'Biggest dinosaur ever'

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27441156

Fossilised bones of a dinosaur believed to be the largest creature ever to walk the Earth have been unearthed in Argentina, palaeontologists say.

Based on its huge thigh bones, it was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall.

Weighing in at 77 tonnes, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus.

Hard to believe that such marvelous creatures used to roam the Earth.
 
I'm a paleontology nerd. Have been all my life. I remember when they discovered a vertebrae in Argentina back in the 1980's that was as high as a man. They named that dinosaur Argentinosaurus. I remember thinking that this has to be the biggest land animal that ever lived and now we have this magnificent discovery whish is a fraction bigger. I wouldn't be surprised if an even larger fossil turns up in China some day. China is a hot bed for Mesozoic finds right now.
 
How do they know how dinosaurs look from looking at their bones?

Several ways. First and most importantly, it helps speed things up if you can find an articulated complete skeleton, but this is very rare. Most finds are incomplete due to land movements or predation before fossilisation or even fast flowing water which could carry away bones before they can fossilise.. Another trick is to examine the bones closely and compare them to existing finds. Basically, many large Sauropods have a very similar body shape, just like Therapods and Ornithopods have their unique shapes. So conjecture can often provide an accurate view of how the animal looked in life. Also, by looking at the scarring on the bones left by the muscle attachments in life, they can estimate muscle mass and so flesh out the body.

Some exquisite finds have even included imprints of actual dinosaur skin. So palaeontologists can actually know the texture and look of the animal. I find this amazing. Work has also been done on analysing the mineral composition of some fossils to try and determine the colour of the skin and/or of the feathers. It's truly amazing just how much information we can elicit from animals that died millions of years before the baby jebus was even born ;)
 
I always wondered this myself, and how they can tell the age of the bones

id love to understand the science behind it

Today's knowledge of fossil ages comes primarily from radiometric dating, also known as radioactive dating. Radiometric dating relies on the properties of isotopes. These are chemical elements, like carbon or uranium, that are identical except for one key feature -- the number of neutrons in their nucleus.

Usually, atoms have an equal number of protons and neutrons. If there are too many or too few neutrons, the atom is unstable, and it sheds particles until its nucleus reaches a stable state. Think of the nucleus as a pyramid of building blocks. If you try to add extra blocks to the sides pyramid, they may stay put for a while, but they'll eventually fall away. The same is true if you take a block away from one of the pyramid's sides, making the rest unstable. Eventually, some of the blocks can fall away, leaving a smaller, more stable structure.

The result is like a radioactive clock that ticks away as unstable isotopes decay into stable ones. You can't predict when a specific unstable atom, or parent, will decay into a stable atom, or daughter. But you can predict how long it will take a large group of atoms to decay. The element's half-life is the amount of time it takes for half the parent atoms in a sample to become daughters.

To read the time on this radioactive clock, scientists use a device called a mass spectrometer to measure the number of parent and daughter atoms. The ratio of parents to daughters can tell the researcher how old the specimen is. The more parent isotopes there are -- and the fewer daughter isotopes -- the younger the sample. The half-life of the isotope being measured determines how useful it is at dating very old samples.

An excerpt from a very interesting article. Source ---> http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/dinosaur-bone-age.htm
 
You can't date dinosaur bones; it's not possible. Instead you date the rocks above/below them and use these dates to approximate the date of the bones. Only volcanic rocks can be radiodated (which is the most accurate method); sedimentary rocks can be dated on the basis of certain 'index' fossils of widespread organisms that existed for geographically short periods of time. Dates obtained from other sites containing these index fossils can then be used to give a calibrated date to your rocks.
 
This is why religion is moronic.

Were looking at MILLIONS of years old not a few thousand.

Do you think the words of a bible / Koran etc were even thoughts back in this day and age. Nope.
 
I wonder if there is any way of working out how long these animals lived?

AIUI, the rationale behind the vegetarian sauropods was that the food was very poor and hard to digest, hence you needed a big stomach to digest it. But, at the same time, that would (To me anyways) seem to indicate indicate relatively slow growth.

How long did it take to get to 100 Tons eating ferns and cycads??
 
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