
A Dinosaur So Well Preserved It Looks Like a Statue - brisance
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/a-dinosaur-so-well-preserved-it-looks-like-a-statue/535782/?single_page=true
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mirimir
> Those hands belonged to technician Mark Mitchell, who compares the process
> of separating dinosaur from rock to chipping concrete chunks from a surface
> as soft as compressed talcum powder. It took him 7,000 hours over 5.5 years,
> during which he did little else. For that reason, the dinosaur carries his
> name—Borealopelta markmitchelli. (The first half comes from the Latin for
> “northern shield.”)

So basically, preparing a fossil is rather like sculpting a statue. The
outline is there, but following it isn't so trivial.

~~~
puranjay
This was the most remarkable part about the whole thing as well. 7,000 hours
just working on a single fossil. This man must have extraordinary patience

~~~
iaskwhy
Still 30%-ish away from being an expert! On a serious note, compare that
rhythm with our field...

~~~
ivanhoe
it's a type of work where one can call herself an expert after just two
projects... just like web development ;)

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BartSaM
Actually kudos to the mine workers and mine management for halting operations
and letting archaeologists access the site.

The cost involved here is enormous with this, so such an operations often
decide to ignore the bones instead.

~~~
BostonEnginerd
I've met some folks involved in quarrying and have heard stories about seeing
fossils and blowing them up to avoid stopping work. It's terribly sad and
should have large consequences.

I'm really glad this mine did it the right way and stopped!

~~~
mikepurvis
Consequences, yes. But surely it would help to have appropriate positive
incentives toward doing the right thing, for example mandated insurance for an
archeological event, that pays out in the event that one occurs.

~~~
Cerium
Always better to set up a win-win than to try to create fear over getting
caught.

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DarkTree
Cool blog post about how NatGeo's 3D tour of the fossil was created using
Three.js in the browser.

[https://source.opennews.org/articles/resurrecting-
dragon/](https://source.opennews.org/articles/resurrecting-dragon/)

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m_st
Original post from 3 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14326913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14326913)

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tomkat0789
I wonder if they'll get a good image of the dinosaur's insides! What could
they use to see through the rock?

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meri_dian
I wish in the headlining photo a person was standing next to the fossil to
give a sense of scale. That thing is probably > 10 feet long! No wonder it
took 7000 hours to separate from the rock.

~~~
tyingq
There are images with a 10cm scale bar here: [http://www.cell.com/current-
biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)3...](http://www.cell.com/current-
biology/fulltext/S0960-9822\(17\)30808-4)

The hi res image:
[http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2102978684/2080439624/gr1...](http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2102978684/2080439624/gr1_lrg.jpg)

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nthcolumn
Had it before but a different article and photo. Showed this to my daughter
who is dino-crazy a few months ago - she went '>gasp< WOW!' genuine agape awe.
Amazing. Isn't it fantastic that the operator was trained and cared enough to
stop working? It would have been really cool though if prior to
expetrification that the block was MRI'ed and a 3D model created from the MRI
which could then be 3D printed in schools all over the world.

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partycoder
Note: birds are technically dinosaurs

[http://tolweb.org/Dinosauria/14883](http://tolweb.org/Dinosauria/14883)

~~~
thomasfoster96
And dinosaurs are reptiles, mammals and reptiles are amniotes [1], both
amniotes and amphibians are tetrapods, tetrapods are actually fish[2], and
there's no such thing as a fish[3]!

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amniote](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amniote)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapodomorpha](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapodomorpha)

[3]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish)

~~~
k__
So we have more in common with all land animals than a fish has with any other
fish?

~~~
benjaminjackman
I vaguely remebering reading (I think it was in The Selfish Gene) that we are
more closely related to salmon than salmon are to sharks.

~~~
btilly
This is absolutely true, and to be expected from the fact that the inheritance
splits like a tree. For one thing both we and salmon have bones, sharks only
have cartilage.

But we're more closely related to sharks than either is to the jawless fishes
like the hagfish. The hagfish are just plain _weird_.

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avenoir
Original discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14326913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14326913)

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Dodgeit
>So paleontologists have debated whether giant dinosaurs had trunks

That's my biggest takeaway from the article

