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The World's Deepest Dinosaur
FiReaNGeL writes to tell us BiologyNews.net is reporting that Norway has uncovered their first set of dinosaur remains. The catch? They found it 2,256 meters below the ocean floor. From the article: "It is merely a coincidence that the remains of the old dinosaur now see the light of day again, or more precisely, parts of the dinosaur. The fossil is in fact just a crushed knucklebone in a drilling core - a long cylinder of rock drilled out from an exploration well at the Snorre offshore field."
A crushed knucklebone in a drilling core,
Everybody find the dinosaur!
I wonder what things will be like 200 million years from today, what adanced (or not so advanced) civilization will uncover the golden gate bridge, or statue of liberty. Entire continents submerged under thousands of feet of water and mud? This impetuous yet infinitesimal progression of gradualism really makes catastrophic events like Katrina seem like child's play. There's no greater force than time.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
The fossil is in fact just a crushed knucklebone in a drilling core
Quick! someone call CSI!
"The question of how dinosaur fossils could be submerged to that depth is pretty interesting."
A worldwide flood perhaps?
. . .the fact they can tell what species it was by just a knucklebone.
I agree. We should use science to figure out where the bones come from, rather than relying on supernatural explanations.
Also, if during the course of the scientific investigations, the researches should become hungry, they should eat food rather than praying for their hunger to end. Similarly, if their mode of transportation should run out of fuel, they probably would be better served by buying a tank full of gas, versus merely "wishing real hard" that they could get where they were going.
And, of course, if they post on Slashdot, they shouldn't Karma-whore by posting the BLEEDING OBVIOUS.
Hmm, so the old woman was wrong, the earth is not perched on the back of a turtle, it is dinosaurs all the way down...
Oh well, what the hell...
The ultimate goal of science should be a complete, rigorous explanation of the natural world to the exclusion of supernatural phenomena.
This is a rediculous statement. The purpose of science should be to find the truth--whether that includes "supernatural phenomena" or not cannot be a foregone conlcusion for any _truely_ scientific search for truth.
That would be like somebody 100 years ago saying "The ultimate goal of science should be a complete, rigorous explanation of the natural world with the exclusion of the theory of relativity."
If scientific exploration is limited to our currently understood views of the world, and physical laws, then it's not science any more.
Until science _disproves_ something, that thing should not be discounted as a possibility. That includes God, goblins, and pink dinosaurs under the ocean floor.
Having said that, that doesn't mean we need to _assume_ these things exist, either. It simply means that an open mind, even to possibilities we may personally consider to be impossibilities, is necessary if the results we're going to get are to be unbiased.
There are so many scientific breakthroughs that we've seen throughout history that would never have been reached if they had been approached with your attitude--from flight, to electric light, to the theory of relativity, to space travel, to the "supernatural" time travel theory used by the time machine I used I used to get here to leave this post.
Fast-moving plates?
2256 meters after 200,000,000 years gives a sinking speed of *11 microns per year*.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
The lunar landing sites will still be recognizable in 200 million years. Even the footprints are estimated to survive for a hundred times the age of the Pyramids.
Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 will outlive the Earth.
The purpose of philosophy is to seek truth, but the purpose of science is to explain how things work. "Truisms" and "facts" are not good words to use in the natural sciences, where several hypotheses may be working at once.
The problem is that supernatural phenomena is untestable. Whether things like God or goblins exist are interesting questions, but without physical evidence, it remains speculation and is not within the realm of science. Fortunately, we don't need physical evidence to believe in God (or goblins)- this requires faith which by definition is NOT something we can see/hear/etc. Science can only deal with things that are testable. I do not know anything about the theory of relativity, except that my understanding is that it is largely based on mathematical modeling as well as physical laws, which again, are testable and completely within the realm of science - I think people will respond to you, offended that you believe that this scientific theory is "supernatural." Sometimes indirect testing is in order, but it still works. An open mind is required as you suggest, but to put forward an untestable hypothesis will get you nowhere, as no one can either agree or disagree with you, and therefore the answer will not be found.
I also call your bluff on you owning a time machine.
--
Better go now, running out of room.
Whales have extremely dense bones, and they also didn't evolve until about 30 ma. Judging from the approximate age of the bone (oil drillers know all this stuff), as well as any diagnostic features, it would be easy to designate it as a Plateosaurus, which is an extremely common dinosaur in western Europe, and is from the Late Triassic (about 200 ma). Even if crushed, a Plateosaurus is the most parsimonious explanation. As I said in another comment, the prosauropods were going from bipedal to quadrupedal and, correct me if I'm wrong prosauropod people, I bet the "knucklebones" were unique, and perhaps easy to ID. I also bet that this bone was washed out to the ocean from a river, as Norway was covered in rivers during this time. You're assuming much less once you actually have a bit of background on the time period and the region.
The flood is pretty widely accepted. Every culture dating back to then (and conveniently located in the middle east/N Africa/Mediteranian) has its own flood myths, and the geologic record supports it. There probably was a huge flood that flooded the whole region at one point, but there probably wasn't a drunk with a boat and 2 of every animal.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The Norwegians dug too deep and greedily.
The flood is pretty widely accepted. Every culture dating back to then (and conveniently located in the middle east/N Africa/Mediteranian) has its own flood myths, and the geologic record supports it. There probably was a huge flood that flooded the whole region at one point, but there probably wasn't a drunk with a boat and 2 of every animal.
The flooding of the Marmara sea and the Babylonian flood circa ~2,200 B.C.E. are fairly well-known, along with a number of other floods in the region. Some of these flood myths, such as the Turkish one, actually recalls the specific flood itself.
There is some evidence, though disputed, of extensive flooding about ten thousand years ago, during the end of the last ice age, that wiped out an extant bronze-age civilization. I don't put a whole lot of stock in it, though it is a nice fancy.
I am a science fantasy fan
... trying to trick us with fossils into believing the world is older than 10,000 years.
And pushing the joke too far gets you "-1, Offtopic". Oh, crap ...
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.