HOLCOMB STUDENTS HEAR ABOUT DIONSAURS

Several summer school students at Nell Holcomb School got the chance to ask questions of a dinosaur expert Thursday.

Jeannie Mishu, who teaches fourth grade at Nell Holcomb, asked Matt Forir, a paleontology student at Florissant Valley Community College, to speak at the school. Forir is conducting the only known paleontology dig in Missouri, at the Olie Chronister Homestead near Marble Hill.

Mishu's students seemed most impressed with a section of a shin bone from a tyranosaurus rex, a vertebrae from a triceratops, an ancient alligator tooth that Forir brought with him. They also snickered a little when he held up a fossilized "dino dropping."

Forir fielded questions about dinosaur lifestyles, the number of bones he's discovered, the types of dinosaurs he digs up -- anything that came to the students' minds.

"When you start talking about dinosaurs they just light up," Mishu said of her students. "Especially with the movies coming out recently about them we felt like this was a good time to have someone talk to the class."

The students were excited by Forir's presentation; "you never know what they're going to ask," Mishu said.

Forir spoke of the many theories of how dinosaurs disappeared. He said new thoughts on the subject come up daily. There's the idea that a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

Dinosaurs had been showing a slow decline for thousands of years prior to the meteor. "A meteor did impact and it did do damage but it was probably just the thing that pushed the dinosaurs over the edge," he said.

Other theories like diseases and the spread of flowering plants that rearranged the natural structure of the world are also gaining acceptance. The mystery is in why dinosaurs, which had been evolving for around 200 million years, would suddenly be wiped out when seemingly less hardy animals like turtles survived.

"A 6-ton T-Rex that could eat anything it wanted to would be more likely to survive than a turtle or a crocodile," Forir said. "We'll probably never know for sure why they died. We'll probably never find the smoking gun."

Forir has been working at a dig near Marble Hill since May. His schedule has restricted his work there this month, but he should be returning to the site in July or August. He said interest in the dig has grown to the point where he might try to train some site managers that could lead a team of diggers.

That would allow him to dig in two areas at the site. Forir said he would be interested in talking to anyone who would like to receive a quick lesson on geology and physiology -- so they can tell the difference between a rock and a bone.

In response to a question from a Nell Holcomb student, Forir said paleontology is something he just fell into. He said it eats up a lot of his free time.

"When you crack open a rock and see a fossil, and you know you're the first person to ever see it, that makes up for losing that free time," he said.