume that Deinosuchus was present any further up the coast than this. However, Deinosuchus must have crossed the Western Interior Seaway if it was present in the west and east halves of North America that existed at the time.

A significant gap exists between the fossils in Texas and those in Mississippi, made up of sea (in central and eastern Texas) and some of the coastline of the eastern half of North America, running northeast through southeast Oklahoma, Arkansas, southeast Missouri, and far southern Illinois, then bending southeast through western Kentucky and Tennessee. Surely Deinosuchus lived on this coast too, or it would be a huge distance across the sea to populate Texas and other coastlines on that side. Some geologists have argued that a line of volcanic islands was present in northeast Texas, making the ocean crossing even shorter.

Therefore, after taking a look at the shorelines and coastal plains 82, 80, and 77 million years ago, I would say that Deinosuchus lived in parts of the following American and Mexican states: Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. However, it's one thing to say that Deinosuchus lived in those places, and another to say you could find its fossils in those places. So far, Deinosuchus fossils have been confirmed from Montana, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Delaware, and New Jersey. Some disagree over whether Deinosuchus fossils have already been found in Maryland or Colorado. In Maryland, there is a fossil that has been assigned to Deinosuchus, but it is from younger rocks than the Campanian age and could be some other large crocodilian. As for Colorado, there is a report of a large crocodilian fossil of Campanian age, but the authors of the paper describing the fossil refuse to assign Deinosuchus as the genus.

The next step after discerning a range from looking at paleogeographic maps is to look at detailed geologic maps of the areas within that range. I've looked at many over the years, but the best resource I've found is the US Geological Survey's geologic maps database. After looking at many of the maps there, I've noticed that some of the parts of states I've mentioned in the hypothetical range of Deinosuchus lack Campanian sedimentary rocks, namely Arizona, Louisiana, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. That leaves Colorado, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland as our potential Deinosuchus fossil-bearing areas (I include the debatable states of Colorado and Maryland here). In reading the paleontologist David Schwimmer's book, King of the Crocodylians, he too imagines that Deinosuchus fossils could be found in Tennessee and Missouri - but only those two states for some reason.

Now, we are finally left with this map, which shows the American states where I expect that Deinosuchus fossils exist, along with the states where they are confirmed or unconfirmed.

The "Midwest" Should Not Be a Region

 

The "Midwest" as defined by the US Census Bureau.

The United States is often divided into regions, which makes sense with countries that large. There are many different ways that people will name or define their own region, with common ones being the West, the South, the North, etc. One of the most commonly mentioned regions is, of course, one that I find random, arbitrary, and meaningless: the "Midwest".

Let's talk about that name first. Why is it called the "Midwest" if none of the states included here are even close to the middle of the western half of the contiguous U.S.? Some might readily answer that the West used to begin at the Appalachian Mountains. Alright, but why does this include Canadian border states? Wouldn't that make it the Northwest, in a way?

States that used to be in the Northwest Territory, as well as Minnesota whose land east of the Mississippi River was in the Northwest Territory too.

Actually, before the 1950s or so, the term "Northwest" was often used for the states that more or less are called the "Midwest" today. When I would read old newspapers on microfilm for work/volunteering, "Northwest News" appeared to be about news from states as far east as Ohio and as far west as Nebraska. Well, I say they should have stuck to the land within the former Northwest Territory, because little else is common between all the states included in the "Northwest" or "Midwest".

For starters, there's the history problem. Let's compare North Dakota and Ohio, two states commonly placed in the same region. During the American Revolutionary War, Ohio already had a few towns and was well within the boundaries claimed by the new U.S. North Dakota, on the other hand, was more or less home to Native Americans only, although split on the map between the British and Spanish Empires. The Dakotas as well as Nebraska and Kansas didn't even border American soil at the time.

There's also the environmental problem. Almost every state east of the Mississippi has abundant forests, especially Wisconsin and Michigan. If you get to the land from North Dakota to Kansas, however, grasslands are very prominent. The same contrast could be said for southern states too, if we compare (for example) Texas and Georgia. Those two states do, however, have a common history together as rebellious states in the Civil War, making them both in "Dixie", the South. But the Dakotas and Nebraska were only territories during the Civil War, not Union states like Ohio, making the "Midwest" fail on this test also.

What about dialects or accents? After all, this unites the South. But again, the same cannot be said for the "Midwest". If you go to northern Minnesota, many will have the "Minnesota" accent (which really stretches from northeast Montana to the upper peninsula of Michigan). But if you go to rural parts of southern Missouri, Illinois, or Indiana, people might even have a Southern accent. If we confine the "Midwest" to areas where you might hear the occasional "ope" or "uff da", then out goes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, lower Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, and large portions of South Dakota. You'd also need a new name. "North Central" would make sense, but I don't know what region the states I just mentioned would go to.

A lot of people think of corn fields and barns when the word "Midwest" comes to mind. Well, upon looking at a map of corn production in the United States by county, it would seem that some areas of the "Midwest" are left out (northeast Minnesota, northern Michigan, and the western Dakotas) while others are added (eastern Colorado and even the Texas panhandle). Therefore, I don't think that's sufficient. Neither is the idea of abundant farmland and the politeness that is associated with it, because that could be literally any rural area east of the Mississippi River where forests have been cleared. Even if that was a real marker of the "Midwest", wouldn't that mean we exclude large cities like Chicago, Detroit, and so forth?

Anyway, you might wonder what regions I place these "Midwest" states into. I put North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas into the West, because they all have a low population density in common. If you look at a population density map of the United States, there's almost a line running down the eastern boundary of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas that divides high population density from low population density. The same effect can be seen if you look at a nighttime satellite image of the United States. I use this line to divide the West from the East (further divided into North and South) and another line of contrasting population densities to divide the West from the Far West, which I consider as the land west of the Cascades, Sierra Nevada, and other coastal mountain ranges. As for the rest of the "Midwest" states, they are all in the East. Since Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio were all Union states, I place these in the North part of the East. Missouri is a grey area to me, because it was technically a Union state but was also claimed by the Confederacy. It also seems like people in Missouri have a Northern accent, Southern accent, or somewhere in between. Regions can be complicated, but there should always be some common feature that unites all the states or areas in that region.

My College and Career Story, with Some of My Life Story for Context

"So why did you transfer?"

This is a common question I get when I tell someone about how I started college at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology studying geology and ended college at University of Mary studying history. I've answered this in a number of ways, with the most oversimplified version being "Calculus II was a required class and it was too hard". But here, I'm going to give the much longer answer with an epilogue about my narrow but not very specific goals.

Throughout my childhood, I often thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I usually answered the question with one of these three: astronaut, astronomer, or paleontologist. A fourth one, priest, was an answer for a while as well. More on that later.

I became fascinated by outer space, generally speaking, certainly by the age of four if not earlier. I'm still not sure why, but I could point to a few factors: the super-close opposition of Mars in 2003, the landings of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and the fun educational CDs about space that my Dad got us. Anyway, the idea of learning about space (especially the Solar System) from close up as an astronaut or probe and far away as an astronomer inspired me to choose either of those two careers. However, a new interest emerged by the time I was five: paleontology.

I'm not sure exactly how I first got into paleontology either, but by the time I was five and especially six, I was reading all the books I could about dinosaurs and other extinct animals. I never lost my interest in outer space, but paleontology was number one for sure. At ages six through eight, I probably knew over a hundred different names of extinct animals and collected many different toys of them. I wanted to become a paleontologist so I could find fossils, preferably dinosaurs. My favorite dinosaur was Spinosaurus, so I supposed my career would take me to Egypt or Morocco. By the time I was in fourth grade, however, my interest in dinosaurs crashed.

In an almost hipster way, I decided that I was too obsessed with dinosaurs and that it was too common for mildly autistic boys my age to be into them. Therefore, although I was into other extinct animals, especially the crocodilian Deinosuchus by this time, I lost my interest in dinosaurs for a few years. Astronomy became my dominant interest and, while I liked the idea of being an astronaut, I thought being an astronomer would give me access (through vision, at least) to the untold wonders of the Solar System and beyond, whereas astronauts are more or less confined to the Earth-Moon system (for now). By fifth grade, with a year of altar serving under my belt, I started thinking about becoming a priest because it genuinely looked like a good faith-related job to have. I knew of at least one astronomer, Nicholas Copernicus, who was a priest. Therefore, in fourth through sixth grade, I thought about becoming an astronomer, priest, or both. However, towards the end of sixth grade, I decided to get back into dinosaurs, mainly because of Dinosaur Home.

In early 2012, I decided to have an online presence for the first time. I had been looking up answers to the question of whether Deinosuchus or Tyrannosaurus could kill the other, and my bet was strongly on Deinosuchus. One of the search results was a webpage on Dinosaur Home with that exact question. So, as a guest, I typed and posted my answer, which became a rant in opposition to the Tyrannosaurus fans. I used the name "JMD", my initials, and the name stuck ever since (on Dinosaur Home, that is, and now on Blogspot). From that topic, I decided to comment on others, often involving just dinosaurs, and so that aspect of my interest in paleontology came back. Throughout middle school, therefore, I wavered between pretty much all the career ideas I ever had: astronomer, astronaut, paleontologist, and priest. Paleontology was slightly on top again starting in seventh grade. I now had the idea of discovering Deinosuchus fossils in new places where there appeared to be gaps. This career goal was mine even into college. Below is my most recent version of a kind of range map for Deinosuchus, which was essentially a guide for my career goal.

In high school, I dropped the idea of becoming a priest, mainly because high school was a time of much religious skepticism in my life, mainly in freshman year. Therefore, paleontology was my main interest and ideal career through all of high school. Soon, it was time for me to consider which college I should go to. I wanted to go to a college where I could get a degree in paleontology, which considerably limited my options. Nonetheless, I considered more than a few, such as Northern Arizona University, Carthage University, Montana State University, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT), and even two in Alberta. I ended up visiting two: Northern Arizona University and SDSMT. I paid the application fee also for two: SDSMT and Montana State University. By senior year, I committed to SDSMT, where one of my friends from Dinosaur Home was already beginning to attend. Therefore, I was more than ready to go to college. At this time, around half of my class was planning to attend University of Mary, a college I never visited nor had any interest in at the time (because it has nothing even close to a paleontology degree), which ironically would end up being the college I graduated from.

I was ready for SDSMT emotionally, but not academically or experientially. While my freshman year of college was alright in terms of grades, I struggled with Calculus I, though I passed. I had no experience in fossil digs or fossil preparation, either. A combination of these deficits made it hard for me to get any entry-level job relating to geology, both in freshman and sophomore years, so I was just doing retail and house painting. Also, the way it worked at SDSMT is that I had to declare a major in geology, graduate with a Bachelor's, and then go to grad school to earn my Master's in paleontology there. I had no clue about the difficult math courses, paperwork, etc. as a little kid. I just wanted to find interesting fossils. In sophomore year, my Dinosaur Home friend already left. I still don't know why, but it wasn't the math. For me, however, it was the math, specifically Calculus II, that made me consider leaving. I failed the class in the fall semester, then took it again in the spring semester, knowing that if I failed a third time, I would not only get dropped from the geology program but also get dropped from SDSMT altogether. While the spring semester was "only" the second attempt at Calculus II, I was also getting fed up with the lazy and godless culture that seemed to permeate my peers (apart from my friends and those I knew at the Newman Center there). I saw the writing on the wall: Think of a different college and career or you'll fail here.

I thought back to my other lifelong interests and career goals. I had previously thought of becoming an astronaut, astronomer, or even a priest. Becoming an astronaut could be interesting, but that could always be done after I get my college degree. I decided against becoming an astronomer, for that involves even more advanced math than paleontology. As for the priesthood, even though I defeated all my doubts from high school and was growing ever stronger in my faith life, I became convinced through prayer and bible studies that the priesthood, one of three basic vocations (priesthood, religious life, and marriage) is not my vocation; marriage is. Therefore, I started to ponder what it was that tied together my interests in astronomy and paleontology especially. I soon had an answer: the past! Not only was the past traceable through the history of the Universe and the Earth, but I also enjoyed my history classes in school and always got an A or B in those. One of my best friends from grade school may have also kindled my love of history because of his proudly Spanish heritage, which got me interested in reading about the history of Spain and its empire.

In November of my sophomore year, I researched which colleges, if any, have paleontology programs without Calculus. There were none that I could find. With that out of the way, I started researching colleges where my high school classmates already were, and I looked further into University of Mary, where I knew that one of my high school friends was studying history. I decided to call him and ask questions about the history program, and it all sounded good to me. Therefore, by the end of my fall semester, I decided I would transfer to University of Mary, though I already registered for spring classes at SDSMT, so I sat out another semester of classes that felt pointless to me now that I was going to transfer the following fall.

My last semester at SDSMT was crazy. My classes not only included Calculus II again but also Computer Science and Computer Science Lab, both of which drove me nuts because I had to get a code and program exactly right on my assignments to pass at all. There was one night where I got so frustrated I almost threw my laptop. I got all my transfer work done to attend U Mary the next fall before the coronavirus pandemic started shutting everything down at SDSMT. Some of my classes remained (over Zoom or some other virtual format), while others were dropped altogether. I actually dropped Computer Science and Computer Science Lab before the shutdown began, knowing I was getting too stressed over classes that no longer mattered. I finished my virtual classes at home. The sun set on my career at SDSMT, and in this picture we have one of the many marvelous sunsets I experienced in my next journey at U Mary.

I attended U Mary in my junior and senior years of college. Initially, my career idea was to become a history teacher, but I figured if I wanted to do that, I should be a history education major, not just history. I didn't feel like switching majors again, so I decided to see what a simple history degree could do. I then had the goal of becoming a curator or a historian (not just in role but in job title). My GPA kept climbing at U Mary, whereas at SDSMT it was static and mediocre. History was definitely a major that I could thrive in with no Calculus. My first career job came as an intern at the State Archives of North Dakota in my last semester at U Mary. I didn't work many hours, but it felt good to finally have a career job. From then on, I was working or at least volunteering at a history-related place. When I graduated college, I thought maybe I should work at Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, or some other place related to Red Cloud's War, which I did my senior thesis on. While that is still a possibility, I've expanded my ideas for workplaces. More on that later.

A lot of temporary volunteer/work positions have happened in the last few years, and they all put my history studies to use with the exception of a winter job that involved renting out winter sports equipment. The job I have now even puts my geology studies to use in a major way. Take that, Calculus!

What is my career goal now? In a way, I already accomplished it. By the end of college, it was to have a job I like where a degree in history is ideal. That being said, I would like to work at a place that has to do with some more specific interests: the Space Race, astronomical observatories or dark skies, Deinosuchus, the Spanish Empire, and so forth. Sometimes, my childhood goals still call out to me. I could discover interesting fossils just by joining a public fossil dig or buying land with my favorite formations. I'm not sure that I'll ever pursue a career as an astronaut because of how little time I might spend with my future family that way, but I'm committed to going to the Moon or Mars "in spirit" by watching astronauts launch to those destinations in person. My best chance to accomplish that goal would be to live near Starbase, TX or Cape Canaveral, FL to be right there when it happens.

This sure is a long post. Whether you read the whole thing, it will certainly give some nice background for many of the posts I write in the future.

Introductory Post

Hello everyone!

My name is Jacob, but I'm using the name "JMD", as I did on a website that no longer exists: Dinosaur Home. I was one of the most active users there from 2012 through 2018. In late 2023 I was active there again and witnessed its shutdown in June 2024. This blog is in part dedicated to the memory of that website, through which I have met people I still keep in touch with and are likely reading this post.

On this blog, I will be writing about a few of my favorite topics, thoughts on current events, and other ramblings that I would otherwise just talk to myself about. 😁 Some of the topics will be the same ones I wrote about on Dinosaur Home, where I also had a blog. Others will no doubt be about history, geography, geology, and Catholicism, with a blend of some of these happening too. Of course, I might also talk about all kinds of things besides these.

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy reading this blog that expresses thoughts from "the mind of JMD".