Dinosaurs are the some of the most awe-inspiring creatures on this planet. People of all ages marvel at these long gone giants, and while we have been study them for over two hundred years, we have barely scratched the surface of what we know.
In Utah, the protected national park hold a special area called the Grand Staircase-Escalante, home to countless fossils. Two dozen new species have been discovered there since President Bill Clinton protected the area in 1996. The area was once a large swamp, and swamps are perfect areas for fossilization, given the still water and heavy waters that can cover a dead animal before scavengers can get to it. Unfortunately, something else often forms in these areas.
President Trump recently declared that he would attempt to shut down parts of the Grand Staircase in order to make way for coal mining and oil drilling. Coal and oil are called fossil fuels for a reason. Coal is formed when dead plants pile up over millions of year, forming a substance called peat and later coal. Oil is similar, except it is done with dead plankton.
This is a huge blow to the paleontology community. The Grand Staircase-Escalante has proven to be a huge success. When scientists can find over 24 large species in only 21 years, it is a huge success. Fossils are for more difficult to find than one might think. The conditions have to be perfect, and the delicate fossils can easily be destroyed when exposed to the harsh elements. Drilling and mining would certainly destroy hundreds of fossils.
There has been an ongoing fight on how best to handle Utah's untapped fossil fuel sources. Since Congress is largely conservative at the moment, the future for the monument doesn't look great. Trump has accused the government of misusing their power to preserve public lands. Evidently, his business background has him see land as profit, not as a source of discovery and a way to advance our world in the long term.
To those who see paleontology as a frivolous field of useless discoveries, learning how our world worked millions of years ago actually matters. The greenhouse gases, similar to today, were heavy in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, life thrived. Ironically, because we are using their dead bodies to create power, and we put more gases back in our atmosphere. Learning how these animals lived and adapted to such a world can help us do so ourselves, and even stop global warning before it's too late.
Or we might find ourselves as the fossils, being dug up by sentient cockroaches.
Who knows?