An action thriller by Jock Miller


Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died.


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The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.

As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.

The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.

The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.

The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.

Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.

Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.

Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?

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Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: MEI

meiMei (Chinese for "sound asleep"); pronounced MAY 

Habitat:

Woodlands of Asia

Historical Period:

Early Cretaceous (140-135 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About two feet long and a few pounds

Diet:

Probably omnivorous

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Small size; small skull; long legs

About Mei:

Almost as tiny as its name, Mei was a small, probably feathered theropod whose closest relative was the much larger Troodon. The story behind this dinosaur's odd moniker (Chinese for "sound asleep") is that the complete fossil of a juvenile was found in a sleeping position--with its tail wrapped around its body and its head tucked underneath its arm. If that sounds like the sleeping posture of the typical bird, you're not far off the mark: paleontologists believe Mei was yet another intermediate form between birds and dinosaurs. (For the record, this unfortunate specimen was probably smothered in its sleep by a rain of volcanic ash.)

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Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !
Bob Strauss is a freelance writer and book author; one of his specialties is explaining scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and professional audience.
Bob Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer books that range across the expanse of science, biology, history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).
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Energy 365 Technology Basics: The Fuel To Beat: Gasoline


What makes fossil fuels so powerful? Why is gasoline the energy-producing standard against which all other fuels are measured? M.A. Sanjayan, lead scientist for the Nature Conservancy, ignites gasoline to demonstrate the intense power it contains.

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Earth 2050: Going Further, Using Less




In Melbourne, Australia, one couple takes fuel economy very seriously: they hold 43 world records for fuel economy, including "Longest Distance on a Single Tank." Meet Helen & John Taylor, and find out how they do it.

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China’s Dinosaur Folklore




Theropod dinosaur tracks along Potash Road in Moab, Utah. Tracks like these have inspired myths about giant birds at locations all over the world. Photo by the author.


One such powerful figure, according to myths about footprints found in Changdu County, Tibet, was the Mountain Deity. During the construction of a highway through the area in 1999, construction crews found several large footprints Local villagers believed that all the noise had disturbed a god who dwelt in the mountains, and when the deity fled, it left the footprints in stone. Though not everyone agrees. Others think that the footprints represent King Gesar, a warrior featured in an epic poem about Tibet’s history. In reality, the tracks are the fore- and hindfoot impressions of a sauropod dinosaur. The shape of the tracks and their arrangement roughly resemble a large human footprint, and so the legendary explanation was born. Indeed, not all myths about dinosaur remains are ancient. In places where people don’t know about dinosaurs or paleontology, fantastic stories are still employed to explain the origin of fossils.

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