Playing is Learning
Excavation of Fossils
December 3rd, 2014
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Welcome to the World of PROFESsee™by seeCOSM™ PROFESsee™ is my title. I am the perpetual learner, in pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and truth. I derived my name from professor |
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Once in a while, you must have watched some clips on your favorite national television about some fossil that was found somewhere. For sure what the media will never point out is what goes on behind the scenes. They are quick in giving the piece hundreds and hundreds of camera flashes. However, if you were informed on how difficult the task is you will appreciate the work done by the ground team. Most of excavations are done in a team. They are a very expensive undertaking. Mainly, they are executed by national governments with their archeologists doing the work. Sometimes, they just facilitate the program where they foot the whole budget or part of it. Higher institutions of learning and museums take these exercises either annually or after a few years depending on the available funds mostly from grants. In order for an excavation program to be successful, so many issues have to be considered. First, it starts with the selection of the excavation of choice or rather, we should say the availability of the site. For fossilization to take place, there needs to be some factors of fossilization. The site is arrived at after long times of study. Note that only a very small percentage of life becomes fossilized. If the site is to be on foreign land, certain permits have to be acquired, and legal requirements must be met. To reach far into the bowels of the earth, the right machines have to be used. Some of them include heavy earthmovers. Note that after staying compressed under earth for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, the bones will most likely be very brittle. Scanners, shovels, picks and very fine brushes are usually used when a fossil find is suspected, so as not to break the fossils. To avoid breakage or flaking during the final removal, a special kind of thin glue will be applied to keep everything intact. Once intact, historians and scientists can determine the age of the bone by using a mass spectrometer and further studies will be carried out, most of them at the discovery site so that more can be garnered about how the species lived. Image courtesy of: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100210/world/thousands-of-dinosaur-footprints-uncovered-in-eastern-china.293506#.UoXJV9xmiSo |
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