'Biggest dinosaur ever'

They aren't bones, they are fossils. The bone material wasted away long ago and the "gap" left by them was filled by sediment which differs to the surrounding sediment, which has hardened and formed what you see in those pictures.
 
itchy said:
Why where they so big? Because gravity was less than it is now. Nothing
mistical or fairy land just the planet was less dense therefore bigger animals.

Gravity dictates size of animals. ;)
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No.

The earths surface gravity has not changed significantly since the moons formation 4.5 billion years ago.

The square-cubed law determines the maximum size of animals & trees.
 
mrk said:
I've been watching CSI (all variants) since day 1 also and in fact watch any kind of show like this, I just love them. Anyway, CSI (Vegas) does do the Science accurately, there have been various articles and interviews where the producers tell viewers how far into the Science they delve in order to make it accurate. The parts of this show that remain completely fabricated are things like the infamous "CSI ENHANCE!!!" scenes where they remove blur from a CCTV screengrab in order to read a car license plate or buttons and computers that make noises which certainly don't in real life or other exotic computer/internet based things that simply aren't accurate. Also things like torches that make a noise like a flashgun powering up when turned on are complete LOL. There's just no need for that considering the kind of people who are watching this show know what's what.

CSI: NY and Miami just go overboard and are worth binning. Vegas at least focuses on the Science and characters are more interesting.

Bones is different though, definitely grab a hold of season 1 and go from there, think you will enjoy it and the characters are brilliant too :)
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Funny, my brother in law, who has a PHD in foriensic science laughs at CSI and its "science" but the whole department loves Breaking Bad. One of his colleague who is in that field of study who can do what Walter does in the show should she wants and says BB is very accurate in that regard.

CSI however, is not. I am sure there are some real science behing CSI but when they dramatise it for TV, which is far too often, it blows the whole thing out the window and ruins it, if you know the real science behind it.
 
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The quality of crystal meth in the states increased by something crazy because of breaking bad. Purity as high as 88%.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/breaking-bad-meth-trade_n_1958817.html

CSI is laymanified something chronic. If it were a reality, all they'd do is wait around for results. Same day DNA results? LOL. The most unrealistic thing to happen on that show is that all of the evidence processing happens under one roof.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Funny, my brother in law, who has a PHD in foriensic science laughs at CSI and its "science" but the whole department loves Breaking Bad. One of his colleague who is in that field of study who can do what Walter does in the show should she wants and says BB is very accurate in that regard.

CSI however, is not. I am sure there are some real science behing CSI but when they dramatise it for TV, which is far too often, it blows the whole thing out the window and ruins it, if you know the real science behind it.
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yeah CSI is balls - i can't watch it without shouting at the tv.
 
Mr Jack said:
No, you date them by different fossils found in them (and they're not bones, they're shells: index fossils are universally small sea-living creatures). Those fossils are only ever found in rocks of a particular age. This record gave us a relative dating scale centuries ago, and has proved both reliable and predictive. More recently radio-dating methods have allowed us to date these sedimentary layers by dating igneous rocks above and below them. These absolute dates remain consistent with the relative ages worked out long ago.

Since dinosaur bones cannot be directly dated they can only be dated by dating the rocks in which they lie. If these sedimentary rocks are of the right type, they can be directly dated by using index fossils; otherwise the date is derived from strata found above/below the bones using either radio-dating or index fossils or a combination of both.
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Actually most of the index fossils will probably be plant spores and algal remains. Most dinosaur remains are found in terrestrial and fluvial deposits* which (generally) have very few, long ranging, shell creating creatures (such as bivalves) which means even if you do find shells they will probably be a bivalve that can only be dated to the nearest 50 million years.

Pollen, spores and microfossils have much greater variability and range meaning you can get a much more accurate date range and also understand environmental factors that cannot generally be worked out by looking at the structures and sediment in the rock.

*terrestrial and fluvial in this sense being aeolian/deserts, rivers, marshes, floodplains and estuaries. You do get freshwater shellfish but they aren't that common and won't be in true terrestrial environments at all.
 
Amp34 said:
Actually most of the index fossils will probably be plant spores and algal remains
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I didn't think there were many plant spore or algal remains that worked well as index fossils but perhaps things have moved on. I thought it was generally the case that you couldn't use index fossils to directly date dinosaur remains for this reason.
 
Mr Jack said:
Since dinosaur bones cannot be directly dated.
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Yes they can according to some paleontologists who find well preserved specimens. The dating methods though are unreliable and assumed ages are placed upon the specimen at hand, especially millions of years.
 
Mr Jack said:
I didn't think there were many plant spore or algal remains that worked well as index fossils but perhaps things have moved on. I thought it was generally the case that you couldn't use index fossils to directly date dinosaur remains for this reason.
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Not very well no, but the point is they generally don't use sea creatures to date dinosaur fossils as most aren't in marine rocks. Having reread the post Im starting to think you mean that index fossils are generally sea creatures, but they aren't usually relevant in dating dinosaur remains, which is correct! I'll admit it's been a while since I did my paleontology though!

As you already said it's generally relative aging, with volcanic layers above and below, alongside any fossils they do find alongside the dinosaurs.

Edit: basically I'm using index fossils loosely rather than the proper definition...:o
 
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kedge said:
A lot of dating methods are assumed, there are no absolutes.

Best to laugh with sincerity :D, the Bible mentions large land animals.

And how does anyone really know if they are close relatives, connected by common components?.
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Assumed, in the same way science assumptions allow planes to fly, rockets to get into outer pace, geologists to find oil and your microwave work without frying your brain at the same time.;)

Biostratigrwphy and other more absolute dating techniques are used extensively in finding mineral resources. We're generally pretty successful at that... ;)
 
Amp34 said:
Assumed, in the same way science assumptions allow planes to fly, rockets to get into outer pace, geologists to find oil and your microwave work without frying your brain at the same time.;)

Biostratigrwphy and other more absolute dating techniques are used extensively in finding mineral resources. We're generally pretty successful at that... ;)
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Well we all know aircraft was invented by humans using intelligent design, it's the same with rockets and microwave, discovery and invention are one thing i suppose but using dating methods to date rock and dinosaur bone with absolute accuracy is another thing though, unless you have some data to share with the world that actually proves otherwise?, feel free to share?.
 
Amp34 said:
Not very well no, but the point is they generally don't use sea creatures to date dinosaur fossils as most aren't in marine rocks.
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You can still use them to date dinosaur bones if you have marine deposits above and below the dinosaur bones as it gives you minimum/maximum age that the bones can be. The same as with igneous rocks bracketing the deposits.
 
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