- Log in to post comments
More like this
tags: researchblogging.org, Tyrannosaurus rex, dinosaurs, birds, fossils
Repeated analysis of proteins from a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex reveal new evidence of a link between dinosaurs and birds: Of the seven reconstructed protein sequences, three were closely related to chickens.
Image:…
In 2005 the unexpected occurred; researchers reported what appeared to be preserved soft tissues inside the femur of a Tyrannosaurus rex excavated from the Hell Creek Formation. Structures that looked like blood vessels and blood cells were seen under the microscope, and although it is still…
tags: researchblogging.org, evolution, dinosaurs, birds, Tyrannosaurus rex, ornithology, paleontology
The Tyrannosaurus rex femur from which researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University recovered soft tissue.
Image: Science.
It wasn't too long ago that paleontologists…
I've been writing my manuscript all week - hence the lack of posts. But this morning I flipped open the paper and read that they've sequenced by mass spec (proteomics in the new lingo) several proteins from the interior of a T. rex bone. So I'm reading the article in the NYTimes and then I stumble…
cool. funny, i don't i could have told what was bone and what was quartz if i didn't already know what a t. rex toe bone looks like (thanks to a recent visit to the Los Angeles Museum. See, museums are useful!).
Looks like you could make use of a microblaster! I've prepared a bunch of fossils from CA that have quite a bit of gypsum on them; using a microblaster has yielded pretty good results so far. Man, that is A LOT of gypsum...
i know zero about the sort of work you do and whats involved,the details anyway,but i would have thought by this time someone would have come up with a "modern" way of freeing up fossils.you know,lasers,chemicals,robots--it sounds like this work is still in the 1800's,with dental picks and such..anyway..nice work,good luck with the rest.
To get through harder matrix, preparators make use of air-powered chisels, and sometimes use microblasters as I mentioned above (i.e. a sandblaster). Otherwise - chemicals are used to dissolve some types of matrix. However - just think about it. We're talking about removing rock from bone - all in all not a very complicated process. Hand tools have been used to carve stone for millenia, and clean fossils for ~200 years - they've stood the test of time.
Oh, and they're cheap, easy to use, and reliable. It's better to not overcomplicate things.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions, everyone. An air-powered chisel or similar tool would probably be a big help, but all I have to work with are dental tools, knives, and other miscellaneous things. Even though I am doing prep work the museum does not presently have a dedicated prep lab, so I am doing the best I can with what I am have got. It takes a long time, but that is probably for the best. In some places the gypsum crystals sit over more fragile areas of crumbly bone, so slow-and-steady is better when dealing with those parts! There are many more bones from this skeleton, though, so after I finish the toe bone I might invest in some tools of my own to help things along.
Brian,
That's the one issue with air scribes and microblasters - they're way more expensive than hand tools. *However*, I've seen a paper recently on a chemical that can be used to dissolve gypsum (as an application to fossil prep), which seems like it could be really useful in a lot of cases... including this. Jeeze, it looks as if that bone came from an evaporite deposit!