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CSU Stanislaus Budget Central
Budget Central has been created to provide the latest news about the CSU Stanislaus budget in light of the state’s severe cuts to the California State University system. The University has been required to make $13.5 million in cuts to its 2009-10 budget, including a $2.5 million reduction of part-time faculty and staff, and has reduced full-time equivalent enrolment to 6,800. Click on the link above to learn more
| Julia Sankey’s dinosaur research leads to new discovery in Texas |
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| Friday, 30 July 2010 21:46 |
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Finding dinosaurs is nothing new to California State University, Stanislaus professor and paleontologist Julia Sankey. Recently, Sankey’s team discovered a new dinosaur in Texas which has gained international notice. Sankey calls the recent discovery from Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas, where she holds a research permit from the National Park Service and takes students on field trips, “a really exciting find.” The new discovery was a partial skull of a ‘dome-head’ dinosaur or pachycephalosaur. These plant-eating dinosaurs are characterized by thick bony skull domes. This new species was the size of a medium dog and is approximately 74 million years old. Sankey and fellow researchers Nicholas Longrich of Yale University and Darren Tanke (who discovered the skull dome) of the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology in Canada described and named the new dinosaur, Texacephale langstoni. This means “Texas head” and in honor of Wann Langston, a renowned paleontologist who made many fossil discoveries in Big Bend National Park. The new species is one of about a dozen species with thick bony skull domes which Longrich speculates were probably used to ram one another head-on in a manner similar to modern-day musk oxen and cape buffalo. “This was a really exciting find. When Darren found it on our January 2008 trip, we were on cloud nine for the rest of the trip,” Sankey said. “We were dying to tell the world, but we knew we had to wait until it got published. Then, when Nick got involved things got even more exciting…with adventures getting the skull through airport security, finding the second specimen, etc. It's great fun to do research, especially with such great friends and colleagues.” The discovery of the new species also supports the idea that dinosaurs from Texas and other southern areas were distinct from their northern neighbors in Canada and the northern United States. The remote Big Bend National Park has become a favorite paleontological research site for Sankey who has been there with fellow researchers and/or CSU Stanislaus students at least once a year since 1994. Her visits have been rewarding as evidenced by the large collection of discoveries , including a four-foot long hadrosaur femur that ranged in weight up to 31/2 tons, a variety of bones and teeth, as well as drawers full of dinosaur egg shells and other fossils. Co-editor of a book published two years ago that describes the earth’s ecosystems millions of years ago when dinosaurs and other extinct animals roamed the planet, Sankey has participated in significant dinosaur discoveries all over North America and worked with the world’s top paleontologists and dinosaur experts. During a 2007 excursion to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, a rare dinosaur nest with eggs was discovered, along with the skeleton of a dinosaur on it. “I love taking students out in the field to do field work and research and bringing all of it into the classroom,” Sankey said. “Students have made a number of discoveries of their own, and that’s always exciting.”
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