paleontology

The Secrets Beneath by Kimberley Woodhouse

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Kimberley Woodhouse is joining us today to talk about … dinosaurs and her soon-to-release novel!

A couple of years ago, I asked my Facebook reader friends if there was a subject they would like to see covered in Christian Fiction that really hadn’t been tackled before. It generated a lot of conversation and several great suggestions. But in the middle of all of those comments, one caught my eye. 

Dinosaurs.

 

Photo Credit: Renette Steele

At first, I was a bit hesitant to try and wrap my brain around paleontology, science and faith. Dinosaurs are so fascinating and the history around them is vast. And anytime science and faith intersect, it can get interesting. (Let’s just say writing this book had me praying a whole bunch.) 

 

But what came out of this adventure into paleontology is my new book, The Secrets Beneath, releasing September 26! 

 

I am SO excited about this book and this series. One – it’s a series that explores the joy of God’s creation and digging to see what treasures one can find in the dirt. Two – I got the opportunity to learn about women in paleontology from the early 1800s into the 1900s. Their passion and love for fossils and learning was inspiring. And three – it has been one of my favorite books to write. Ever. 

The best part about writing this was the research. I traveled to Dinosaur National Monument, which is on the northwest border of Colorado and Utah in the Uinta Mountains. There you can see incredible skeletons of dinosaurs, all shapes and sizes, on display.

 You can also travel through the park and get the chance to dig to some of your own fossils, a fantastic souvenir to take home, if you find one. The beauty and majesty of this park stretches on for miles and miles. The scenery is breathtaking.

And highly inspirational for an author! 

 Dinosaur National Monument is home to a massive bone quarry was found in 1908 by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist for the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. It was his story, struggle and passion for exploring the secrets hidden beneath the layers of dirt and rock in our world, that inspired much of this story. I had the pleasure of meeting his granddaughter, Diane Douglass Iverson. She spoke with me at great length about Earl’s persistence in a profession that was often painstakingly slow with little reward. Diane also shared about her grandfather’s love for God’s creation, and the songs and prose it inspired in him. He once wrote, “Every little untouched spot of nature, every tree, every plant suggests new ideas and and is a little incentive for the world of the imagination.” (Speak To the Earth and It Will Teach You: The Life and Times of Earl Douglass, 1862-1931) What a beautiful thought. 

 I am deeply indebted to Diane for the generosity of her time, and the permission to share quotes from her grandfather throughout this book. 

 My prayer for The Secrets Beneath is that readers come away with a sense of awe for the power and creativity of the Lord. As readers get to know Anna and Joshua, I hope they are inspired by their love for the West with all it’s grandeur and danger, each other, and their journey to gain a deeper understanding of the love and grace of Jesus. 

To celebrate my new release, I’m doing two giveaways! One on my website, that celebrates my other series set in the West: Secrets of the Canyon Giveaway. This giveaway has a grand prize with a ton of goodies! (And a pre-order of The Secrets Beneath counts as an entry.) 

 I’m also doing a giveaway here on Petticoats and Pistols!

Comment below and let me know what your favorite dinosaur is.

If you don’t have one, I’d love to know: what your favorite thing about historical fiction?

I’ll pick two lucky winners to get a copy of The Secrets Beneath. 

 

Until then, enjoy the journey! 

Kimberley 

Get your copy of The Secrets Beneath

(40% off plus free shipping)

Kim has been writing seriously for more than twenty years. Songs, plays, short stories, novels, picture books, articles, newsletters – you name it – she’s written it. It wasn’t until a dear friend challenged her to “do something with it” that she pursued publication. Now, she is a best-selling author of more than two dozen books, with more on the way. She has won The Carol Award, The Reader’s Choice Award, The Holt Medallion, and has finaled in the Selah Awards and the Spur Awards.

She is passionate about Bible study, reading, music, cooking, and pretty-much-all-things-crafty. Kimberley has been married to her incredible husband for twenty-nine years and counting and they have two married adult children.

Learn more about her on her website: Kimberleywoodhouse.com 

 

 

PALEONTOLGY IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST–by Kristy McCaffrey

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Paleontology is the branch of science focused on fossilized animals and plants, or the study of ancient life. It lies on the border between biology and geology, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was usually part of the geology department at many universities because fossils were important for dating rocks.

Dinosaurs lived during the Mesozoic Era (sometimes called “the Age of Reptiles”), which spanned from 252 million to 66 million years ago. It was comprised of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods. Early dinosaurs emerged in the Triassic, but they were quite small. Giants such as Tyrannosaurus rex and enormous sauropods like Brontosaurus lived during the late Jurassic and Cretaceous.

 

 

The first professor of paleontology in the United States was Othniel Charles Marsh. He served as professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale University beginning in 1866. At the Peabody Museum at Yale, he was the first to create skeletal displays of dinosaurs, which are now common in countless museums of natural history.

Marsh and his many fossil hunters were able to uncover about 500 new species of fossil animals, which were all later named by Marsh himself in nearly 400 scientific articles he published during his career.? In May 1871, Marsh uncovered the first pterosaur fossils found in America, along with Cretaceous and Jurassic dinosaurs such as Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Allosaurus.

Marsh was at the front of the Bone Wars, a period of intense and competitive fossil hunting in the U.S. from 1877 to 1892. His main rival was Edward Drinker Cope of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. They both used bribery, theft, and destruction of bones to outdo the other, while also directing attacks through scientific publications. In the end, both men were financially and socially ruined. Marsh died on March 18, 1899, a few years after his great rival Cope.

 

 

There is wide consensus today that birds evolved from small specialized coelurosaurian theropods, a dinosaur clade characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb, and today are represented by over 10,500 living species. The most well-known theropod, T. rex, has more in common with modern-day chickens than to a crocodile. Birds and theropods both shared wishbones, likely incubated their eggs, had hollow bones, and were covered in feathers.

In my new release, THE CANARY, the search is on in the Painted Desert of Arizona Territory for fossils of Coelophysis, a small bipedal carnivore theropod from the Triassic period and one of the earliest dinosaurs to walk the earth. It was similar to the velociraptors of the much later Cretaceous Period.

 

Arizona Territory

1899

Sarah Ryan grew up in Texas digging up animal bones and potsherds, but she always dreamed of searching for the extraordinary dinosaur fossils in the American West. When a wealthy benefactress gives her the opportunity to join the team of esteemed paleontologist Dr. Allan Brenner, she eagerly accepts. But when she arrives in the wild and wooly town of Holbrook, Arizona Territory, ready to start digging, she’s faced with the very real obstacle of being a female in a world dominated by men.

Dr. Jack Brenner is looking for his father who disappeared into the Painted Desert two months ago. Mounting an expedition to find him, Jack is suddenly saddled with Sarah Ryan, a young paleontology student hired as an intern to his father. When Jack’s guide refuses to let Sarah accompany them into the wilderness without a chaperone—and a colleague threatens her—he finds himself in a pretend marriage to protect the determined woman whose passion for paleontology was something he once possessed. But he has bigger problems than his beautiful new wife—his father is pursuing a controversial theory about the origin of birds, and it’s attracted the attention of men who would rather destroy evidence than excavate it.

Read Chapter One and find vendor links at Kristy’s website.

 

 

Tell me your favorite dinosaur and one commenter will win an eBook of THE STARLING.

Kate Ryan has just been promoted to field agent at the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Her first assignment? Assume the role of “wife” to fellow agent Henry Maguire, already undercover. Only Henry isn’t expecting her …

 

 

Kristy McCaffrey writes award-winning historical western romances with grit and emotion, along with contemporary adventure stories packed with smoldering romance and spine-tingling suspense. Her work is filled with compelling heroes, determined heroines, and her trademark mysticism. She lives in the desert north of Phoenix with her husband and rescue bulldog, Jeb. Learn more about her books at her website, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

 

Graphics courtesy of Deposit Photos. Book covers by Earthly Charms.