1912 in paleontology

Plants

Angiosperms

Arthropod paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology

non-mammalian synapsids

Mammalians

Dinosaurs

Expeditions, field work, and fossil discoveries

• William Edmund Cutler first began collecting fossils, choosing the mouth of Kneehills Creek in Alberta as a prospecting site. According to paleontologist Darren Tanke, Cutler was motivated by "commercial gain".
• Charles H. Sternberg and his sons began working under a contract with the Geological Survey of Canada, which at the time was responsible for maintaining the National Museum of Canada. Lawrence Lambe occupied a supervisory position in the project. The Sternbergs were in competition with Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History through a period that came to be known as the Great Canadian Dinosaur Rush.

Institutions and organizations

Natural history museums

• The Calgary Public Museum of Alberta, Canada moved to occupy a single floor of the city's Memorial Park Library Building.

Popular culture

Literature

• The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was published. This novel was the first major fictional portrayal of dinosaurs in the 20th century. It was also the first work of fiction to depict dinosaurs as surviving somewhere in a remote wilderness refuge. Conan Doyle depicted the novel's dinosaurs as cold blooded and stupid. This accurately reflected the scientific thinking of the period, but is now obsolete. Paleontologist William A. S. Sarjeant has characterized Conan Doyle's dinosaurs as otherwise "excellently described".Conan Doyle also incorrectly accepted the prevailing scientific consensus of the period that pterosaurs were poor fliers who depended on gliding to travel. Nevertheless, Sarjeant also noted that while Conan Doyle underestimated pterosaur flying abilities, he anticipated the later scientific conclusion that they were social animals.

References

References

1. (2021). "Distribution and Morphological Diversity of Palaeocarpinus (Betulaceae) from the Paleogene of the Northern Hemisphere.". The Botanical Review.
2. (2018-06-01). "Waptia fieldensis Walcott, a mandibulate arthropod from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale". Royal Society Open Science.
3. Pohlig, H., 1912, Sur une vieille mandibule de Tetracaulodon ohioticum Blum, avec defense in situ: ''Bulletin Societe Belge Geologique'', v. 26, p. 187-193.
4. Brown, B. (1912). "A crested dinosaur from the Edmonton Cretaceous". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.
5. D. H. Tanke. 2010. Lost in plain sight: rediscovery of William E. Cutler's missing Eoceratops. In M. J. Ryan, B. J. Chinnery-Allgeier, D. A. Eberth (eds.), New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 541-550.