Live data from Hacker News

A Dinosaur So Well Preserved It Looks Like a Statue

theatlantic.com

1–10 of 31 posts

Re: A Dinosaur So Well Preserved It Looks Like a Statue

#6
> 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.

Re: A Dinosaur So Well Preserved It Looks Like a Statue

#7
post #6

> 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, prepari…

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

Re: A Dinosaur So Well Preserved It Looks Like a Statue

#9
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.

Re: A Dinosaur So Well Preserved It Looks Like a Statue

#10

Note: birds are technically dinosaurs http://tolweb.org/Dinosauria/14883

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

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

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

Post reply on HN