Paleontologist Links Prehistoric Climate Change to Present Day Global Warming

11.12.2009 by Jeff Robinson

(KCPW News) A research curator with the Utah Museum of Natural History says there’s a lot to learn about how our climate is changing today, by studying changes in the environment that occurred millions of years ago, during the time of dinosaurs.  Tonight, paleontologist Scott Sampson will speak on “Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent” in Salt Lake City.  That “Lost Continent” is Laramidia, a land mass that is now western North America, but was once separated from the eastern half by water, Sampson says.  KCPW’s Jeff Robinson asked him how climate change caused Laramidia to disappear, and how this is relevant to us today.

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Tonight at 7, Sampson will speak on “Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent” at Judge Memorial High School.  The event is free and open to the public.  He also just released a new book, “Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life.”