American Museum of Natural History....talk!

If there are any folks who fancy coming along to my lecture at 2pm this Sunday (May 19th) at the American Museum of Natural History (New York), please come along! My talk is entitled, 'Bright Lights and Dinosaurs'.

I have been invited to talk there by the New York Paleontological Society, a splendid body of folks who delve deep into the evolution of life on Earth. You can join this awesome group on this LINK.

You might also get to see some of our most recent cave images, LiDAR scans and even video footage from the antediluvian expedition we mounted over the last two weeks!

Cave crawling with lasers....

Sometimes you think of a 'great idea'...but then you have to put it into practice. Like many good ideas, they are often far more painful than you might have predicted. When I say painful, it defeats explanation of the many bizarre ways I have found to inflict pain upon myself undertaking what seemed initially a simple procedure. Next time I suggest in a research group meeting 'why don't we simply scan the whole cave system?' either ignore me, or clump me on the head with a blunt object. The LiDAR scanning of a cave system that seems beautifully adapted to size 0 troglodytes is astoundingly hard, hot and positively grim labour.

Dr Bill Sellers tests his Sciatica within the cave system....

The chosen LiDAR tool was certainly the best kit we could have chosen for the task. The Z+F Imager is stunningly engineered and simple to use (the latter being very important for me!). This little beauty pulses an eye-safe laser that maps the 3D geometry of the cave, as we move it from scan station to scan station...some 50+ in the depths of the subterranean maze. Ideally this means we do not get in the way of the said laser when it rotates 180 degrees to scan its surroundings. When using the kit in the open, this is fine...but in a cave, this involves us working alone or in pairs at most (in this case, Bill Sellers and I). As the unit rotates, you have to move with the rotation, avoiding contact with the beam. This makes the later alignment of the 3D scans much easier and there is less tidying-up required of the said scans. In a cave, this involves twisting your body around corners in an attempt not to be scanned....if there is two of you, it is like playing a bizarre game of 3D 'Twister'. Needless to say, a few hours into the scanning, we were monumentally exhausted and ached in places that only maybe an Olympic Twister Champion might ache.

Z+F Imager about to spin its funky stuff...as we rapidly retreat into the nooks and crannies of the cave!

There is a short delay before the Z+F unit kick-starts each scan, if there is a potential hide hole...this is the time when we scurry like giant gerbils in a stony cage towards stoney refuges in an attempt to avoid messing-up the scan...this is when we trip, scrape, bump, bash and abrade our heads, shoulders, knees and hips against the unforgiving walls of the cave. I am grateful the scanner does not record sound...as there there would be vast stretches of profanity that would blight each and very scan...requiring a major edit from the final data.

Our Cave-man natural history guide checks a LiDAR scan marker

By now you might have noticed that I have not mentioned where we are on the planet...other than the fact we are just north of the equator. This is simply to protect one of the most pristine cave systems that the members of our team have ever had the privilege to work within. At this point I would love to praise our local guide, who has been the all-seeing and all-knowing oracle on maters of natural history and a sump of information on the antediluvian realm we are spending so much time. We could not ask for a better guide...who seems to have super-human strength and abilities in terms of caving..not to mention his bat-like night vision. Alas, our splendid guide must remain anonymous, but we still want to thank him for his patience and humour.

Dr Bill Sellers hides in his 'hobbit laser avoidance hole' as I do the 180 degree LiDAR dance...

As with many of our travels, we get to meet many kind and generous folks and today was no exception. The neighbours on the adjoining land to the cave system offered iced tea and provided some of the best tasting water melon in my life. It is amazing how the sensory depravation of a cave system heightens your tastebuds! We even managed to tempt one of the neighbours underground to share some of our enthusiasm for our chosen task. Once we have the 3D maze of the caverns reconstructed from the LiDAR scans...we will also be able to invite you all into the wonderful cavern we have named 'Green Cave'.

Just like a cave....only tighter!

Today we discovered that the frame of an ex-rugby player with a shot rotator cuff is not ideal for caving. Some of the caves that we ventured into today were so tight, that sheets of paper would need to exhale before squeezing through the micron-wide gaps that the caverns presentred us with. Needless to say, some of the team were better suited than others to these tight situations.

At first glance such caves seemed almost possible...but the knee-scouring, chest rubbing, head-butting environment soon seemed better suited to size zero troglodytes. However, Bill Sellers stepped into the breach, or more accurately squeezed into it. So much so, we were worried he might become a permanent feature of the cave. However, after several gallons of perspiration, he managed to slip and slide his way between the unforgiving bedding planes of this particular cavern.

Dr Egerton was also able to squeeze between rocks, where few would dare to pass. Clutching sample bags in one hand and dragging your body with toes and fingernails, was not a task many were up to today...but it seems Victoria is at home in the caves.

I have video of Dr Mike Buckley extracting himself from the jaws of one particular cavern. An image of this incredible endeavour would not do him justice...but the his atire clearly shows the scars of an heroic encounter of a cavernous kind!

As for my endeavours today....well, it has taken me far too long to write this blog one-handed. Caving with a bad shoulder is not a great idea. By the close of play today, we were all hot, dripping in perspiration,  exhausted and very muddy...but above all, we were happy with our exploration achievements of the day.

Here ends another day at the office......

Karst limestone and crabs...

30 degrees Celsius and 75% relative humidity today, but a cool breeze blew on-shore from the South making the heat just bearable.  As we pushed our way through dense undergrowth that seemed determined to snag, pull and slice all members of our team, the temperature and humidity seemed to increase step-by-step and the air became still. Looking over our shoulders back towards where we had left our car, all we could see now was dense jungle, for want of a better term. The ground soon began to get steeper, being the main indicator that we were walking away from the coastal road. We finally reached the base of the limestone wall that seemed as populated with vegetation as the 'path' from the road. Looking up, we could see countless cacti, palms, aloe, mixed with a bright array of tropical plants...all in our path and obscuring the top of the cliff.

Dr Victoria Egerton encourages Dr Mike Buckley not to use the cacti as a hand-hold.

The cliff was severely weathered into a typical karst limestone topography, where dissolution of the more soluble component of the formation left a sharp, almost clinging/sticky surface. The rubber on the soles of our shoes seemed to adhere to the sharp and very unforgiving dolomitized limestone. All member of the team were already drenched in sweet....but we slowly pushed-on, up a vague pathway: one that few had trodden. Finally, at about 40 metres up the rock face, we came to a small ledge and a 1 metre diameter hole, punched into the wall of the sheer cliff. The karst topography had given-up one of its sought-after features...a cave entrance!

Hot, Humid and Happy. Dr Phil finds a hole to explore.

Slowly we donned our caving helmets and crawled into the narrow hole...that soon became narrower and narrower  with awkward twists and turns, combined with tearing dolomitic teeth from the floor, walls and ceiling of the cave. Daylight was soon lost behind us and only the narrow beam of our headlamps picked-out the path deeper into the cave. The humidity was soon oppressive, around 80% rel, and when combined with the 30 C...we were hot, sweaty and miserable. Caving in Britain is at least 20 degrees cooler and half the humidity. However, we had come along way to turn around now. We pushed-on into the cave.

Squeeze!

We were soon reduced to crawling on our bellies and pushing our way through tighter and tighter passages, some that led to larger chambers, allowing us to periodically stand-up and stretch our legs. In the corner of a small cavern, something caught our eye...something moving. It seems were were not alone in the depths of the cave system. Somehow, a rather beefy land crab had climbed its way deep into the cave system and seemed happily living in a damp corner.

Cave occupant gets crabby at our presence.

These remarkable crustaceans have evolved to live on land, through 'stiffening' their gills with the same structural biomaterials that construct their tough shelly armour. This prevents their gills collapsing out of water, so the crab has an affective 'lung' that allows its terrestrial life. However, crabs meant trouble for us...as these crunchy scavengers have a nasty habit of ploughing their way through the cave floor debris, often messing-up any possible evidence of prior life in the caves. What might have once been articulated skeletons of a few distinct species, becomes a phylogenetic soup of bones, dust and debris. After surveying the cave for a few hours....we had to retreat to the 'cool' air outside...

Prof. Andrew Chamberlain, Dr Bill Sellers and Dr Mike Buckley emerge from the cave...slightly warm!

This is one cave we will try and LiDAR map later this week, as it holds some rather fun secrets....but more on that later. We only have four days to locate, prospect and map new caves lurking in this tropical karst landscape...that will hopefully not have been 'blended' by the local wildlife.

Lasers, caves and bones...

It is rare that palaeontologists requires caving equipment to track down extinct beasties. However, my teams baggage is currently bulging with hard-hats, lamps, knee-pads, etc., as we are headed underground.

The next few days should be rather fun. We will be trying-out our new Z+F LiDAR unit to image some beautiful caves at a new field area we are currently exploring. We hope to deploy the LiDAR unit to map in-situ bones within this very 3-Dimensional environment. The scans will allow us to spatially plot bone positions relative to the whole cave complex and then relate the materials temporal position within the stratigraphy from which each bone hails. We aim to use this data to better understand the pre- and post-transport/reworking and burial of the said assemblage.... amongst other things.

The most amazing facet of this particular cavern of delights, is that the vertebrate assemblage seems relatively undisturbed, possibly down to the remote nature of our site. I will try and find a way to upload images over the next few days...but this may be difficult....and will be somewhat dictated by the availability of subterranean internet!

Wedding Selection as an adaptive convergence?

This blog is never used to discuss anything other than palaeontology and the research that our group undertakes at the University of Manchester, but here I make a rare exception.  I will let you be the judge of whether the following belongs on our blog....I think it just makes the mark!

On Saturday April 27th Victoria Egerton and I had our wedding ceremony at the Manchester Museum (University of Manchester). Given our shared interest in palaeontology, we thought our vows should reflect this. Here follows a rather Darwinian wedding ceremony.... 

"Friends, we are gathered here today to join Phillip and Victoria in marriage. In this beautiful building, which is one of nature’s treasure houses, they announce that they will share their lives together. We are all called to be witnesses here today to the love that they share for each other."

Main Ceremony 

"The adaptations that natural selection has gently bestowed upon us yield the endless forms most beautiful that fill our lives. Life on our planet today is one where the struggle for existence is made so much kinder when shared with a partner who understands and jointly explores the wonders of the world in which we live. 

Phil and Victoria have chosen to share their lives together and discover the wonders of the world in their coming years. The chemistry of love that bonds them is firmly linked by their shared experiences and knowledge that brings these two people together so closely.

Just as the bonds of a double helix dictates the beautiful complexities of life, their love for each other is firmly bound in the security that their very existence is linked to all life on earth, whose shared elemental origin was the very building blocks of stars.

The commonality of the molecules that builds life on Earth, transferred from generation to generation, links Victoria and Phil to the planetary cycles that mobilize, share and regenerate all life on Earth.

Together they have many close friends, some of whom have joined them today on this special occasion. Many of their friends enjoy taking time to think, ponder and share the eccentricities that divides us, but that also creates a shared bond between us. As Darwin once said,  “A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth”, if this be the case, both Victoria and Phil share great wealth.

Their transatlantic journeys have brought them together, when so often the continents have impeded such migration. The distances that once parted Victoria and Phil, is now bridged through the love that they both share for each other.

May the light that their love brings into the world shine brighter than a million suns."

The Dismissal 

"Einstein beautifully summed-up up the love that both Victoria and Phil clearly share, 'Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.'

Please join us in wishing Victoria and Phil a successful and exciting journey to discover their future and build a life together, governed by the laws of natural selection and the love that they share for each other."

Rotator cuff pain past and present...

The bones, tendons and muscle that come together in the shoulder are usually referred to as the rotator cuff (but others use 'rotor cup' or 'rotary cuff'). In mammals the complexities of this particular anatomical feature can often bring us pain and discomfort, but dinosaurs were also no strangers to such delights. The relatively conservative anatomy that we vertebrates share so liberally, also generously allots the various aches and pains of the musculoskeletal system to all species...but I have to say that dinosaurs seemed to be able to deal with far more trauma when compared to our relatively frail bodies. The theropod (predatory) dinosaurs often display an array of healed injuries that have attracted the attention of pathologists...those who study and diagnose disease, given the skeletons of these ancient predators are often scarred with evidence of trauma (albeit not much disease!). However, before I get carried away with fractured bones, abscessed jaws and slipped discs...let me refine my tour of pain and discomfort back to the shoulder.

If I were asked to choose my favourite shoulder injury...as if that is something you might ever consider doing...there is a wonderfully sick saurian individual housed at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. This particular dinosaur was stalking around in the Late Cretaceous and is now named Gorgosaurus (literally  'fierce lizard'). Among its many injuries was a splendidly grotesque shoulder trauma that resulted in a vast lump of bone growing over the site of 'impact'. The enlarged lump of roughened healed bone can be clearly seen (below) with the the smooth surface of the unaffected shoulder blade (scapula) to the right and the coracoid to the left. These two bones combine to form the shoulder joint (glenoid) in which the upper arm (humerus) articulates. As an aside, the U-shaped bone to the far left is the wishbone (fused clavicles) of this rather oversized bird relative...you would have been hard-pushed to pull this particular wishbone, mainly due to us humans not having yet evolved.

The relative simplicity of the above shoulder complex clearly did not shield this joint from the slings and arrows of misfortune that wreaked havoc with this animals left arm. The evidence seen in this remarkable fossil clearly shows the skeletons reaction to injury, growing additional bone to stabilise the site of injury. However, the smooth surface of unaffected bone was replaced with a roughened surface over which the scapulohumeral muscles would have had to function...this would have been quite painful....that is an understatement. My own interest in this particular injury is quite personal, as I too have managed to damage my rotator cuff. Last field season, whilst juggling a 250 pound field jacketed dinosaur bone, I damaged my left left shoulder when lifting the said fossil. The trauma was minor, so initially treated with anti-inflammatory drugs, but almost a year on...I realise that I am beginning to feel a fraction of the pain that Gorgosaurus might have. It seems that my joint is also generating new bone-growth, shifting the path of some tendons and muscles in my shoulder. While my pain is irritating and providing sleepless nights...I will get this fixed in time. Looking at the impressive array of breaks, fractures, avulsions, tumour and infections on this Late Cretaceous predator, I have a newfound healthy respect for these natural born survivors.

Bright Lights and Dinosaurs Lecture...

Last week was National Science and Engineering week in the UK. The University of Manchester hosted many events for local schools and colleges, including workshops and lectures.  The Palaeontology Research group took part in the science fair, but yours truly also gave a lecture. The University just posted the lecture on the web, but I thought I might give you some insight to our wonderful world of synchrotrons, fossils and pigments!

Follow this LINK and you can even download the lecture...if you need to frighten any local wildlife!

VI International Symposium on Dinosaur Palaeontology

Occasionally an awesome dinosaur meeting appears on the horizon that you HAVE to attend. The VI International Symposium on Dinosaur Paleontology and their Environment is one such meeting. This event will run from 5 to 7 September in 2013 in Salas de los Infantes (Burgos-Spain).

More information on the meeting can be found at this LINK.

The first circular with information on this meeting can be found at this LINK.

Primera circular de las VI Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontología de Dinosaurios y su Entorno. 5-7 septiembre 2013, Salas de los Infantes.

El Colectivo Arqueológico y Paleontológico Salense (C.A.S.) y el Museo de Dinosaurios de Salas de los Infantes anuncian la próxima celebración de las VI Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontología de Dinosaurios y su Entorno, que se celebrarán en Salas de los Infantes (Burgos) del 5 al 7 de septiembre de 2013 con la colaboración de la Universidad de Zaragoza, la Universidad del País Vasco y la Universidad de Salamanca.

PREINSCRIPCIÓN

Las preinscripciones se harán desde: http://vijornadassalas.blogspot.com.es/ ; el plazo final para las inscripciones con descuento es el 31 de julio de 2013. Las tarifas serán:

Antes del 31 de julio de 2013: - Normal: 70 ?. - Estudiantes/doctorado: 35 ? Con posterioridad al 31 de julio de 2013: - Normal: 80 ? - Estudiantes/doctorado: 45 ?

INFORMACIÓN

Para cualquier información sobre las VI Jornadas visitar la siguiente página o contactar con la organización en las siguientes direcciones electrónicas. http://vijornadassalas.blogspot.com.es/ Email:caspaleontologia@gmail.comEnvío de resúmenes:http://vijornadassalas.blogspot.com.es/ Dirección postal: Colectivo Arqueológico-Paleontológico de Salas; Plaza Jesús Aparicio, 9. 09600 Salas de los Infantes (Burgos, España). Tfno. contacto: Museo de Dinosaurios de Salas de los Infantes (0034) 947 39 70 01 Segunda circular: abril de 2013 Tercera circular: julio de 2013

Twinkle, Twinkle little Star...

Today started early with a long drive from Manchester to Harwell in Oxfordshire. Many of you who have read my earlier blog postings, will know this is where the Diamond Synchrotron Lightsource lives. It is here that my colleagues and I often come to bathe fossil samples in the super-bright light that this facility produces.

However, today is a little different. I am here to give two public lectures on our work on using synchrotron light. My aim is to demonstrate how such bright light sources can probe the delicate trace of the atomic heart that beats invisibly within the very building blocks of fossils....and the echo the chemistry of the ast life that they represent. This kind of work can only be achieved by using such powerful x-ray sources.

Having given one lecture, I am sat quietly working inside the foyer of the vast research complex...catching-up on my blog. The weather outside stinks...grey, cold, windy and raining...as dusk falls, there is not a single star in the sky... it is tough separating sky from the mist swirling around the facility. But who needs stars, when you have a synchrotron lightsource that can shine a million times brighter than mere celestial bodies. This is not so much 'Like a Diamond in the Sky'...but more like one brighter than a million stars, just outside Didcot in Oxfordshire, England.

 

'Twinkle Twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a 'synchrotron' in the sky...'

...only not as bright!'

Camels on ice...

Every now and then an extinct species is discovered in the last place on Earth that you might expect to look. Today, is no exception with the discovery of a 3.5 million year old camel in the High Arctic. A Canadian research team, helped by scientists at The University of Manchester, has discovered the first evidence of an extinct giant camel in what is now a very inhospitable place (especially for camels!). The fossil was identified from the remarkable preservation of the protein collagen (that all so important flexible component in every bone of your body) from bone fragments unearthed on Ellsmere Island. The unique nature of the collegen allowed the researchers to identify it was a camel...as without this protein 'fingerprint', it was merely shattered bone and of little value. These now valuable bone fragments mark the furthest North that a camel has ever been found.

The fossils were collected over three summers in 2006, 2008 and 2010 by Dr. Natalia Rybczynski, a vertebrate paleontologist with the Canadian Museum of Nature. Some important morphological  features suggested to the team that the fossil fragments were part of a large tibia (main lower-leg bone in vertebrates with legs!). Digital files of each of the fossil bone fragments were produced using a 3D laser scanner, allowing for the jigsaw of bone pieces to be assembled and aligned.

However, even when the bone was reassembled it was still unclear as to which species the bone came from. So the researchers enlisted the help of Dr. Mike Buckley from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. He used the pioneering new technique called “collagen fingerprinting” to identify the animal from the type of collegen protein (below) recovered from the bone fragments.

Mike did this by extracting minute amounts the 'fossil' collagen, searching for chemical markers for the building blocks of the collegen protein (peptides). Mike was able to generate a identifiable collagen 'fingerprint' (profile) for the fossil bone, indicating he had bagged a camel! What is quite fascinating, is that the fossil species collegen 'fingerprint' was almost identical to the modern day Dromedary camal. This giant camel was roughly 30% larger than living camel species...which is pretty big. Next time your stood next to a camel...try adding 30% to its size!

Slightly warmer camel!

Dr. Rybczynski was keen to point out that, “These bones represent the first evidence of camels living in the High Arctic region. It extends the previous range of camels in North America northward by about 1,200 km, and suggests that the lineage that gave rise to modern camels may have been originally adapted to living in an Arctic forest environment.”

Dr. Buckley added,  “This is the first time that collagen has been extracted and used to identify a species from such ancient bone fragments. The fact the protein was able to survive for three and a half million years is due to the frozen nature of the Arctic. This has been an exciting project to work on and unlocks the huge potential collagen fingerprinting has to better identify extinct species from our preciously finite supply of fossil material.”

Dr. Roy Wogelius from The University of Manchester’s School of Earth, Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences analysed the mineral content from the fossil bones. His findings suggest that the processes of mineralization worked along with cold temperatures to help preserve the all-important protein-package in the bones. “This specimen is spectacular, and provides important clues about how such exceptional preservation may occur” said Dr. Wogelius.

Other fossil finds at the same site as the giant camel suggest the High Arctic camel was living in a  forest environment dominated by pines, spruce and larches, this during a warm phase in the planet planets long history of life. It was this warm-phase to the climate and favourable environment that encourage the camels to migrate so far north from their current range.

  

The identification of the High Arctic camel is described in the March 5 edition of the online journal Nature Communications.

One gait fits all: Titanosaur dinosaurs match their pace as they grow.

Researchers at the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP, Spain), the universities of Zaragoza and Autonomous of Barcelona (Spain) in collaboration with the University of Manchester (UK) and University of Liverpool (UK) have just published in the journal PLOS ONE. Their study of trackways confirms that the titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs that lived in Fumanya (Catalonia, Spain) during the Late Cretaceous walked in the same way, independently of their body size.

Walking just like its giant parent, a sauropod plays 'catch-up' moving just like an adult!

In this study, palaeontologists have compared a small trackway of a titanosaur sauropod from the Late Cretaceous with those corresponding to larger animals in the same tracksite. The comparison of these trackways has helped to establish a cause-effect relationship between the gait (relative placement of feet as a function of limb movement), footprint size and body proportions of these dinosaurs.
Titanosaurs were a group of sauropod dinosaurs that had a characteristic arrangement of the femur and pelvic girdle that is reflected in the trackways that have been preserved in the fossil track record. Their gait was wide and the footprints left yield a characteristic ‘wide-gauge’ trackway. 

Reconstruction of a dinosaur from the Catalan, pre‐Pyrenees, about 70 million years ago. Credit: Oscar Sanisidro. Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont.

In the study published in PLOS ONE, researchers have compared trackways of specimens of different sizes and have demonstrated that they belonged to animals with many geometric similarities in their body plans. The juvenile dinosaur was basically a ‘replica’ of the adult in terms of limb proportions and shape, despite the large differences in body size. This led to the conclusion that the large and small titanosaurs moved in a dynamically similar way, probably using an ambling gait. 

Juvenile Titanosaur trackway from Fumanya, picture by Bernat Vila

Sauropod dinosaurs form the group of the largest terrestrial vertebrates that ever lived on land. They were herbivorous animals with a long tail and neck that allowed them to reach higher vegetation. The titanosaurs that lived in Fumanya in Berguedà (Catalonia, Spain), could reach up to 15 meters in length and weigh up to 15 tons, but the track of the new juvenile sauropod was roughly the same body trunk size of a large Labrador dog…a mere ~1.5 metres from hip to shoulders…some 10 times smaller than an adult of the same species.

Fumanya, a unique dinosaur site
The Fumanya sites of Fígols and Vallcebre, were declared a Site of National Cultural Interest in 2005. The paleontological site includes the ancient open-cast coal mines in Fumanya Sud, Mina Esquirol, Fumanya Nord and Tumí. On the site, which covers an area of more than 38,000 square meters, more than 3000 dinosaur footprints have been have been found and fossil remains of eggs and bones have been identified, together with tree trunks and leaves from different types of palms. It is considered to be one of the most important sites in Europe for fossil remains of dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous.

From left to right, Manning, Vila, Egerton and Galobart collect LiDAR data on juvenile
trackway using a Z+F LiDAR unit.

Sauropod dinosaurs form the group of the largest terrestrial vertebrates that ever lived on land. They were herbivorous animals with a long tail and neck that allowed them to reach higher vegetation. The titanosaurs that lived in Fumanya in Berguedà (Catalonia, Spain), could reach up to 15 meters in length and weigh up to 15 tons, but the track of the new juvenile sauropod was roughly the same body trunk size of a large Labrador dog…a mere ~1.5 metres from hip to shoulders…some 10 times smaller than an adult of the same species.
Fumanya, a unique dinosaur site

Titanosaur trackways from Fumanya: LiDAR helps lift the detail.... see paper in PLoS One!

Fumanya, a unique dinosaur site
The Fumanya sites of Fígols and Vallcebre, is for me one of the best examples of Titanosaur trakway surface in the whole of Europe, if not the world. The paleontological site includes the ancient open-cast coal mines in Fumanya Sud, Mina Esquirol, Fumanya Nord and Tumí which were the reason behind in the discovery of the track-bearing horizons by a local school teacher. When you have over 38,000 square meters of exposure and more than 3000 dinosaur tracks...LiDAR is the only way to record, measure and analyse such a vast site. The Manchester team has been working with the ICP team on this site for nearly seven years now and we all know there are many more tracks and trails to be teased from this ancient surface using the light fantastic of LiDAR!

Bernat Vila, Oriol Oms, Àngel Galobart, Karl T. Bates, Victoria M. Egerton and Phillip L. Manning. "Dynamic similarity in Titanosaur sauropods: evidence from the Fumanya ichnological tracksite dinosaur (Southern Pyrenees)." PLOS ONE http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057408 

Bridges, bones and stressful behavior

Sometimes bones do strange things…or should I say, they are capable of remarkable feats. This living biological composite is the literal backbone of all vertebrates on Earth. It is somewhat surprising that we know so little about its behavior, mechanical properties and the impact of bone shape between species. Charlotte Brassey (a PhD student at the University of Manchester) has been exploring the wonderful world of bone behavior, but with particular focus on the size, shape and relative position of a limb in relation to its mechanical properties. One particular property Charlotte and her colleagues was interested in is ‘safety factor’. In engineering terms, the “factor of safety” of a structure is the ratio of its failure strength to the maximum stress it is likely to encounter, in the same way the safety factor of a bridge will be the largest load (and some) that it might encounter during service.

It is remarkable that the limb bones of an elephant are considered to experience similar peak stresses during locomotion as a shrew. The “Safety factor” seems to be maintained across the entire range of body masses through a combination of robusticity of long bones, postural variation, and modification of how an animal walks, trots and runs (in other words, its gait). The relative contributions of these variables remain uncertain, so Charlotte and the team tested the role of shape change in bones. She undertook X-ray tomographic scans of the leg bones of 60 species of mammals and birds, and extracted key properties on the shape and form of each bone scanned. The maximum resistible forces the bones could withstand before breaking under compression, bending, and torsion were calculated using standard equations more familiar to engineers. The studies main aim was to consider the impact of bone robusticity, curvature, and angle on safety factors, in relation to locomotion and peak dynamic forces (such as when running).

The new paper has just been published in The Anatomical Record, and explores the theory of postural adjustment to maintain safety factors. However, it seems that the animals studied had the last laugh (quack and squawk) given their idiosyncratic behavior and locomotor styles frequently overlaid the key relationships between force, bone angle, and body mass, particularly in birds. So, while it seems important that you are made of the right stuff…but it is also significant what you do with it!

Brassey, C., Kitchener, A. C., Withers, P., Manning, P. L., and Sellers, W.I. 2013. The Role of Cross-Sectional Geometry, Curvature, and Limb Posture in Maintaining Equal Safety Factors: A Computed Tomography Study. The Anatomical Record, DOI 10.1002/ar.22658