Customer Reviews

Deep Alberta: Fossil Facts and Dinosaur Digs

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Written by broadcaster and biologist John Acorn, Deep Alberta: Fossil Facts and Dinosaur Digs is an amazing glimpse into the dinosaur fossil legacy resting beneath the surface of Alberta, Canada. Based on the CKUA radio series "Deep Alberta", and prepared in collaboration with palaeontologists from the Royal Tyrrell Museum and elsewhere, Deep Alberta combines lively text with eye-catching full color photography on virtually every other page, from panoramic scenes of where fossils are found to unearthed bones and imagined reconstructions of prehistoric creatures. Deep Alberta is arranged more or less alphabetically, with each two-page spread devoted to the story behind a different geographic location, notable figure, or prehistoric species from "Basilemys, A Very Large Turtle" to "The Sternberg Family", a thumbnail biography of Canada's most famous dinosaur hunters. A lavishly gorgeous and inspirational treat for dinosaur and fossil lovers of all walks of life to page through.

The premise of this book is quite interesting. Walking over Alberta we wonder what has walked there before us. The author presents an excellent picture on one page and then a short, factual and/or historical account of that picture on the opposite page. The book first introduces the reader to the geology of Alberta with its various rock ages particulary the large areas of the late Cretaceous and the smaller areas of Cenozoic and other time periods. Of course most of the examples are Dinosaurs from the Cretaceous. After all Alberta has been famous for over a century for it finds in the Drumheller Badlands and the Red Deer River formation. Tyrannosaurus, Albertosaurus, Triceratops and many types of duck-billed dinosaurs are almost literally jumping out of the ground in Alberta. But the author wisely introduces a great variety of other fossil types not likely to be readily found in other sources. For example the first fossils discussed are Albanerpetonids - a type of primative amphibian. In fact a lissamphibian that includes all the extant amphibians of today. They date to the Jurassic and had a very toothy grin. In some of the Tertiary formations one has a variety of Alberta's camels, cheetahs, primates, crocodilisns, giant marine fish and dawn redwoods. The variety of life that has called Alberta home is enormous. This book is an excellent introduction to some of that variety.