JOHN YANG: Now to our "NewsHour" Shares, something
interesting that caught our eye.
Ray Stanford has been looking for dinosaurs
in creek beds and rivers for more than 30
years.
Despite being a self-taught tracker, Stanford
is something of a legend among paleontologists.
As the "NewsHour"'s Pamela Kirkland reports,
six years ago, he made his biggest discovery
to date.
RAY STANFORD, Paleontologist: There's part
of a track down to the lower right, too.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: When it comes to tracking
dinosaurs, Ray Stanford is a natural.
Stanford is a self-taught paleontologist known
for his talent for finding dinosaur fossils
from the Cretaceous era, 140 to 65 million
years ago.
In 2010, while visiting his wife, Sheila,
an information specialist at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, he noticed a loose rock.
RAY STANFORD: This is the theropod track that
led to ultimately the grand discovery.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: On a separate visit two years
later, a rock on the hillside, not far from
the first track he found, caught his eye.
RAY STANFORD: If you had told me this, I would
never have believed that I was going to find
something like this.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: This time, it was the footprint
of a nodosaur, the Cretaceous period's version
of an armadillo.
Beneath the ground, there were more tracks
Stanford couldn't see.
After years of analysis, it turns out he'd
stumbled upon one of the best fossil trackways
in the world.
RAY STANFORD: Over 100 tracks, over -- or
nearly 40 mammal tracks of at least three
and probably five species of mammals, at least
three species of dinosaur tracks, and probably
two or three species of flying reptile tracks.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: At least 110 million years
ago, these dinosaurs sauropods and nodosaurs,
small mammals, and flying reptiles, like the
pterosaur, crossed paths on the 8.5-foot slab
of sandstone.
Because none of the prints overlap, experts
think the tracks occurred over the course
of few days or hours.
They remained untouched until now.
This replica is displayed in Goddard's Earth
Science Building in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The original sits in a warehouse for further
study.
If not for Stanford, the discovery might have
been lost to construction.
At the time, NASA had planned to build on
the site.
COMPTON TUCKER, NASA: I had walked by that
place probably 30 or 40 times, and I had no
idea there was something so cool right there.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: Compton Tucker is a climate
researcher at NASA and oversaw the excavation
of the four-ton stone.
NASA tapped Tucker for his experience working
on archaeological digs to find buried ruins.
COMPTON TUCKER: We found where the sandstone
was.
We organized a team of volunteers to come
in on weekends.
And we dug out all of the rocks we found in
our survey, and one of those rocks is the
amazing rock which has the track Ray Stanford
found.
RAY STANFORD: These people are used to looking
into space, not into ancient time, looking
down.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: Stanford has been looking
at tracks for over 25 years, thanks to his
10-year-old son's curiosity in dinosaurs.
RAY STANFORD: Joel (ph), who at a secondhand
bookstore said, "Daddy, let's get this book
on tracking dinosaurs."
And we began to find dinosaur tracks in the
stream, although we'd read another book that
said that nothing had been found in the D.C.-Maryland
area.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: Since then, Stanford has
tripled the number of dinosaurs and winged
reptiles identified in the state of Maryland.
One of his finds, a hatchling of a baby nodosaur,
the only hatchling of an armored dinosaur
in the world, sits on display at the Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural History.
RAY STANFORD: This is my favorite footprint
possibly of all of them.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: He and his wife, Sheila,
estimate they have collected over 1,000.
RAY STANFORD: In the middle of this, we have
the adult theropod dinosaur.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: For Stanford, fossil hunting
is second nature.
RAY STANFORD: It's a gift.
It's a habit that grows.
And the more you do it, the better you get
at it.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: After unearthing his largest
find, the 79-year-old is still searching for
the next big discovery.
RAY STANFORD: You get addicted, I confess.
You just keep on tracking.
PAMELA KIRKLAND: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Pamela Kirkland in Greenbelt, Maryland.
