Posted on 10/11/2002 1:04:43 AM PDT by chance33_98
"Mummified" Dinosaur Discovered In Montana
Hillary Mayell for National Geographic News October 10, 2002
Leonardo, a mummified, 77-million-year-old duck-billed dinosaur was only about three or four years old when he died, but he's proving to be a bonanza for paleontologists today.
His fossilized skeleton is covered in soft tissue—skin, scales, muscle, foot pads—and even his last meal is in his stomach.
An onsite restoration drawing of how "Leonardo" may have looked before burial based on observations and measurements of the specimen. The drawing was done by paleolife artist Greg Wenzel.
Art copyright Judith River Dinosaur Institute
"For paleontologists, if you can find one complete specimen in a lifetime, you've hit the jackpot," said Nate Murphy, curator of paleontology at the Phillips County Museum, Montana, where Leonardo makes his home. "To find one with so much external detail available, it's like going from a horse and buggy to a steam combustion engine. It will advance our science a quantum leap."
Leonardo is one of the most complete brachylophosaurus dinosaur fossils uncovered to date, and the first sub-adult. He is also only the fourth dinosaur fossil in the world to be classified as a "mummy" because of the soft tissue that is preserved.
The other three mummies were uncovered in the early 20th century, when excavation and preservation techniques were not as advanced as they are today.
"Paleontologists back then didn't have the techniques we have today to coax out the secrets these fossils are holding," said Murphy. "This specimen gives us a chance to apply modern scientific techniques to answer old questions."
The mummified fossil was named Leonardo because graffiti near its burial site in northern Montana read "Leonard Webb and Geneva Jordan, 1917." Leonardo made his debut to the scientific community today at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, taking place October 9-12, in Norman, Oklahoma.
Remarkable State of Preservation
When he died, Leonardo was a 22-foot-long (seven meters) teenager, weighing between 1.5 to 2 tons. He sported polygonal, five-sided scales that ranged from the size of a BB (airgun pellet) to the size of a dime, and soft-tissue structures on his back suggest that he had a little sail frill running up it.
Scales and tissue parts have been found on less than one-tenth of one percent of all dinosaurs excavated. Leonardo's fossilized skeleton is about 90 percent covered in soft tissue, including skin, muscle, nail material, and a beak.
Skin impressions have been found on the underside of the skull and all along the neck, ribcage, legs, and left arm.
"When the animal was alive, the skin was almost as soft as your earlobe," said Murphy.
A three-dimensional rock-cast of the right shoulder muscle and throat tissue, and the pads on the bottom of the three-toed foot were also preserved.
Leonardo's stomach contents are so well-preserved that researchers can tell what he had for his last supper; a salad of ferns, conifers, and magnolias. The stomach also contained the pollen of more than 40 different plants.
All of these qualities should go a long way to providing concrete information about the diet, range of movement, methods of locomotion, and paleo-environment dinosaurs during the late Cretaceous (89 to 65 million years ago) experienced.
"We have the shoulder muscle to look at, so we can see how much range of motion he had," said Murphy. "We should be able to tell the size of his average step, how his chest muscles worked, and if he was truly a quadruped or if he was bipedal."
"Paleontology is not an exact science," he said. "All we have are bones, and from there we develop theories about what the animals looked like, how they moved, and what they ate. A specimen like Leonardo will take a lot of guess work out and really tell us if Steven Spielberg's getting it right."
Discovery and Excavation
Dan Stephenson, of Minot, North Dakota, discovered Leonardo during the last hour of the last day of a summer expedition in 2000 sponsored by the Judith River Dinosaur Institute.
"He had the wisdom to not mess with it," chuckles Murphy. "He went and got me and I knew right away we had a complete skeleton. Looking at the geology, I told the team that this was a great scenario for skin fossilization."
Excavation began in the summer of 2001, when a demolition expert, using low-impact charges, cleared away the huge boulders on the top of the hillside. A road to the site was cut, and a bulldozer was called in to scrape off the hilltop. Team members dug a six-foot -deep (two meters) trench around the fossil's perimeter, and then went in with hand tools—the scalpels, brushes, and dental picks that are a paleontologist's tools of trade.
Leonardo was disinterred from his cement-like grave as a single 6.5-ton block to preserve the skeleton. "He's in the record books as the largest dinosaur taken out in one chunk; it was a monumental undertaking," said Murphy.
The scientific work on Leonardo will keep paleontologists occupied for years.
"It's like looking through a frosted glass window. With bones you get an idea of what the animal looked like, but with soft tissue you get to see how the animal is put together—it goes a long way to clearing the frost," said Murphy.
Very poor wording.
The steam isn't burned, he's refering to a regular steam engine that uses external combustion to heat water to steam, then uses the expansion to drive pistons on a crankshaft.
He should have used either steam engine or external combustion steam engine.
Benefits of ignorance...are there any? You don't even posit a path out. That might as well be your carcass intelligent beings hauled out of the rock in Montana.
‘I am the truth. . ..’(John 14:6)
For most of time, men and women have assumed that the truth was there to be found out. This began to change in the 19th century and the change gathered pace in the 20th. As people began to question the existence of God, it became obvious to some, that the existence of truth requires the existence of God. With God dismissed, it became impossible to conceive of truth in any absolute sense. This has resulted in the humiliation of truth. Truth is now whatever you would like it to be.
Truth's demise has filtered down through the great centers of learning, the arts, and on into streets and homes. Everything is possible with truth gone. Everything is permissible. Musicians make music that doesn't sound musical. Painters paint pictures that are incomprehensible to normal folk. Playwrights write plays that are nonsense, and architects design buildings that no one can understand. All this is put forward as legitimate, but what does it all mean?
No matter how much... popular culture---is encouraged to believe in the relativity of truth, no one can build a decent life on such a notion.
Inevitably proponents of freedom from God, and from absolute truth, are obliged to reach outside of their own system, and borrow something from theism in order to make their lives work. The person who believes that everything is valid, will soon find that he is condemned to meaninglessness. Christ is a standing offer of escape from such a hell as this To believe that truth is like Christ, is salvation indeed.
What is it, f.? What? What? What? A response, f., I dare you. Not a post full of gibberish, but something that responds to the question. What is it?
Anybody on this forum want to bet f. has no answer to what it is? Didn't think so. What's that tell you about you're ability make sense to others, f.
Don't forget the question. What is it? Creationism tells us this is _______. Fill in the blank.
What tripe. 77-million-year-old .... Sure, I have no doubt that that figure was arrived at by scholars rigidly following the principles of scientific research. (Not.)
One more time, you were born a Catholic but are no longer one. You have completely turned your back tothe spiritual and adopted materialism completely.
Nope, I find it inconceivable that someone who agrees completely with the atheists you hang out with can possibly be still a Christian. Aside from asserting that you are one, I see no evidence of the slightest belief in an Almighty in you.
And the answer is ...
Now, f., of course, has been all over this drivel, pointing out many of the falacies, that evolution's been disproved more times than I can count, etc. You know the drill. However, f.'s been challenged to explain what the thing actually is, and f.'s drawing a blank.
Everybody, of course, agrees that creation science should be taught in school along side evolution to give the kids some balance. What would creationscience tell us this thing is? How old would it be, really? What cognitive tools would kids develop so that, in future, they'd be able to explain stuff like this. I mean, poor f. didn't have the benefit of a solid creation science background, so it's understandable that f. can't come up with even the remotest form of a response.
Come on, now. What the heck is this thing?
Fair enough. What does intelligent design posit the thing pulled from the Montana rock is? How old? What are its methods used to secure knowledge?
Don't forget boring stuff such as mud. :-)
Once, while canoeing in the Florida Everglades, I made a landing at what appeared to be a solid beachead, stepped out and immediately sank up to my waist in mud.
Once buried in muck, anaerobic conditions can keep the soft tissues preserved. "Bog mummies" are found in the acidic peat bogs of Northern Europe. These individuals, dating back over 2,000 years, have either drowned or had their bodies dumped in bogs after being killed. The most famous one is Tollund Man whose body is now in the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark.
Tollund Man was the victim of "foul play" be it a murder, execution or human sacrifice. Note the rope that was still around his neck when the body was discovered.
Did as you suggested: googol search; read about a dozen links. I'm amazed. There's nothing there! About a half dozen people all citing each other. Fresh bones and blood citings about as compelling as UFO sightings! Really, nothing available to check, just somebody claiming something. Some references to some well known claptrap about human and dinosaur footprints found together in Texas. Something about a grad student, Mary Schweitzer, at U. of Montana, or Montana State U. (maybe it's both as both are claimed) finding some blood, but no corroboration, nor any real specifics.
If this is your idea of convincing evidence, I'm baffled. I mean, dinging the heck out of evolution for lack of fossil evidence of transition forms but claiming humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together without mass confirmation. All those ruins all over the planet where ancient humans inhabited, with all their artifacts and stuff, and NO dinosaur fragments? Not compelling reasoning at all.
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