Uploaded July 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Each week, Tom chooses an article from the New York Times science section and translates it into a rap verse. This week, Mr. Q-U-E and Mr. D - from Music Notes Online - join to rap about the abundance of late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils coming out of southern Utah.
"Utah’s ‘Grand Staircase’ Leads Back in Time to Dinosaur Shangri-La" by JENNIFER PINKOWSKI, in The New York Times: goo.gl/ZpEH91
Denver Museum of Nature & Science: dmns.org
Natural History Museum of Utah: https://nhmu.utah.edu/
Bureau of Land Management: blm.gov/wo/st/en.html
Original Beats by @ChaseMooreMusic
Special thanks to Mimi Queen for all of her help and to Dustin Growick (@TheDinosaurWhisperer and host of “The Dinosaur Show” on YouTube) for the consult.
More from "Music Notes": musicnotesonline.com
Subscribe to Science With Tom: goo.gl/oFOO1W
Facebook: facebook.com/ScienceWithTom
Twitter: twitter.com/sciencewithtom
Website: sciencewithtom.com
LYRICS
Good gracious. Welcome to the late Cretaceous.
When Earth went from dino-wild to mammal-acious.
Utah a.k.a. Laramidia.
So many fossils you could fill a whole city up.
Horned-ones (Ceratopsids). Duck-billed (Hadrosaurs).
Plus everybody's favorite - the tryannosaurs.
Call it “Shangri-La.”
Where the dinosaurs came to rock.
Twenty-one species that had never been never heard before.
Like a Smörgåsbord for the herbivores.
Like a Salad bar with plants that were ancient.
Vines everywhere. @KingBach vegetation.
Dino diversity fossilized.
We can ask whether they were regionalized.
We’re glimpsing historic times.
When dinos dropped dead so mammals could thrive.
CHORUS:
Let’s take a trip
Put your seatbelts on
To a plateau that preserved
a bunch of dinosaurs.
New species
We’ve never ever seen before
Welcome to the late Cretaceous
The end of the dinosaur.
Each week, Tom chooses an article from the New York Times science section and translates it into a rap verse. This week, Mr. Q-U-E and Mr. D - from Music Notes Online - join to rap about the abundance of late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils coming out of southern Utah.
"Utah’s ‘Grand Staircase’ Leads Back in Time to Dinosaur Shangri-La" by JENNIFER PINKOWSKI, in The New York Times: goo.gl/ZpEH91
Denver Museum of Nature & Science: dmns.org
Natural History Museum of Utah: https://nhmu.utah.edu/
Bureau of Land Management: blm.gov/wo/st/en.html
Original Beats by @ChaseMooreMusic
Special thanks to Mimi Queen for all of her help and to Dustin Growick (@TheDinosaurWhisperer and host of “The Dinosaur Show” on YouTube) for the consult.
More from "Music Notes": musicnotesonline.com
Subscribe to Science With Tom: goo.gl/oFOO1W
Facebook: facebook.com/ScienceWithTom
Twitter: twitter.com/sciencewithtom
Website: sciencewithtom.com
LYRICS
Good gracious. Welcome to the late Cretaceous.
When Earth went from dino-wild to mammal-acious.
Utah a.k.a. Laramidia.
So many fossils you could fill a whole city up.
Horned-ones (Ceratopsids). Duck-billed (Hadrosaurs).
Plus everybody's favorite - the tryannosaurs.
Call it “Shangri-La.”
Where the dinosaurs came to rock.
Twenty-one species that had never been never heard before.
Like a Smörgåsbord for the herbivores.
Like a Salad bar with plants that were ancient.
Vines everywhere. @KingBach vegetation.
Dino diversity fossilized.
We can ask whether they were regionalized.
We’re glimpsing historic times.
When dinos dropped dead so mammals could thrive.
CHORUS:
Let’s take a trip
Put your seatbelts on
To a plateau that preserved
a bunch of dinosaurs.
New species
We’ve never ever seen before
Welcome to the late Cretaceous
The end of the dinosaur.
