The Near Past
The Beginning of the End of the Age of Megamammals We are more dangerous than we seem and more potent in our ability to materialize the unexpected that is drawn from our minds. LOREN EISELEY, The Unexpected Universe I hr inland from Cape Town in South Africa, the high rocky ramparts of what y is known as the Great Escarpment have dried the air and created a desert. This region is now home to many sheep and a few towns. The largest of the latter is Graaf Reinett, the self-styled jewel of the...
Images
Oil and acrylic on wood, 96 X 120 inches Lystrosaurus and the Permian, 1998 ze 40 Oil and acrylic on wood, 48 X 40 inches Four Interpretations of Page 42 Oil and acrylic on wood, Page 49 Oil and acrylic on wood, Page 62 Oil and acrylic on wood, 32 X 40 inches North America, 1998 Oil and acrylic on wood, 40 X 60 inches La Brea Tar Pit Drawings clockwise from upper left Saber tooth cat American mastodon camel La Brea condor. La Brea tar and lacquer on gessoed paper, 11 X 8.5 inches First...
Hendaye France
Long ago, Spain whirled in its continental drifting, made a hard right turn, and ran into France with a tectonic lunge. Rocks crumbled, and the Pyrenees became the zipper uniting these two great blocks. An ancient seafloor was raised in the process. Today a part of that ancient ocean is exposed for all to see, but like Gomorrah and Sodom, that deep-sea bottom and its trove of skeletons has been turned to stone. Now it is a scenic park on the border between Spain and France, a coastal bit of the...
Karoo Desert South Africa
On a cloudless September day a paleontologist gears up for a collecting trip in the dry Karoo Desert of southern Africa. His route will cover a distance of about 3 kilometers, beginning at the base of a large valley overlooked by a high mountain ridge known as Lootsberg Pass. The traverse will take him through time as well as space. As he climbs up through the bed of an ephemeral creek he will be ascending a stairway made of stacked layers of sedimentary rock, each stratum representing a slice...