He found many complete fish, which are rare in the Hell Creek Formation, and he figured that he could remove them intact if he worked with painstaking care. Robert A. dePalma, vice chairman of the board of the Rockwell International Corporation died yesterday in Pittsburgh. Robert was a resident of Atco, New Jersey at the time of passing. People sometimes think Im dumb because I often say I dont have the answerswe werent there when a fossil was formed. By the time the site flooded, the surrounding forest was already on fire, given the abundance of charcoal, charred wood, and amber hed found at the site. To offer your sympathy during this difficult time, you can now have memorial trees planted in a National Forest in memory of your loved one. Of his discovery, DePalma said, "It's like finding the Holy Grail clutched in the . We'll help you find the right words to comfort your family member or loved one during this difficult time. One paleontologist estimated that in the Cretaceous period Hell Creek was so thick with T.rexes that they were like hyenas on the Serengeti. When I found the first feather, I had about twenty seconds of disbelief, he said. Obituary of Richard S. DePalma, Sr. Irondequoit: Friday, August 13, 2021 at age 88. Its substance, mingling with vaporized Earth rock, formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon before collapsing in a pillar of incandescent dust. In addition, an inverted cone of liquefied, superheated rock rose, spread outward as countless red-hot blobs of glass, called tektites, and blanketed the Western Hemisphere. View Tribute Book Robert L. DePalma - Monroe Township, NJ Robert L. DePalma, 69, died on September 4, 2013 at the Jersey Shore Medical Center. If one looks at the Earth as a kind of living organism, as many biologists do, you could say that it was shot by a bullet and almost died. Roberts got so much stuff thats unheard of, Burnham told me. After the G.S.A. All of it was quickly entombed and preserved in the muck: dying and dead creatures, both marine and freshwater; plants, seeds, tree trunks, roots, cones, pine needles, flowers, and pollen; shells, bones, teeth, and eggs; tektites, shocked minerals, tiny diamonds, iridium-laden dust, ash, charcoal, and amber-smeared wood. As he dug, the momentousness of what he had come across slowly dawned on him. Please share a memory of Robert to include in a keepsake book for family and friends. Robert is predeceased by his father, Nicholas DePalma, Sr., his mother, Florence; step mother, Shirley and brother, Nicholas DePalma, Jr. In college, he was a captain of Duquesne's basketball team, one of the leading basketball teams in the country at that time, and was named an All-American in 1957. Even a three-hundred-metre rock would end world agriculture.. Half an hour later, DePalma discovered a large feather. He quietly shared his findings with a half-dozen luminaries in the field of KT studies, including Walter Alvarez, and enlisted their help. Posted in . He helps defray the expenses by mounting fossils, doing reconstructions, and casting and selling replicas for museums, private collectors, and other clients. They raided each others quarries, bribed each others crews, and vilified each other in print and at scientific meetings. He peered at it, his eyes inches from the rock, probing it with the tip of the bayonet. (Paleontology has more than its share of unusual people.) He loaned the museum his childhood fossil collection for display, but in 2004 the museum went bankrupt and many of the specimens were carted off to a community college. The site had once been a pond, and the deposit consisted of very thin layers of sediment. Beloved husband of Diane (nee Hatch). He noted that every fish hed found in the site had died with its mouth open, which may indicate that the fish had been gasping as they suffocated in the sediment-laden water. Most digs are boring; days or weeks may pass with little found. As I watched, DePalma and Pascucci lay on their stomachs under the beating sun, their eyes inches from the dirt wall, and picked away. Robert L. Stevens (1787-1856), inventor, who was the son of Colonel John Stevens (B) Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), leading figure of 19th and early 20th-century American photography (B) Joe Sulaitis (1921-1980), running back for the New York Giants of the NFL, 1943-1953; Jeff Tamarkin, editor, author and historian DePalma knew that a screwup with this site would probably end his career, and that his status in the field was so uncertain that he needed to fortify the find against potential criticism. Sharonda L Craig's phone number is (419) 259 - 0361. I have made an incredible and unprecedented discovery, he wrote me, from a truck stop in Bowman, North Dakota. Study leader Robert DePalma (right) and field assistant Kylie Ruble stabilize a fossil slab with plaster bandages before removing it from the ground. But DePalma insists on contractual clauses that give him oversight of the management of his specimens. All rights reserved. February 15, 1950 - January 4, 2015 Bristol, Connecticut Set a Reminder for the Anniversary of Robert's Passing. Paleontologist Robert DePalma, featured in PBS's "Dinosaur Apocalypse," discusses an astonishing trove of fossils. But DePalma was able to show that each layer in the deposit had been laid down in a single big rainstorm. At first, I was skeptical. Earths two essential food chains, in the sea and on land, collapsed. Anyone can read what you share. His father, Robert, Sr., practices endodontic surgery in nearby Delray Beach; his great-uncle Anthony, who died in 2005, at the age of a hundred, was a renowned orthopedic surgeon who wrote several standard textbooks on the subject. Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Many scientists view this trade as a threat to paleontology and argue that important fossils belong in museums. Sixty hours later, the asteroid hit. For the first hundred million years of their existence, before the asteroid struck, mammals scurried about the feet of the dinosaurs, amounting to little. All U.S., Obituary Collection, 1930-Current results for Nicola Di Palma. In the week that followed, fresh riches emerged: more feathers, leaves, seeds, and amber, along with several other fish, three to five feet long, and a dozen more craters with tektites. As the sediments settled, blobs of glass rained into the mud, the largest first, then finer and finer bits, until grains sifted down like snow. Later, though, he wondered how the bone, which was heavy, had arrived there, very close to the high-water mark of the flood. When I saw his data with the paddlefish, sturgeon, and ammonite, I think hes right on the spot, Smit said. JOHN DEPALMA OBITUARY. For five years, DePalma continued excavations at the site. When DePalmas find was picked up by the national media, Horner dismissed it as speculation and merely one data point. He suggested an alternative scenario: the T.rex might have accidentally bitten the tail of a sleeping hadrosaur, thinking that it was dead, and then backed away when it realized its mistake. See the article in its original context from. You see skin, you see dorsal fins literally sticking straight up in the sediments, species new to science, he said. The deposit consisted of dozens of thin layers of mud and sand. By Nicole Karlis Senior Writer. Send Flowers. . For some people, the best send-off is one that they would have loved to attendthemselves: a big party. It will be in the textbooks.. He was preceded in death by his wife, Nancy L. DePalma and parents, Andrew and Filomena DePalma. His X-Acto knife unearthed the edge of a fossilized fin. But this one was perfectly intact, so I knew that it was transported at the time of death or around then. Like the mosasaur tooth, it had somehow ended up miles inland from the sea of its origin. Published May 11, 2022 6:09PM (EDT) DePalma listed some of the other discoveries hes made at the site: several flooded ant nests, with drowned ants still inside and some chambers packed with microtektites; a possible wasp burrow; another mammal burrow, with multiple tunnels and galleries; shark teeth; the thigh bone of a large sea turtle; at least three new fish species; a gigantic ginkgo leaf and a plant that was a relative of the banana; more than a dozen new species of animals and plants; and several other burrow types. If the site was what he hoped, he had made the most important paleontological discovery of the new century. The site may hold a precise geological transcript of the asteroid strike that almost wiped out life on the planet. The water arrived not as a curling wave but as a powerful, roiling rise, packed with disoriented fish and plant and animal debris, which, DePalma hypothesized, were laid down as the water slowed and receded. The microtektites he had found earlier might have been carried there by water, but these had been trapped where they fellon what, DePalma believed, must have been the very day of the disaster. When he was four, someone at a museum in Texas gave him a fragment of dinosaur bone, which he took to his great-uncle. . 10175 Rawiga Rd, He was recalled to active duty during the Berlin crisis in 1961 and was discharged a year later with the rank of captain. It looked as if a piece of the moon had dropped there. Picture the splash of a pebble falling into pond water, but on a planetary scale. Service map data OpenStreetMap contributors. The discovery helped refute an old hypothesis, revived by the formidable paleontologist Jack Horner, that T.rex was solely a scavenger. Funeral services will begin at 11:15 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 9, 2013, from the M. David DeMarco Funeral Home, Inc., 205 Rhode Hall Rd., Monroe Township., N.J. 08831 Read More, Robert L. DePalma Monroe Township, NJ Robert L. DePalma, 69, died on September 4, 2013 at the Jersey Shore Medical Center. He was 56 years old and lived in Mount Lebanon, Pa. Mr. dePalma died of cancer . Also predeceased by our beloved Nana: Romilda Monacelli DePalma . He was hoping for a site like the one hed excavated earlier: an ancient pond with fine-grained, fossil-bearing layers that spanned many seasons and years. Theres no uncertainty to this statement: the Earth will be hit by a Chicxulub-size asteroid again, unless we deflect it, he told me. . The bone was big for a Cretaceous mammalthree inches longand almost complete, with a tooth. In the early 1980s, the discovery of a clay layer rich in iridium, an element found in meteorites, at the very end of the rock record of the Cretaceous at sites around the world led researchers to link an asteroid to the End Cretaceous mass extinction. A field assistant, Rudy Pascucci, left, and the paleontologist Robert DePalma, right, at DePalma's dig site. OH 44273. Recently Sold Properties in Winfield 7. The climate was tropical, and the planet was perhaps entirely free of ice. Look at these two fish. He showed me where the sturgeons scutesthe sharp, bony plates on its backhad been forced into the body of the paddlefish. There are no events scheduled. Send simple, comforting meals with Home Chef. A core sample from DePalmas site. Get this Community News page for free from Thursday, August 11, 2011 UARIES Rose DePalma MAYWOOD - Rose M. DePalma (nee Bartolomucci), 82, formerly of North Bergen, died July 29. In 1902, Barnum Brown, a flamboyant dinosaur hunter who worked at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, found the first Tyrannosaurus rex here, causing a worldwide sensation. Send simple, comforting meals with Home Chef. Website Designed by funeralOne, Fort Myers Memorial Gardens Funeral Home & Cemetery. A new era of strength competitions is testing the limits of the human body. July 11, 2009 John E. Lewis "Lou" DePalma, 80, of LaFayette, passed away Saturday at home with his loved ones at his side. (Photo by Robert Duran) Branson's Whitney Collet (7) battles for the ball with Josie Tunney (10) of St. Ignatius at St. Ignatius Prep in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. In late January, 2014, DePalma went there to gather tektites and sent them to an independent lab in Canada, along with tektites from his own site; the samples were analyzed at the same time, with the same equipment. In high school, during the summer and on weekends, DePalma collected fossils, made dinosaur models, and mounted skeletons for the Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History, in Dania Beach. Normally, one geological layer might represent thousands or millions of years. The family would appreciate donations in lieu of flowers to the Arc of Camden County, 322 Stratford Avenue, West Berlin, NJ 08091 or http://arccamden.org/donate. ), Between the ages of three and four, I made a visual connection with the gracefulness of individual bones and how they fit together as a system, DePalma told me. And to thinksixty-six million years later, a stinky monkey is digging it up, trying to figure out what happened. He added, If its a new species, Ill name it after you.. DePalma was lost in another day, in another time. Robert L. DePalma Monroe Township, NJ David Kessler's top 4 tips for dealing with holiday grief. M David Demarco Funeral Home Inc. 205 Rhode Hall Rd. Robert DePalma. Carlos Villegas Jr., 23, of the 1500 block of West Jefferson Avenue, Naperville, was arrested on a warrant at 11:49 p.m. Feb. 19 in the 1500 block of West Jefferson Avenue. My deepest sympathies to the entire family. Giving to charity is a meaningful way to honor someone who has died. Board of Education 1987 - 1998. It's surprising how much a musical selection can affect mourning. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Most paleontologists rejected the idea that a sudden, random encounter with space junk had drastically altered the evolution of life on Earth. It must have floated, he said, and to have done so it must have been encased in desiccated tissuesuggesting that at least one dinosaur species was alive at the time of the impact. As DePalma carefully excavated the upper layers, he began uncovering an extraordinary array of fossils, exceedingly delicate but marvellously well preserved. Today, the layer of debris, ash, and soot deposited by the asteroid strike is preserved in the Earths sediment as a stripe of black about the thickness of a notebook. As the court deliberates in 1997, a New York Times pull quote tells readers "[a] euthanasia case becomes a cause clbre in Canada" (DePalma 1997, p. A3). Obituaries 03-01-2023. by Journal Staff March 1, . (In 1997, a T.rex nicknamed Sue was sold at a Sothebys auction, to the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, for more than $8.3 million.) Information and advice to help you cope with the death of someone important to you. The land teemed with life and the conditions were excellent for fossilization, with seasonal floods and meandering rivers that rapidly buried dead animals and plants. One by one, he dipped the burlap strips in the plaster and draped them across the top and the sides of the specimen. Mrs. Bennett was born on June 16, 1984 in Stony Brook, NY to Michael Marcellus DePalma and Annette Daidone DePalma. It was a very bad day, DePalma said. Mr. dePalma is survived by his wife, Maryann, and their three children, Robert, Diane Lange and Carolyn, and one grandchild, all of Pittsburgh. Roads connect small townstruck stop, church, motel, houses and trailersand lonely expanses roll by in between. Extraordinary discoveries require extraordinary evidence, he said. As DePalma shaved back the layers to make a cross-section of the crater, he found the thing itselfnot a hailstone but a small white sphereat the bottom of the crater. Robert was born in Phila, PA and had been a lifetime resident of Atco, NJ. Angela (DePalma) on May 29,1965 and the couple remained in Revere where they raised . Make a Memorial Donation . He is also survived by grandmothers, Ruth and Joyce; two sisters, Bonnie and Caitlin; and one brother, Mathew; nephews, Jacob, Logan and Alex; and niece, Addison; aunt, Diane and uncle, Chuck and his daughter Nicky; aunt, Margaret Jean and uncle, Alvie and their children Alvie Jr. and Billy; aunt, Maria and her daughter Carrie; uncle, John and aunt, Erin and their two daughters Natalie and Marisa. Beloved son of the Late Angelo & Mary DePalma. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Dear brother Read More, Submit an obit for publication in any local newspaper and on Legacy. Obituary. The egg and the other remains suggested that dinosaurs and major reptiles were probably not staggering into extinction on that fateful day. Photosynthesis all but stopped, killing most of the plant life, extinguishing the phytoplankton in the oceans, and causing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere to plummet. If its what its said to be, Johnson said, its a fabulous discovery. But he declared himself uneasy until he could see DePalmas paper. As the water slowed and became slack, it deposited everything that had been caught up in its travelsthe heaviest material first, up to whatever was floating on the surface. Robert was a member of the Raritan Road Runner M.C., the Read More, DEPALMA Robert Michael DePalma Jr. of Columbus, Ohio passed away unexpectedly February 15, 2010 at the age of 26 years. Terms of Service apply. He found, intact, an unhatched egg containing an embryoa fossil of immense research value. Parallel, streaming lines were visible on its surfaceSchlieren lines, formed by two types of molten glass swirling together as the blobs arced through the atmosphere. Robert L. DePalma, 69, of Monroe Township, N.J., died on Sept. 4, 2013, at the Jersey Shore University Medical Center. Robert was a member of the Raritan Road Runner M.C., the Blackhawks and a regular patron at the Cambridge Inn. On Nov. 29, 1958, in Lima, he married Janet Daley, who survives. These are probably quill knobs, he said. In 2013, DePalma briefly made news with a paper he published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Million years later, DePalma discovered a large feather to help you find the right words comfort... Splash of a fossilized fin is a meaningful way to honor someone who has died carefully excavated the layers... 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