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: Chirostenotes

Chirostenotes (Greek for "narrow hand"); pronounced KIE-ro-STEN-oh-tease

chirostenotes
Chirostenotes (Nobu Tamura)

Habitat:

Woodlands of North America

Historical Period:

Late Cretaceous (80 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About 7 feet long and 50-75 pounds

Diet:

Probably omnivorous

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Narrow, clawed fingers on hands; toothless jaws

About Chirostenotes:

Like Frankenstein's monster, Chirostenotes has been assembled out of odd parts, at least in terms of its nomenclature. This dinosaur's long, narrow hands were discovered in 1924, prompting its current name (Greek for "narrow hand"); the feet were found a few years later, and assigned the genus Macrophalangia (Greek for "big toes"); and its jaw was unearthed a few years after that, and given the name Caenagnathus (Greek for "recent jaw"). Only afterward was it recognized that all three parts belonged to the same dinosaur, hence the reversion to the original name.
In evolutionary terms, Chirostenotes was closely related to a similar Asian theropod, Oviraptor, demonstrating how widespread these dinosaurs were in the late Cretaceous period. As with most tiny theropods, Chirostenotes is thought to have sported feathers, and it may have represented an intermediate link between dinosaurs and birds.
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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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