An action thriller by Jock Miller


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


purchase on Amazon.com


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: Microraptor


Microraptor (Greek for "small thief"); pronounced MY-crow-rap-tore

Habitat:

Woodlands of Asia

Historical Period:

Early Cretaceous (130-125 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About 2 feet long and 3-4 pounds

Diet:

Probably insects

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Tiny size; primitive feathers; wings on arms and legs

About Microraptor:


Probably because it was so small, Microraptor fossilized unusually well--paleontologists in China have unearthed about two dozen more-or-less complete specimens of this tiny, feathered raptor of the early Cretaceous period, complete with traces of internal organs and primitive feathers.

The most spectacular fact about Microraptor is that it had not one, but two, sets of primitive wings--one on its forearms (similar to other birdlike Dinosaurs, like Archeopteryx,), and one on its hind legs. This formidable feathered arsenal notwithstanding, scientists believe Microraptor was, at best, an occasional glider, much like a flying squirrel--and probably spent most of its life high up in the branches of trees. (A recent study has shown that the feathers of Microraptor were black and glossy, and likely evolved more as a way to attract mates than to fly the short distances between trees.)

This leads to the important question: was Microraptor a crucial "missing link" in the gradual evolution of  dinosaurs into birds, or did it represent a four-winged experiment that (literally) never quite got off the ground? The answer may await future fossil discoveries, but the lack of any four-winged birds living today should give you an important clue.





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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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