Ice Age theme park

The Ice Age theme park in Riverfront Park is a nice idea, and educational (“New ice age themed-park might bring back ‘dinosaur bone,’” June 22).

According to reporter Emma Epperly’s article, the design team wants to reinstall into the theme park a massive concrete replica of dinosaur bone left over from Expo ‘74. Dinosaurs flourished in the Triassic Period, going extinct by end of Cretaceous, while Ice Age was in the Pleistocene Epoch. The ends of the two geologic benchmarks are separated by 54 million years. No dinosaurs, except perhaps a few birds, existed in the most recent Ice Age, during which floods sculpted eastern Washington’s landscape.

A replica mammoth skull is planned for one entrance to theme park. Mammoth bones are found in a dig near Yakima, beneath Ice Age flood sediments. While mammoths were common at end of Pleistocene Ice Age, dinosaurs were virtually extinct.

Let’s educate kids properly. There is no need, and lots of harm done, associating Ice Age floods with massive dinosaur bones. No way to call the new play area for kids a “Theme Park,” when geologic periods 54 million years apart are confusing and promoting a complete myth.

Put the replica of the old bone outside the Ice Age theme park, where kids can climb and have fun.

Thomas Cooney

Spokane