Welcome to the Web Site of

Donald L. Blanchard

WebMaster,
Amateur Herpetologist,
Armchair Paleontologist,
Geomorphologist, and
Paleoclimatologist

About Me

I am a former Electronics Engineer turned Web Site Designer. After learning the basics of web site design from creating my own web site, I landed by first commercial client in October of 1997, and acquired the domain name WebSpinners.com a month later. I have been designing web sites ever since.

Herpetology:
As a kid, I used to catch lizards and frogs, and bring them home to keep as pets. In High School, I joined the school Science Club, which was run by a teacher who kept a Gila Monster in his classroom and had rattlesnakes tucked away under a counter. A club-sponsored lizard collecting field trip to the California desert kindled my interest in desert lizards, and I began making frequent collecting trips to the desert throughout High School and my early college years.

My interest in reptiles faded as I progressed through college, and wasn't rekindled until my girl friend, an elementary school teacher, announced that she wanted a lizard for her classroom. I contacted an aquaintance in the Colorado Herpetological Society, with whom we caught an Eastern Fence lizard, Sceloporus undulatus, for her to take to school. I joined the CHS myself a few years later, and have since become its Webmaster, Treasurer, and newsletter Editor.

As CHS Editor, I have written several articles related to herpetology, all of which are reproduced on this web site.

Things Paleo:
I became interested in dinosaurs and the puzzle of their extinction during High School. My own solution to that puzzle is expounded in "Changing Paleoclimates and Mass Extinctions: A New Model for Climatic Change", under the "Paleoclimate" link at left.

Also in High School I became intrigued with Continental Drift, and when the theory of Plate Tectonics first appeared in the pages of Scientific American in 1963, I immediately jumped on the bandwagon. I wrote several articles elaborating on the theory, culminating with "The ABC's of Plate Tectonics", which is also linked at left.

I created "The Dinosaurs of Colorado" when I became involved with the Morrison Natural History Museum.

You are visitor number 14913 since November 4, 2004.

File Last Updated on November 6, 2004.