Welcome to one of my favorite areas Dino Russ's Lair. Researchers at the ISGS (including me) and SIU-Carbondale are studying Cretaceous Strata in Southern and Western Illinois. As part of the work we have been looking for the first evidence of dinosaur remains. Because this will of necessity be a long term project, these pages represent an ongoing progress report of that work. Current mapping of areas where Cretaceous rocks are found in Illinois will hopefully locate any dinosaur (and other paleontological remains) as these projects continue. It is now 6 years later than when I started this section. Nothing new has been found, while we have been mapping over that time our searches for dinosaurs so far have ended up empty handed. However I have added new information below (the talk from my May 12, 2006 presentation to the EMSP in St. Louis) which is in HTML and powerpoint form. Enjoy - Dino Russ May 9-06

• Cretaceous of Illinois A map showing the distribution of Cretaceous rocks of the embayment in Southern and Western Illinois. Dinosaurs have been found in related sediments in Missouri and west Tennessee.
• Search for Dinosaurs in Illinois. This is a talk that I will be giving at the May 12th meeting of the Eastern Missouri Society of Paleontology in St. Louis. It was originally done in powerpoint and that file is also available here. This talk has much more information on this ongoing interest of mine to find some of the first dinosaur remains in the Cretaceous strata found in Illinois. This is the first chance I have had to expand this section and it may be worth checking this out if you want to get a taste of the new information I will present in tis talk at the end of this week. Dino Russ 5-9-06
• Field Work in the McNairy Formation (Cretaceous) to find possible dinosaur sites. This document will be an ongoing report of our activities here at the ISGS to locate Illinois dinosaurs, with myself, Joe Devera and Jack Masters as well as others at SIU such as John Utgaard.
• Missouri Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were very likely in Illinois in the Cretaceous described above. They have been found in nearby Missouri in Late Cretaceous strata. This page contains information about the Chronister Dinosaur site located to the northwest of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I and other ISGS geologists continue from time to time to visit this site and collaborate with the researchers (Guy Darrough and Michael Fix of the Ozark Dinosaur Project) who are excavating dinosaur and other fossil material from Cretaceous sediments exposed at the site. Much of the material found in this site (hadrosaur, tyrannosaurid, turtle, crocodile, fish, amphibian, etc.) are quite similar to what I are found in my Hell Creek work in South Dakota from 1993 to 1999. Recent work has revealed the nature of the geology at this site, namely that the Cretaceous is overthickened at the site and is preserved in a downdropped fault block (Graben). Photographs of the site and some of the dinosaur specimens recovered are also featured in this section. The researchers at the site have made major improvements to the techniques, and field station there and in February of 2000 we made a weekend visit these improved facilities, and to help them excavate and continue to study the geology of the area. This link will also begin to contain more information about the Missouri Dinosaur Project that Guy, Mike and others are developing, including information how you might participate. Dino Russ 2-10-00

Last Updated:5/5/06 RJJ