Watery secret of the dinosaur death pose (Simplest explanation of Dino extinction: They drowned)

New Scientist ^ | 11/23/2011 | by Brian Switek

[SeekAndFind]

Recreating the spectacular pose many dinosaurs adopted in death might involve following the simplest of instructions: just add water.

When palaeontologists are lucky enough to find a complete dinosaur skeleton – whether it be a tiny Sinosauropteryx or an enormous Apatosaurus – there's a good chance it will be found with its head thrown backwards and its tail arched upwards – technically known as the opisthotonic death pose. No one is entirely sure why this posture is so common, but Alicia Cutler and colleagues from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, think it all comes down to a dip in the wet stuff.

Cutler placed plucked chickens – both fresh and frozen – on a bed of sand for three months to see if desiccation would lead to muscle contractions that pulled the neck upwards – a previously suggested explanation for the death pose. The chickens decayed without contorting. When seven other chickens were placed into cool, fresh water, however, their necks arched and their heads were thrown back within seconds. Sustained immersion of the birds for up to a month slightly increased the severity of the pose, but the major movement of the head occurred almost immediately.

The result contrasts with a study carried out in 2007 by Cynthia Marshall Faux at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, and Kevin Padian at the University of California in Berkeley. The pair found that salty water did not alter the pose of dead quails. They concluded that the arched back seen in so many fossils was instead the result of the expiring dinosaur's final death throes (Paleobiology, DOI: 10.1666/06015.1) – an idea that was first suggested by pathologist Roy Moodie in 1918.

Why dunking dead birds in water produced different results in the two studies is not clear.

[SeekAndFind]

In other dinosaur news, PhysOrg reported a nest of 15 Protoceratops juveniles found in Mongolia, the first nest of their genus ever found.  The paleontologist from University of Rhode Island said “I suspect” they were buried in a sandstorm, but admitted they had to be buried rapidly to be preserved in such detail.  And although extinct marine reptiles are not dinosaurs, PhysOrg also reported on an exceptionally-preserved mosasaur fossil discovered in western Kansas. Live Science said of this specimen, “In the fossilized skin samples, the researchers can see not only the animal's scales, but also imprints of the protein fibers that made up its skin.”  The discovery was reported in PLoS ONE by Lindgren et al.¹

1. Lindgren J , Everhart MJ , Caldwell MW , 2011 Three-Dimensionally Preserved Integument Reveals Hydrodynamic Adaptations in the Extinct Marine Lizard Ectenosaurus (Reptilia, Mosasauridae). PLoS ONE 6(11): e27343. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027343.

[for-q-clinton]

Interesting.

[ClearCase_guy]

Now why on earth would so many extinct animals die in some sort of freak drowning event???

[doc1019]

Noah would be so pleased.

[SeekAndFind]

Live Science reported a nest of bird fossils from the dinosaur era that they say was buried in a local flash flood.  The article states, “the limestone block contains remarkably complete egg fossils, representing hundreds of eggs”.  Speaking of birds, PhysOrg reported evidence of a dinosaur that ate birds.  A fossil of Microraptor gui (depending on how one classifies this as a dinosaur) appears to have a small bird fossil in its stomach.  And what could it possibly mean that a giant long-necked titanosaur has been found in Antarctica?  See Live Science for details.

[mnehring]

That makes sense regarding the preservation. The specimens who just die on the ground are bound to be torn up by scavengers. But being caught in a flash flood could kill and quickly bury it.

[mnehring]

Flash floods aren’t ‘freak’. They happen all the time in some areas.

[PapaNew]

The water explanation certainly comports more with the biblical account of how things were before the (re)creation (Genesis 1:2).

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

It does. Neato.

[GeronL]

interesting but probably way too simple.... could have been true for some parts though

[Ripliancum]

A study from Brigham Young University? You better tred carefully posting anything that can be construed as Mormons supporting the bible on this site.

/sarc

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SeekAndFind.

...there's a good chance it will be found with its head thrown backwards and its tail arched upwards -- technically known as the opisthotonic death pose... Alicia Cutler and colleagues... placed plucked chickens -- both fresh and frozen... into cool, fresh water... their necks arched and their heads were thrown back within seconds... The result contrasts with a study carried out in 2007 by Cynthia Marshall Faux at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, and Kevin Padian at the University of California in Berkeley. The pair found that salty water did not alter the pose of dead quails.

Sometimes I just like to poke the bear. :')

In The Beginning: The Origin of the Oceans
by Immanuel Velikovsky

The common salt is a substantial ingredient of the oceanic content, or, said differently, the water of the oceans and seas contains a substantial solution of NaCl, or sodium chloride. Even though our blood and tissues abound in sodium chloride, man and animals are not adapted to drink salty water, and life on land could develop only thanks to the evaporation of the water from the surface of seas and oceans, or to distillation -- the evaporating water is free from salts. Falling as rain or snow or dew, it feeds underground sources and also glaciers, and through them the brooks and rivers and lakes, and is delivered to our use usually through concrete tubes and metal pipes.

Of the salts of the seas sodium chloride is by far the most abundant. The provenance of it is, however, a riddle. It was, and still is, assumed that the salts in the oceans originated mainly through importation from land, having been dissolved from rocks by flowing rivulets and rivers, themselves fed by underground sources, and the same process working on the rocks of the seabed. Terrestrial formations are rich in sodium, and in eons of time, it is assumed, the sodium washed out of the rocks supplied its content to the oceans; the seas evaporate and the concentration of these salts grows. But the rocks are by far not so rich in chlorine, and hence the problem -- from where did chlorine come to contribute its abundance to oceanic water? There is chlorine in source water, but usually not in significant amounts. The proportion of salts in the rivers is very different from their proportion in the seas. River water has many carbonates (80 percent of the salts), fewer sulphates (13 percent) and still fewer chlorides (7 percent). Sea water has many chlorides (89 percent), fewer sulphates (10 percent) and only a few carbonates (0.2 percent). The comparison of these figures makes it clear that rivers cannot be made responsible for most of the salts of the seas. Therefore it is also obvious that there is no proper way of calculating the age of the Earth by comparing the amount of salts in the seas with the annual discharge by the rivers; the most that can be done in this respect is to calculate the rich amount of carbonates in the rivers in their relation to the relatively poor concentration to these salts in the seas; but then there will be no explanation for the rich concentration of chlorides in the seas in comparison with their poor concentration in the rivers.

A part of the salts could be traced to the washing of lands and the floor of the seas; chlorine is known also to be discharged by volcanoes, but to account for the chlorine locked in the seas, volcanic eruptions, whether on land or under the surface of the seas, needed to have taken place on an unimaginable scale -- actually, it was figured out, on an impossible scale. Thus it was acknowledged that the provenance of chlorine in the salts of the seas is a problem unsolved.

Paleontological research makes it rather apparent that marine animals in some early age were more closely related to fresh-water fauna; in other words, the salinity of the oceans increased markedly at some age in the past.

---

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

---

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks SeekAndFind. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[PapaNew]

Usually, sooner or later, real science, through trial and error, eventually comes around to discovering what God's Word has plainly declared all along.

True science is great and fascinating and is the friend of Biblical truth.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks GeronL! I didn’t see your ping ‘til now.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

As I say to my boys all the time....the goal of science is not to DISPROVE God, but that He exists. ;-)

[SatinDoll]

Many dinosaurs traveled in herds and crossed streams and rivers. If at flood stage, some animals would drown and be buried in silt. These would be the specimens most likely to be preserved as fossils. Multiply by millions of dinosaurs times the 165 million years dinosaurs existed as a dominant group on earth and that would pretty much explain why many of the fossils are found in that position.

Really, there are not that many dinosaur fossils found for the huge number that existed and for the length of time they dominated the earth.

[Elsiejay]

The fossil record of the trilobite (Wisconsin’s state fossil) makes very interesting reading. Uncountable numbers of them are preserved, whole and undamaged, in some sites their chitinous exoskeletons preserved (not mineralized), obviously mass burials as by a major flood.