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Tracking Maryland’s dinosaurs Over the years, Ray Stanford has found hundreds of fossilized footprints of dinosaurs in Maryland. But one thing eludes him.
Aug. 17, 2012
Ray Stanford uses a brush with water to help define a dinosaur footprint on NASA property in Greenbelt. He discovered this fossil and was talking with NASA officials at the site.
Tracy A. Woodward
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THE WASHINGTON POST
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Aug. 17, 2012
Dinosaur fossil searcher Ray Stanford kneels down next to rocks inside the Goddard NASA property in Greenbelt. Stanford discovered a large fossil of a Nodosaur just a few feet from this spot. During a 30- minute news briefing at this site, three more dinosaur fossils, including this one, were found.
Tracy A. Woodward
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
Aug. 17, 2012
A model of a Nodosaur dinosaur sits inside what is believed to be the fossil of a Nodosaur footprint. The footprint was found by Ray Stanford on the NASA Goddard property in Greenbelt.
Tracy A. Woodward
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
Aug. 17, 2012
Ray Stanford presented this Theropod footprint fossil to Alan Binstock (with the NASA Goddard Historic Preservation Office). He was at the Goddard facility to discuss his recent dinosaur footprint discovery at this location. This Theropod fossil was found in the same area as the Nodosaur fossil.
Tracy A. Woodward
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Ray Stanford, 73, is self-taught, a gentleman naturalist. Before he came along, only a handful of dinosaur tracks had ever been found in Maryland. Some of the great dinosaur hunters of the 19th and 20th centuries had searched the Washington area and found the bones and teeth of three or four species. But no footprints had ever been found. The iron-rich geology wasn’t right for it. The textbooks said so. Stanford proved them wrong; his home (a.k.a. the Stanford Museum) is filled with his fossilized finds.
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
A replica of a skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex at the National Museum of Natural History. In 1998, Stanford discovered a fossilized baby dinosaur, an armored browser known as a nodosaur. It’s the only hatchling nodosaur found anywhere, and one of the only known hatchling dinosaurs of any kind. It now sits under lights, in the “Dinosaurs in Our Backyard” exhibit at the museum. “Ray has footprints of dinosaurs we don’t have bones for yet,” said Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosauria at the Smithsonian Institution. “We learned more about these animals than we had in 150 years.”
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford finds pieces as “float.” After heavy rains, fast water scours the bottoms and banks of streams, breaking up the substrate. Some of this geological wreckage gets hung up on sandbars and shorelines, where Stanford spots it. When asked how he has spotted so many dinosaur tracks, Stanford says he possesses an unusual ability to recognize visual patterns, but doesn’t elaborate.
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford began hunting for tracks in 1994 with his children. Within a year, he had collected 90 pieces with almost 20 types of tracks.
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford on the hunt. “He’s John the Baptist of Cretaceous fossil footprints. He’s a national treasure,” says Robert T. Bakker, perhaps the most famous dinosaur hunter of the past half-century. “He’s of the great tradition of the self-taught amateur who keeps on hunting for fossils despite rain and wind and official discouragement.”
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
The biggest flying reptile ever known — with a wingspan of 40 feet — may have once soared over prehistoric Maryland. This three-digit pterosaur handprint found by Stanford stretches 16 inches. “It is equal to the largest, or is possibly the largest, pterosaur track in the world,” said Martin Lockley, director of the Dinosaur Tracks Museum in Boulder, Colo.
Benjamin C. Tankersley
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FOR THE THE WASHINGTON POST
At the height of the dinosaur age, small early mammals also roamed. Lockley says a five-clawed track Stanford found is likely from a German shepherd-size marsupial mammal. Anne Weil of Oklahoma State University, who studies early mammals, said the 2.5-inch-long footprint may be from a crocodile-like creature instead.
Benjamin C Tankersley
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FOR THE THE WASHINGTON POST
In 1998, Stanford’s wife, Sheila, pulled up a section of what looked like a big, round footprint. Over 22 months, she and Ray collected four pieces that fit together like a child’s jigsaw puzzle: a 14.5-inch-long sauropod track with wavy tread lines like the grip of a shoe, a foot built for grabbing slippery surfaces.
Benjamin C Tankersley
/
FOR THE THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford’s most spectacular discovery may be a 5-inch-long cast of a baby nodosaur, a spiky armored dinosaur. The fossil now anchors the exhibit on amateur dinosaur hunters at the Natural History Museum.
Chip Clark
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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Smaller than a penny, these three-toed tracks from a wee plant-eater are likely the tiniest dinosaur tracks ever found.
Benjamin C Tankersley
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FOR THE THE WASHINGTON POST
Dinosaur figurines roughly depict the types of creatures that made the tracks on which they stand: visual aids for visitors to the Stanford Museum.
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
A fossil of a sauropod impression. Some 40 top academic paleontologists and ichnologists (track specialists) have toured the Stanford Museum and proclaimed its authenticity, and Stanford has co-authored three scientific journal articles. Inside the textbook “Dinosaurs of the East Coast,” author David Weishampel of Johns Hopkins University wrote in black marker: “Now that I’ve met you, this book is in for a big rewrite.”
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
A footprint of a prehistoric crocodilian is part of Stanford’s collection. Stanford has added at least 14 types of dinosaurs and winged reptiles to the list of three or four that were already known to have roamed Maryland, and, just possibly, a stunningly large early mammal.
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
A left back footprint of a large pterosaur. Stanford sells nothing he finds, despite offers. “Oh, God, no,” he says.
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
An iguanodon toeprint.
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
A sauropod impression.
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford searches for fossilized footprints. One thing has eluded Stanford, and it has nothing to do with dinosaurs: Before hunting dino tracks, Stanford chased UFOs, a term he professes to dislike. “It’s so loaded,” he says. He prefers “anomalous aerial objects,” or AAOs. “I’d rather track AAOs than dinosaurs any day,” he says. “That’s my streambed in the sky.”
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
Stung by criticism of his UFO hunting, Stanford keeps that part of his life out of view of some of his dinosaur collaborators.
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford in his living room. His home overflows with fossils.
Marvin Joseph
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Stanford shows his collection. “You can wound him deeply by saying he’s a crackpot,” says friend John Young. “Lots of people give Ray a hard time, but he’s the real deal — a maverick, an eccentric gentleman, just a supercool guy. He is 100 percent what-you-see-is-what-you-get. He’s a genuine dude. ... He’s a searcher.”
Marvin Joseph
/
THE WASHINGTON POST
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