DINOSAUR FIND(?) NEAR ARNOLD, MISSOURI by David Menton Oct. 1987 (C) copyright 1991 Missou

				  DINOSAUR FIND(?) NEAR ARNOLD, MISSOURI
								  by David Menton
									Oct. 1987

		 (C) copyright 1991 Missouri Association for Creation, Inc.


	  A few weeks ago there were reports on local radio and
television stations of the discovery of a "dinosaur fossil" at
a construction site near Arnold, Missouri.  I missed seeing this
but my wife saw the report and described what appeared to be
large "bones" from the leg, foot, skull, and vertebrae of a
"dinosaur."  Not hearing any further of this remarkable discovery
I recently visited the site to investigate the matter myself.

	  Since the site of the reported finding is near Mastodon
State Park, I first went to talk with Ken Cole, the park ranger
in charge of developing this Park.  Ken has a degree in geology
and was very cooperative with my interest despite his busy
schedule.  Ken was apparently one of those who were interviewed
on TV at the time of the report.  Ken is VERY skeptical about the
possibility of the "fossil" being a fossil at all, to say nothing
of being a dinosaur.  Ken took me to see the site and I quite
agree with him.    The "bones" give no evidence of being fossil
bones but rather appear to be curiously weathered blocks of
limestone with only the most superficial resemblance to limb,
vertebrae and skull bones.  Neither Ken nor I are expert in
dinosaur fossil identification but I noted that none of the
presumed bones had any bilateral symmetry of the type normally
encountered in at least skulls and vertebrae.  I should add, that
there are reports of dinosaur fossils in the "bootheel" of
Missouri which are being studied by a geology professor at a
local community college.

	The man who first discovered the putative fossils is an
amateur fossil hunter who lives in an apartment near the Arnold
site.  He has found many excellent fossils (real ones) of plants
and marine invertebrates by simply kicking leaves aside in the
woods after a good rain.  His seeming confusion on the matter of
the dinosaur bones is understandable as is the public interest in
the matter.  What is particularly interesting is that there is a
paleontologist from a museum in Springfield, Missouri who has
looked at the stones(?) and believes they are really dinosaur
fossils.  He has taken samples to be tested to determine if they
are fossils or not but has not reported back.  I would be curious
to know how this can be done other than morphologically.  What
ever they are, they appear to be entirely mineral at this point. 
I gather that thus far, no other paleontologist or geologist has
examined these presumed fossil specimens.

	  There is a good reason why all of this is of interest to
anyone familiar with a geological map of the State of Missouri. 
It seems that the southeastern three fourths of Missouri is
Ordovician.  Evolutionists consider Ordovician strata to be about
500,000,000 years old and to contain only the oldest primitive
land plants and vertebrates as well as numerous brachiopods,
cephalopods, and trilobites (i.e., no dinosaurs and certainly no
mammals.)  It is surprising then to find a "Mastodon State Park"
in such an area.

	  The park is being built on the site of the famous Kimswick
Bone Bed and is named after the discovery of a mastodon with an
arrow head imbedded in one of its fossilized bones(!) This
fascinating "bone bed" is located in an old limestone quarry.  It
was the discovery that first clearly established that modern man
was a contemporary of the mastodons.  This fossil mastodon is now
in the British Museum in London.  Fossilized human bones(!) were
also found in the quarry along with the bones of many other
mammals, all of whom have no business being in Ordovician strata.
Evolutionists insist that this was a relatively modern (ice age)
backwash from glacial runoff and that men hunted the animals that
sought refuge in this area.  We may conclude that in our Missouri
geological column we can find fossils of everything from human to
trilobites, and that there is always a way to "explain" any fossil
to keep it consistent with evolutionary dogma (sic).