BLM News about Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Public Lands in Alaska • Issue 120 • Spring/Summer 2014 DISCOVER YOUR PUBLIC LANDS Alaska Nanuqsaurus hoglundi Illustration by Karen Carr www.blm.gov/ak/frontiers ISSUE: 120 August 4 iTREC! teacher Summer Institute in Girdwood The teacher workshop includes sessions on the history of the Iditarod National Historic Trail, place-based service learning, and ways to use the outdoors what’s inside @BLMAlaska as a teaching tool. Contact: Luise Woelfl ein, 907-267-1269 New Dinosaur Nature Photography 4 Social Media Update 6 Species discovered Wonder how to capture the beauty of Alaska through photography? Learn tips & tricks for camera settings for wildlife, 40th Anniversary of auroras, night sky, and landscapes. Starts 6 at 7 p.m. at the BLM Campbell Creek Outdoor Week Science Center. Call 907-267-1247 for details. Tolsona Mud Volcano Hike 25th Anniversary of 7 8 Take a short hike in Tolsona with the Tripod Flats Cabin BLM and Wrangell Institute for Science and the Environment and learn about mud volcanoes. Call WISE at Seward Peninsula 907-822-3575 for details. 10 Laura Vachula REA Completed 9 Weed Smackdown in The latest BLM Alaska public service announcement video, Anchorage calendar “Thanks for Being a Good Example,” is now available for We need volunteers! Come to Valley of viewing on YouTube. The video features Alaskan children the Moon Park in Anchorage from 10 Foresters: The Next from Nome and the Copper River Basin. In the video, kids Karen Laubenstein a.m.-2 p.m. to pull weeds and make that 11 thank various family members for teaching them four-wheeler Generation local ecosystem better. safety, and talk about what they’ve learned. The kids talk Very proud sixth grader holds her fi nished fl y-fi shing hook at Outdoor Week. about wearing helmets, checking the weather, bringing safety September kits, and more. This public service announcement reminds Keeping Seeds Water Discovery Day 12 adults that kids learn from what they see and to teach kids to 10 Native Welcome to Frontiers! be safe while traveling by off-highway vehicle. The video was Free all-outside program for Anchor- created as part of a series of public service announcements age-area 4th graders. Students learn Welcome! We are pleased to present this spring-summer issue #120 encouraging trail ethics and promoting the safe use of off- more about aquatic macroinverte- ANCSA 14(c) of BLM-Alaska Frontiers! It is turning out to be a busy year for BLM- highway vehicles. Through a partnership with the Student brates, salmon, and healthy creeks and 13 Alaska. Conservation Association, the BLM hired intern Laura Vachula, watersheds. Contact: Hannah Brewster, Surveys who produced “Thanks for Being a Good Example.” http://youtu.be/-q0COA5cWjE 907-267-1241 The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska has an oil and gas lease sale National Public Lands Day this fall, the NPR-A’s fi rst development project is in process, there is 27 Frontiers Flashes: ongoing interest concerning the Legacy Wells, and we’re learning about Registration is at 8:30 a.m., project BLM-Alaska Frontiers may contain 14 exciting paleontological discoveries from the Colville River area. This CREDITS work is from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Lunch News From Around Managing editor copyrighted material that is used with year is the 25th anniversary of the building of the Tripod Flats Cabin will be provided for volunteers. BLM Karen J. Laubenstein, (907) 271-3318 permission of the copyright owner. Campbell Creek Science Center Open the State on the Iditarod National Historic Trail. The fi rst of four planned Rapid [email protected] Publication in a government document does not authorize any use or House starts at 1:30 p.m. Ecoregional Assessments in Alaska is now complete for the Seward Contributing writers and editors Peninsula in Western Alaska. Alan Breitzman Kevin Keeler appropriation of this copyright material June Lowery Mila Lassuy without consent of the owner, as it is not Back Cover Ken Higgins Ben Seifert in the public domain. Any text or photos What’s Happening in These are just a few of the stories we are bringing to you, along with without attributed copyright may be news fl ashes from around the state. We encourage you to continue to Photographers reproduced in whole or in part as they Al Breitzman Carol Scott are in the public domain. Please credit the NPR-A visit our BLM-Alaska website and social media pages to learn about our Karen Carr Ben Seifert BLM-Alaska. news as it happens. Taylor Crisp Laura Vachula Kevin Keeler U.S. Geological Survey Karen J. Laubenstein Craig McCaa TO SUBSCRIBE (free), please Kim Mincer send an e-mail to the managing Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas editor. Indicate if you want Design/Illustration to receive notification when Karen J. Laubenstein Vanessa Rathbun Frontiers is online, or a copy Editor BLM/AK/GI-94/005+1120+912 mailed. 2 BLM ALASKA FRONTIERS SPRING/SUMMER 2014 • BLM ALASKA FRONTIERS 3 braincase, and the rostral part of paleontological resource use and preserve paleontological the left dentary (lower jaw). The permit remain in a permanent resources on public lands. INTRODUCING researchers glued the broken repository (in this case, the Perot parts together and created silicone Museum) and are available to For information on fossils on BLM- rubber molds of the specimens. researchers and the public. Under managed public lands, contact your local NANUQSAURUS HOGLUNDI! http://www.blm.gov/ They also used computed the Paleontological Resources BLM office or go to NEW DINOSAUR SPECIES DISCOVERY ON tomography (CT) to scan a partial Preservation Act, the BLM paleontology for more information. For tooth. The Perot Museum of requires these permits before information on Nanuqsaurus, visit http:// ALASKA’S NORTH SLOPE Nature and Science curates these a qualified paleontologist and www.perotmuseum.org/explore-the- specimens under the terms of research team can collect or museum/research/projects/nanuqsaurus- Fiorillo’s BLM excavation permit. disturb fossil resources on BLM- hoglundi.html. managed lands. The permitting Citation: Fiorillo AR, Tykoski RS (2014) A Fossils collected legally and process helps the BLM use Diminutive New Tyrannosaur from the Top scientifically under a BLM scientific principles to manage of the World. PLoS ONE 9(3): e91287. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091287 Scale Scale Meet the smallest carnivorous tyranosaurid dinosaur The Nanuqsaurus hoglundi or “Polar Bear Lizard,” yet discovered. It likely had a strong sense of smell to is yet another in a series of exciting discoveries in aid in the hunt of its prey, like Tyrannosaurus rex (T. paleontology over the past 30 years, and the second rex). Half the size of T. rex, this dinosaur is about 20 new dinosaur species discovered by paleontologist feet long with a 2-foot skull, compared to T. rex at up Anthony R. Fiorillo, Ph.D., and his team from an Scale to 45 feet long and a skull measuring up to 5 feet. excavation on BLM-managed lands at the Kikak- Scale Tegoseak Quarry. The Quarry is near Alaska’s Scale This smaller, diminutive dinosaur roamed northern Colville River on the North Slope. [See Issue 116 Stratigraphy as exposed along Colville River, North Slope, Figure A is a reconstruction of a generalized tyrannosaurine skull, Alaska nearly 70 million years ago. This land BLM-Alaska Frontiers, “A New Dinosaur Discovery on Alaska, USA. Approximate level of the Kikak-Tegoseak Quarry with preserved elements of fossils shown in white. Arrow points was then part of an ancient subcontinent called BLM-Alaska Lands: Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum.”] within the Prince Creek Formation is indicated by a red star. to autapomorphic, reduced, first two dentary teeth. Figures B–M “Laramidia.” Laramidia experienced cold weather are photographs and interpretive line drawings of fossils in two and long periods of darkness and light. Daylight was The world learned about this new species of dinosaur different views. Gray fill indicates missing bone or broken bone limited or even nonexistent during the winter months. in March 2014. That’s when Fiorillo first published surfaces and cracks. Scale bar in A equals 10 cm. Scale bars in B–L For the animals living there, food was probably scarce his findings onNanuqsaurus in the scientific journal, equal 5 cm. Scale bar in M equals 1 cm. during the dark periods. PLOS One. Fiorillo is Curator of Earth Sciences at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas. Although Fiorillo’s team excavated the site that revealed hundreds of dinosaur bones in 2006, it took years of painstaking lab work and studies of the jumbled and fragmented materials to learn what they had. The Alaska Nanuqsaurus discovery is a partial skull in three parts from the Late Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation (which dates to about 69.1 million years ago). The Nanuqsaurus specimens were embedded in three associated loose blocks that Fiorillo’s team Scale shipped from Alaska in 2006 to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science’s paleontology lab. The three Silhouettes showing approximate sizes of representative theropods. A, Nanuqsaurus hoglundi; B, Tyrannosaurus rex, based on FMNH PR2081; C, Tyrannosaurus rex, based on AMNH 5027; D, Daspletosaurus torosus; E, Albertosaurus sarcophagus; F, Troodon separate pieces of the Nanuqsaurus skull were in formosus; G, Troodon sp. Scale bar equals 1 m. close proximity to each other, including part of the right maxilla (upper jaw), a section of skull roof and All images courtesy of Dr. Anthony R. Fiorillo and the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas 4 BLM ALASKA FRONTIERS • SPRING/SUMMER 2014 SPRING/SUMMER 2014 • BLM ALASKA FRONTIERS 5 40 GLORIOUS YEARS BRINGING KIDS OUTDOORS Sixth graders follow BLM instructors on how to pan for gold after a science lesson in specifi c gravity of materials and minerals.