North American Museum of Ancient Life and Aliens of the Deep
August 15, 2005 | 4 Comments
After Bingham Copper Mine, we headed south down to the North American Museum of Ancient Life at Thangsgiving Point. This museum has one of the largest collections of ancient life specimens. My favorites included: the archelon turtle, battling t-rexes, a supersaurus, a stegasaurus, a pair of pachycephalosaurus, a giant ground sloth, a wooly mammoth, and my gallery of the various dinos and other ancient life.
A surprising highlight of the museum was seeing Aliens of the Deep 3D on their Xango Mammoth Screen. This James Cameron film that follows a young team of marine biologists, NASA researchers, and Cameron himself on a very deep sea research voyage. NASA’s involvement was based on the similarity in searching for life in deep sea and deep space. Specifically, they hope to eventually be doing a similar expedition to Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Amazingly they have been successful at finding life near the hydro-thermal vents on the ocean floor. A place devoid of life with insane extremes of cold, hot, and pressures. Many of these creatures thrive chemosynthtically, by using chemicals rather than light or organic food matter to gain energy. Very fascinating.
Tags: aliens of the deep, ancient life, archelon turtle, chemosynthetic, deep sea exploration, dinosaur, dinosaurs, europa, fossils, giant sloth, james cameron, jupiter, pachycephalosaurus, space exploration, stegasaurus, supersaurus, t-rex, thanksgiving point, tyrannosaurus, Utah, utahraptor, wooly mammoth