DINOSAUR FIND(?) NEAR ARNOLD, MISSOURI

by David Menton Oct. 1987

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.