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: Oviraptor

Oviraptor (Greek for "egg thief"); pronounced OH-vee-rap-tore
 
Habitat:
Deserts of Asia
 
Historical Period:
Late Cretaceous (85-75 million years ago)
 
Size and Weight:
About 8 feet long and 75 pounds
 
Diet:
Probably meat
 
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Sharp, toothless beak; probably feathers
 
About Oviraptor:

Talk about a bum rap: when the first fossil of Oviraptor was unearthed, sitting atop a clutch of fossilized eggs, the eggs were thought to belong to an entirely different kind of dinosaur, Protoceratops (specimens of which had been found in the immediate vicinity). Naturally, it was assumed this new specimen had stolen the eggs, hence its name, Greek for "egg thief." (See 10 Facts About Oviraptor and a gallery of Oviraptor pictures.)

Although it's still stuck with its inaccurate name, Oviraptor has since been completely vindicated. Paleontologists now believe that the "guilty" specimen had actually been brooding its own eggs, and earned its notoriety simply by being a good mother (or possibly a good father, since males of the species could conceivably have taken part in child-rearing).

Beyond this little snafu, Oviraptor was one of the most birdlike of all dinosaurs, with a sharp, toothless beak and (probably) a coat of feathers. This theropod didn't have wings, but it seems to have been a short step away (in evolutionary terms) from the first flying birds. (By the way, confusingly enough, Oviraptor doesn't technically count as a true raptor, the breed of dinosaurs most famously represented by Deinonychus and Velociraptor.)

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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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