The Impossible Size of Dinosaurs

Originally posted by MysterE. I wonderis there anything anomylous about the geology surrounding the fossils you find?

The rock around the fossil itself? Not anomalous, but very intriguing. Some of the deeper cavities had a core of mudstone (basically hardened mud) -- the "raw" form of the limestone on the bones. There's lots of calcite crystals and pyrite (which has to be removed because it will corrode the bone.)

My most interesting find (I saved some of it) was a pattern of annual flooding preserved in the stone itself, deep within one of the chambers (fossa) of the vertebra. It was bands of dark and light mud -- showed the paleontologists and we all stood around and said "Whoa! Cool!"

It was found in the Javelina formation and the stone was... well... typical Javelina formation limestone: www.natureandscience.org... There's a lot more of these bones out there, but they're on private ranch land and getting permission to dig is difficult. I've been prepping this first bone (first one ever fully prepped) for three years. We've now got teams working on the bones and hope the rest of the neck can be prepped within the next 5-7 years.

The rocks are beautiful and interesting and they're late Cretaceous seashore/shallow seabed rocks. There's a lot of details in there that would surprise you, from ripple patterns to things like worm burrows and more.

...and then there's the section where the T-Rex (no kidding) was scavenging the neck. Got some good tooth marks.

There's no truth to the "animals grow bigger in oxygen rich environments... otherwise we'd have squirrels the size of bloodhounds and no mountain goat would be bigger than a chihuahua. Condors would be the size of sparrows, and humming birds would be the size of eagles.

If the air was more dense in the past. That would mean that the pressure on the surface must of been higher then the 1 bar we have to day. That would mean that the oxygen would probably be a lot higher above ground then it is to day.

Oxygen is quite heavy compared to other gasses. The higher you go the less oxygen there is. If the air was more dense before the heavier gasses would force the oxygen higher up.

But the air pressure cant have been to high above 1 bar. Because then the oxygen would bind to other gasses and become dangerous for smaller animals needing oxygen. That would mean baby dinosaurs would have no or hardly any oxygen at the surface to breath. Because the oxygen is higher up in the air. Where the air pressure is approximately 1 bar. Unless their lungs had the abilities to cope with the heavy gasses at the surface.

I used to dive with pure oxygen in the navy(Re-breathers). And if we dived to deep the oxygen would change and become a new gas because of the pressure increase.


Now about gravity on earth.

If you know about gasses. You should know that gasses expands. Gasses expand because of a pressure differential. If you think of Earth surface as a solid wall. You know that it would demand a lot of force to penetrate it. Gasses always take the easies rout.
So the easiest way for a gas to expand is up where there is less pressure. Less resistance. But we have different gasses with different weight significance. And its because of the different types of gasses we get different sections of gasses in our atmosphere. Where the heaviest gasses are closest to the ground and the lightest gasses are higher up.

These sections of different gasses prevent other gasses from expanding past them. Gasses with the lightest weight prevent heavier gasses from expanding further up. That is also why the apple falls to the ground. It is heavier then the atmosphere surrounding it.


[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

I guess so, but what would you reason that Adam is much more gargantua than us. I heard about this somewhre that our fore fathers or Adam & Eve and the very first civilization on earth is more of a gigantic propotions and they live longer than us. I 've read that Adam live for a more than hundreds years old...

reply to post by Helmkat


Theres some interesting reading here about the metabolism of Sauropods:

Biggest Dinosaurs Grew Huge by Not Chewing Their Food

Dinosaurs known as sauropods—the largest land animals that ever lived—grew huge and were an evolutionary success in part because they didn't bother to chew their food, new research suggests..

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Cheers.

What do you think ATS?
Well, it could be those things. But it could also be related to our solar systems position within our galaxy.

As you know, our solar system bobs up and down as we spin around the galaxy, moving through a cycle which takes it above and below the galactic equatorial plane. As we transit that dark rift as the Mayans called it, we are passing through the center plane of that gravity wave that emanates from that spinning black hole at the center of our galaxy. Our cyclic path takes us through the strongest/center plane of that wave, as well as further away from it too, where I would assume that its influence would be different.

These changes in gravity could be related to our solar systems relative distance from the galactic plane. The closer we are, the stronger our gravity, and the further away we are from that dark rift the weaker it is. Certainly passing through that gravity plane that holds galaxies together, bobbing up and down and transiting from one half to the other half of our galaxy, must have some kind of significant influence upon the planet I would suspect (like how toilets flush in different directions depending upon what side of our equator we are on).

Significant cyclical changes have been happening on Earth for some time now. I would suspect the gravity issue could be related to our cyclical changing position relative to that plane which holds galaxies together and keeps them spinning. It's a pretty powerful force to do that, and we're bobbing up and down riding those waves getting ready to pass to the other side now and it just seems gravity could be affected by that. It could explain core/pole flips and other changes happening right now on all the other bodies in our solar system. It could explain climate change and a whole lot more.

[edit on 9-12-2009 by Divinorumus]

I tend to subscribe to the something-hit-us theory. If the speed wasn't too high it is possible we could collide and merge, probably into where the Pacific is now. That could explain why the dinosaurs were wiped out if they could not stand up with a higher gravity, but smaller creatures survived. Maybe the hollow-moon theory fits it, could the creatures inhabiting the caves in the moon been part of a two planet system, the larger planet being subducted into the earth? Maybe this would explain the elite and their depopulation agenda, these aliens want the humans removed from the planet but for some reason can't manage it themselves so they hired the bilderbergers to do it for them.

Originally posted by m khan
I tend to subscribe to the something-hit-us theory.

Well, that could happen too as we drift through the dark rift. Maybe we'll get to find out soon.

Originally posted by kulcha_bees
I guess so, but what would you reason that Adam is much more gargantua than us. I heard about this somewhre that our fore fathers or Adam & Eve and the very first civilization on earth is more of a gigantic propotions and they live longer than us. I 've read that Adam live for a more than hundreds years old...

The first humans were smaller than us (average height about 5 feet or so) and lived for 30-40 years. There aren't any giant bones (but there are giant hoaxes.)

BTW, MOST dinosaurs weren't very large. The famous ones are the huge ones (because people like really big dinosaurs), but some were as small as crows and many were only the size of a small pony. Triceratops and its kin was about the size of a small car and most of the carnivores stood 5-10 feet tall and weren't terribly heavy. The Alaskan Pachyrhinosaurus we're working on was smaller than my Nissan.

reply to post by Byrd



Exactly (and thank you for your wonderful posts). Everyone loves the big Dinos, they are the "rock stars" so to speak. Reality check is that they came in all shapes and sizes just like Mammals, Birds, fish etc. do today. Sadly we will never know all the myraid forms they took as the fossil record will never be complete.

Byrd here is a question for you, at any given time what % of the estimated number of species does the fossil record represent? I should think it pretty small, with only those animals living in enviroments condusive to fossilization being preserverd. I've often thought that if Humans went extinct that the odds would be against any of us being preserved in the fossil record. So in theory if this happened and a few million years went by there would be no sign of us at all, which makes me wonder if Earth has spawned other sentients and their record is now forever gone...

reply to post by Byrd


and how EXACTLY do the "rocks" prove that the Earth is not expanding? Is it because there are hundreds of books written by mediocre "scientists" who are happy their books are published and who BLINDLY trust the "official" sources?

Most of the "educated" people are simply brainwashed. Getting a degree is often associated with BLINDLY accepting the tutorials offered by universities as the final TRUTH.

There are so many serious arguments in favour of Expanding Earth theory, it is really not simple to find any arguments against it. Just saying that "rocks say so" is insulting and stupid.

I've often wondered if the dinosaurs were ever able to reach some form of civilization or technology during their time here on earth. I know there were some species of dinos that were more intelligent than others. Maybe they were able to get off this world at some point in their existence. This could possibly be where the whole reptilian/alien theory originated from.

[edit on 9-12-2009 by LuckyStrike]

reply to post by LuckyStrike


Given our own rise there is the possbility the Earth has hosted numerous non human civilizations. I will venture into even wilder speculation and wonder if the Earth is a "Nursery" world. A civilzation evolves and either kills itself off or advances beyond the point of needing a Homeworld. In either case Earth gets a "reset" extinction event and life is allowed to evolve into new paths.

It would be cool to reach the stars and find fellow "Earthers". Will the super intelligent decendants of Trilobites host our coming out party?

reply to post by Helmkat


The trick of developing species is to advance enough to either prevent, or avoid the next catastrophic natural disaster. Didn't really work for our dino friends. Hope we make it.

-E-

reply to post by MysterE


At least it didn't work for the dinos that still remained. This is saying hypothetically, that some of the most intelligent ones were able to get off this planet somehow and colonize another world.

Originally posted by Byrd
...and then there's the section where the T-Rex (no kidding) was scavenging the neck. Got some good tooth marks.

There's no truth to the "animals grow bigger in oxygen rich environments... otherwise we'd have squirrels the size of bloodhounds and no mountain goat would be bigger than a chihuahua. Condors would be the size of sparrows, and humming birds would be the size of eagles.

I love reading your posts here, it's nice to get facts from someone who knows the subject matter.

I had heard a theory that T Rex was a scavenger but it seems to me like that doesn't rule out also being a predator, food is food, right?

Actually I wouldn't go so far as to say there's NO truth to the oxygen theory, there is some truth to it, but from what I know about biology and oxygen transport, the creature size limits due to atmospheric oxygen content applies to arthropods, creatures without circulatory systems. As far as I know an animal with a circulatory system could by evolving an efficient enough circulatory system overcome some of the size limitations that arthropods have based on oxygen content.

Having said that, a higher oxygen content might still help even animals with circulatory systems be at least capable of growing larger, but that doesn't mean they automatically will grow larger, so if that's what you meant, I agree with that. But if you meant some animals don't grow larger in oxygen rich atmospheres, I disagree with that.

I wrote a little bit about oxygen content versus size in another thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by buds84
Well long time ago on Earth, everything was way bigger ...

I don't know about everything, but many things were much bigger in ancient earth, like this dragonfly with a wingspan of over 2 feet across:

www.animalpicturesarchive.com...

Meganeura monyi was a prehistoric insect of the Carboniferous period (300 million years ago), resembling and related to the present-day dragonfly. With a wingspan of more than 75 cm (2 feet) wide, it was the largest known flying insect species to ever appear on Earth.

We really don't have to look any farther than earth to learn of giant scary insects (not to mention dinosaurs):

dml.cmnh.org...

These giants crawled and crept, slithered and scurried, burrowed, slinked, skittered and, above all, flitted and fluttered millions of years before the dinosaurs arrived.

They were the giant arthropods of the Carboniferous.

There were extra-large mayflies, supersized scorpions and spiders the size of a healthy spider plant. There was an array of giant flightless insects, and a five-foot-long millipede-like creature, Arthropleura, that resembled a tire tread rolled out flat.

But perhaps the most remarkable of all were the giant dragonflies, Meganeuropsis permiana and its cousins, with wingspans that reached two and a half feet. They were the largest insects that ever lived.

Scientists have long suspected that atmospheric oxygen played a central role in both the rise and fall of these organisms. Recent research on the ancient climate by Dr. Robert A. Berner, a Yale geologist, and others reinforces the idea of a rise in oxygen concentration - to about 35 percent, compared with 21 percent now - during the Carboniferous.

Originally posted by LuckyStrike
I've often wondered if the dinosaurs were ever able to reach some form of civilization or technology during their time here on earth. I know there were some species of dinos that were more intelligent than others. Maybe they were able to get off this world at some point in their existence. This could possibly be where the whole reptilian/alien theory originated from.

[edit on 9-12-2009 by LuckyStrike]

You also need the physical ability. We have thumbs with the dexterity to build.

Originally posted by Helmkat
reply to post by LuckyStrike

 

Given our own rise there is the possbility the Earth has hosted numerous non human civilizations. I will venture into even wilder speculation and wonder if the Earth is a "Nursery" world. A civilzation evolves and either kills itself off or advances beyond the point of needing a Homeworld.

If any previous civilisation advanced to the point of needing metal then our civilisation wouldn't have been able to find the metal with the tools available at the time.

Our civilisation has already exhausted all the easily obtainable supplies so a future one probably wouldn't be able to advance past the stone age.

Originally posted by LightFantastic

Originally posted by Helmkat
reply to post by LuckyStrike

 

Given our own rise there is the possbility the Earth has hosted numerous non human civilizations. I will venture into even wilder speculation and wonder if the Earth is a "Nursery" world. A civilzation evolves and either kills itself off or advances beyond the point of needing a Homeworld.

If any previous civilisation advanced to the point of needing metal then our civilisation wouldn't have been able to find the metal with the tools available at the time.

Our civilisation has already exhausted all the easily obtainable supplies so a future one probably wouldn't be able to advance past the stone age.

If Humans were to go "poof" right now, all of our metals would get reabsorbed by the Earth. In 65 million years nobody would know we were here as all of our constructs would be cleanly folded away by the natural world. Additionally the "human" way is not the only way a civilzation might "evolve", roll the dice and you could have people more focused on biological sciences to get things done. Homes that are "born" and not built, etc.

reply to post by SorensDespair


Maybe the larger insects were also due the the decreased gravity?

reply to post by m khan


No. Gravity back then was almost exactly the same as it is now.