Life-size: Nate Carroll, left, and Liz Freedman, right pose with a complete reconstruction of the neck vertebra of an Alamosaurus at Montana State University
Posted on 12/10/2011 6:55:40 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The enormous bones of what is believed to be the biggest dinosaur in the U.S... belong to the sauropod dinosaur Alamosaurus sanjuanensis: a long-necked plant eater related to Diplodocus...
Dr Fowler said: 'Alamosaurus has been known for some time, its remains were first described in 1922 from the Naashoibito beds of New Mexico.
'Since then, more bones have been discovered in New Mexico, Utah, some really nice material from Texas, and Mexico, including a few partial skeletons.'
He said the sheer size of the new bones had caught the researchers by surprise.
He said researchers had believed that a fully grown Alamosaurus measured around 60 feet long and weighed about 30 tons.
But a 2009 study by another MSU researcher, Dr. Holly Woodward, led to discovery of a femur thought to belong to an adult that was still growing.
Dr Fowler said. 'This told us that Alamosaurus got even bigger, but we didn't imagine that it could get quite this big.'
The enormity of the new bones puts Alamosaurus in the same size league as other giant sauropods from South America, including Argentinosaurus which weighed about 70 tons, and is widely considered to be the biggest dinosaur of all.
Dr Fowler added: 'Over the past 20 years, Argentinean and Brazilian paleontologists have been unearthing bigger and bigger dinosaurs, putting the rest of the world in the shade.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Life-size: Nate Carroll, left, and Liz Freedman, right pose with a complete reconstruction of the neck vertebra of an Alamosaurus at Montana State University
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield. |
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“Alamo! Supper!”
Oh Gosh, what have I done!
The New York Times has bones?
Amazing. For comparison, a yard of concrete weights 4000 lbs. A large concrete mixer on the road hauls 10 yards. 40,000 lbs = 20 tons. The concrete mixer, unloaded, weights 30,000 pds = 15 tons. Total = 35 tons. This beast weighted as much as two FULLY loaded concrete mixers....
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After all these years? No wonder it's so huge!
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