Dinosaur CSI

Synchrotron, Sleep and Circadian Rhythms

2012-01-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

The ten days of beam time at SSRL has played havoc with my body-clock....just driving to San Francisco Airport...I already felt the classic symptoms of jet-lag. This was before the 3-hour time zone change to Eastern Standard Time in Philadelphia, before my final hop to Greenwich Mean Time (good old GMT) later this week.

Roy Wogelius, Phil Manning and Holly Barden...resetting their circadian rhythms at SSRL.

Our body clock, or Circadian Rhythm, operates on a 24-hour cycle that impacts our bodies in many ways, from biochemical to physiological and even behavioural processes....when we want to eat, sleep or dribble at the check-in attendant at the airport...as opposed to stringing together intelligible sentences. Its only when you find yourself, a seasoned traveller, sat on the plane in the seat next to the toilet...you realize you were not fully compos mentis at the time of check-in.

Deciding to work on a flight is sometimes a daft move....sleep is possibly the best option. Arriving back in Philadelphia at 6pm I felt refreshed, as I choose the sleep option on this flight....but by 3am the next day...I was almost ready to go to sleep! Its been a battle now for three days resetting my body clock to Eastern Standard Time....but the real shunt is to come on Thursday, when my circadian pulse has to re-boot with -5 hours time difference to Greenwich Mean Time.

As my flight arrives in Heathrow on Friday morning, my body will be crying for sleep, telling me it is the middle of the night....but the work day for me will only just be beginning! I leave straight from the airport to a meeting in the hallowed halls of the Royal Society.....my next blog might possibly centre upon the virtues of caffeinated drinks!

Who needs sleep....me!

2012-01-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

Working at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource is awesome. You get to image chemical ghosts of past life, using the stunning array of technology at beam-line 6-2. Here, we trip the light fantastic...very, very brightly. The x-ray beam generated is roughly 1 million times brighter than the sun....all courtesy of some protesting electrons being driven around the synchrotron, just below the speed of light.

The 200 meter diameter synchrotron gently hums all day, delivering its monochromatic packages of x-rays that make our work possible. As the intense x-rays hit each atom of our fossils, a characteristic shiver reveals its identity and concentration....very considerate of the said particles.

However, occasionally we 'loose beam'...its as bad as it sounds...and causes all work at the beam-line to halt...but then we start aligning samples, editing notes, updating image files and getting ready for the 'Spear 3 is injecting' message from the control centre of the facility.

It's a cosy little hide-out in our beam line area....its the place where we patiently wait for the next scan line to slowly build a chemical image, line by line, by microscopic line....reconstructing the sentences once thought lost in the sands of time.

Back to the beam hutch.....a specimen needs turning on the spit!

We have beam!

2012-01-12T22:53:00.002-05:00

After a long night and a short sleep, the Manchester/SSRL team spun into action in the early hours of this morning and the first tentative scans of a 50 million year old fossil began!

It took us till 19:00 hours to complete the whole scan, point analyses and spectroscopy measurements, but then we removed the fossil from the x-ray 'spit', only to be immediately replaced by a much, much younger menagerie...a mere few millions of years old! The new group of beasties, hence menagerie, were carefully mounted onto the stage by Bart van Dongen, Nick Edwards and myself, whilst Roy Wogelius, Victoria Egerton and Bill Sellers sorted the next scan parameters.

The next few hours we will be sorting scan ranges for our 'pinned' fossils, so that we may maximize our scan times and recover the best possible data. I think the bulk of us will be lucky to see bed this side of 4am tomorrow....but this said, its all worth it!

....but then, the beam started to drift....not good...here begins another very long and sleepless night!

Particles most foul....and detectors that won't count?

2012-01-12T05:52:00.000-05:00

It's 2:45am in the morning and Roy Wogelius, Uwe Bergamnn, Holly Barden Arjen Veelen, Nick Edwards and I are all staring blankly at several tens of feet of cable, coupled with too many knobs and dials. The said array of technology seem to be conspiring to prevent our detector from talking to the computer. Yes, we're back at the synchrotron at Stanford (SSRL).

The sleep depravation is simply crushing...there is no second wind, as yet another channel in the detector array does not play ball...but a decision has to be made as to what to do next....and sleep is but a distant memory and sadly not an option!

We have a 50 million year old bird sat on the synchrotron rapid scan x-ray fluorescence stage and we are bent on persuading it to reveal its elemental inventory that has been locked in its stoney grasp for soooo long. Each discrete biological structure, now clenched in stone, has the potential to reveal many secrets from the grave of the life, death and fossilization of this beautiful fossil.

Hopefully, when we get the electronic glitches resolved and the gremlins expelled...we can start scanning in earnest. Until then, we decided on a holding pattern...picking five key elements to extract from the fossil, as we raster it in-front of the bright light of SSRL. It's going to be a long night...and an even longer week...but hey, who needs sleep when there is fossils to be teased with x-rays!

Stuffing the dinosaur at Christmas...

2011-12-23T15:38:00.003-05:00

One in particular putSolnhofen on the map: Archaeopteryx, long famous as the “first truebird.” A single feather was discovered in 1860, a tantalizing glimpse of thecreature it fell from. Beginning the very next year, a series of Archaeopteryxfossils began to come to light, at an irregular rate, and eleven specimensare currently recognized (one from only a few months ago). From its many dinosaurianskeletal features, its long bony tail, and the fine teeth in its jaws, Archaeopteryxmight easily have been identified as a small theropod dinosaur, and indeedan amateur mistakenly classified one specimen as the small predatory dinosaur Compsognathus.However, the marvelous preservation afforded by the Solnhofen limestone hasgiven us specimens of Archaeopteryx surrounded by imprints of theirfeathers, showing that they looked rather like a modern magpie in theirplumage. Wing feathers are asymmetrical like those of modern birds’ flightfeathers, showing adaptation for aerodynamic use. So detailed are some of thefossils that we can even detect the fine structure of some of these feathers, showingfor instance that the fibers of the large flight feathers of Archaeopteryx wereorganized via the barb-and-barbule arrangement that makes modern bird feathersso stable and structurally effective, despite their lightweight and delicate construction.

Several years ago Ifirst visited the Humboldt Museum (Museum für Naturkunde) in Berlin, the homeof arguably the most beautiful Archaeopteryx fossil in the world.Discovered in 1876or 1877, it lies on its back with its wings widespread, tailpointing down and head swung over its back. More important, the arms (or,should I say, wings) and tail are surrounded by stunningly clear impressions offeathers. If I had the opportunity to save any single fossil in the world, itwould be this one. It is simply stunning.

The roast turkey thatmany of you might well partake on December 25^th, is a direct descendantof a distant maniraptoran theropod dinosaur. The expression “as rare as hen’s teeth” isbased upon the reality of socketed teeth growing in the jaws of birds, courtesyof their ancestral toothy theropod dinosaur gene being activated and socketedteeth growing during the chicken’s development. However, you don’t need ‘hensteeth’ to make your turkey a dinosaur…as you tuck into your meal, take time tonibble the ‘arm’ to reveal the fingers, often still tipped with tiny claws. Asyou pull the wish-bone (fused clavicles) think of Velociraptor and T. rex…whoalso share this very theropod character. Its food for thought, that 65 millionyears ago, it was probably our ancestors that were on the menu for the turkeysancestors…vengeance is a dish best served 65 million years later!

Skipping with Dinosaurs.....

2011-11-21T15:45:00.001-05:00

The main dinosaur movement that is ofinterest to paleontologists is locomotion, primarily running ability. One thing that we are very interested in atManchester is….maximum running speed. This is especially important for both predatorand prey. One trying to avoid becoming lunch and the other trying to catchlunch.

The methods available to biologists whenstudying modern species, such as cinematography, video recording, measurementsof energy consumption, force and pressure plate studies, are not easily appliedto the extinct species, unless time travel is miraculously invented!

One avenue of research that the Manchestergroup has focused on is the relative running abilities of different groups ofdinosaurs. We particularly focused upon the challenge of determining, ifpossible, the top running speeds of various dinosaur genera. This work has beenled by Dr Bill Sellers, who works in the Faculty of Life Sciences at theUniversity of Manchester.

Both Bill and I had a fun day explaining toApple Inc. about our research into dinosaur locomotion, amongst other things. We both use Apple computers for the work that we do at Manchester. Here is a short video that might give you a little more insight to what we doat Manchester.

How did the dinosaur cross the road....

2011-11-07T19:27:00.000-05:00

Taphonomy is the study of what happens when something isburied, literally meaning ‘burial-laws’ (‘taphos-nomos’). Ivan Efremov(1907-1972) can be considered the father of taphonomy, since his groundbreakingwork in 1940 invented this often-smelly approach to paleontology. Most studiessince then have been undertaken by organizations such as the FBI, who have akeen interest in the grave secrets of humans, especially those who end up inshallow graves as a result of foul play. Diagnosing the length of time and timeof year that a body was buried can be crucial to solving a grisly crime. Thetemperature, moisture content, and insect activity are but a few of thevariables that have to be considered when deciphering the decomposition historyof a body. The soil and microbial communities it contains are also critical tounderstand if we are to disentangle the taphonomic tale of a body (or preservedfossil). Almost all terrestrial plants and animals end up in a patch of soil,whether that is in the parch-baked sands of a desert or the sodden channelsands of a river. We have to examine the above and below ground ecology andmicrobiology to identify the key players in the recycling process. Many studieshave shown that the process of decomposition of large bodies into soil isprimarily regulated by the size of the said body and the activity of scavengersand humble insects. Surprisingly, insects are key players in processing some ofthe largest animals that walk on the earth’s surface today. Our taxonomicfriend Linnaeus from the 18th century commented on this fact, saying, “Threeflies could consume a horse cadaver as rapidly as a lion.” More recent work hassupported this view, indicating that insects can consume a body before ascavenger has fully utilized it. The complex intertwining roles of microbes, insects,and scavengers are also affected by season, for some species are more active atspecific times of year. When one or more of the decomposition processes isinhibited, a cadaver can persist for much longer on a surface or near surface...hereis a rather fun experiment we did with a chicken, for National Geographic. Dr Dino Frey and I were trying to work-out how the exquisite remains of Archaeopteryx survived 150 million years. Just be grateful you cannot smell what we had to inhale...

Come to the University of Manchester and take Earth Sciences.

2011-11-04T16:53:00.001-04:00

I was asked today, 'Why would you want to be a student at the University of Manchester?'.....and here is my reply.

Synchrotron time ahoy!

2011-11-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

The Manchester Palaeontology Research Group has been awarded two more years of beam-time to work at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light-source (SSRL). The whole group is over the moon about this wonderful opportunity. We can now build upon our earlier successes, which include working on the taphonomy of Archaeopteryx (above) and also mapping eumelanin pigment patternation in Confuciusornis (below).

The beam-allocation will provide the Manchester/SSRL team with the time to work on enhancing both data-capture techniques, whilst also updating of the experimental station... so we can enhance our x-ray vision on the innermost elemental secrets of both extant and extinct beasties.

Like so many University of Manchester research projects, the collaboration with SSRL is critical to expanding our knowledge of both past and present life on Earth, whilst working at the interface of several disciplines. The collaboration between beam-line physicists (Dr Uwe Bergmann, above right), PhD researchers (Holly Barden, above centre) and computational biologists (Dr Bill Sellers, above left), makes such research possible. However, it has been the geochemistry of the fossils that have relayed so much information from our synchrotron-based studies and that is the realm of Dr Roy Wogelius (below)...

For me, as a palaeontologist, its just damn exciting working in a field that shows so much promise, in terms of expanding our knowledge. This new field not only has the potential to yield insight to the exceptional preservation of past life, but also provide crucial information and clues as to the very biological pathways that once synthesized the compounds that remain hidden within the elemental inventories of such beautiful fossils. Its a splendid time to be a palaeontologist.

Toxic dinosaurs and blue-sky frontiers

2011-10-12T19:41:00.003-04:00

This Monday I have the pleasure of giving a lecture in a wonderful English Pub in the village of Bollington, near Manchester. The Vale Inn is this weeks venue for the Bollington SciBar, one of many such organizations that facilitates the public engagement in science. Splendid! The talk is from 6:30pm on Monday the 17th October and will be the first of many public lectures and events that I speak at between now and Christmas.

The topic for discussion at this meeting is something very close to my heart, public support for ALL scientific investigation. My argument is simple. How can we predict advances in science, when they so often come from disciplines that are quite 'left of field'...the ultimate scientific googly. It is clear that this is something that is on the minds of many folks when it comes to publicly funded science, as I am often asked, 'How can you justify playing with dinosaurs on public funds'...a fair question. In my preliminary defense, I must raise that most of my funding comes from abroad, however...this is not the case for all dino-diggers.

Can digging for dinosaurs provide insight to burying waste?

To hear my full answer to this question, come along to the Bollington SciBar and you will see how science does not always follow a predictable course. I will argue that advances in one field are so often ricocheted from another. But can I dare justify playing with dinosaurs from the public purse...

I have always argued that dinosaurs are a passport into science. Many grow-out of this dino-phase, but some do not...I am living proof of that. The universal appeal of dinosaurs has sometimes been pigeon-holed as nothing more than 'blue-sky' science or 'stamp-collecting', with outcomes offering little relevance to 21st Century life. However, in my talk I will argue that this is changing with the advent of multidisciplinary approaches to the analyses of fossils. These new approaches to antediluvian life will undoubtedly have major impacts on both present and future generations.... interested? Why not come come along to SciBar and find out more.

GSA-o-saurus minneapolensis

2011-10-08T19:16:00.001-04:00

My time in the USA working at the University of Pennsylvania sadly drew to a close last month. My year in Philadelphia was quite an eye-opener as to how the US University system differs from that in the UK. I shipped myself back to the University of Manchester...and my feet have not stopped since. Finally, I find a few minutes of peace and quiet to sit and write my blog...ironically, at a meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Minneapolis, USA. Yes, I just jumped back on a flight to the US for this vast (~3000 scientists) conference. I may have told tales of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (notice the dropped 'a' in palaeo...its a US thing), who meets annually and to which I usually attend...but this years choice of conference was GSA, who kindly invited me to give a talk on behalf of the Manchester PalAeontology Research Group.

The topic of my talk for this meeting are chemical ghosts of past life....and no, I've not been spending too much time reading Harry Potter! The authors of this talk are myself, Roy Wogelius and Uwe Bergmann, as multiple authors are often the case for such international meetings. Without the team, such science could not happen....especially when working with a synchrotron light source!

Our abstract is a tad dense, but I thought I should post it anyway. It gives you an insight to the wonderful world of conference abstracts, where you have a paragraph or two to sum-up your last 7 years work. Not easy!

Title: Synchrotron light reveals chemical ghosts of past life.

Authors: Manning, P. L*., Bergmann, U. and Wogelius, R. A.

* is presenting paper.

Abstract: Multidisciplinaryapproaches to the analyses of fossilised soft tissue have shown that endogenousorganic compounds can survive through geologic time. The work presented herewill show how coupling synchrotron-based X-ray and infra-red methods can serveto non-destructively resolve the survival of organic compounds derived from fossiland extant organisms, but also how spectroscopic details can assist inunderstanding the chemistry of exceptional preservation. Here we use FourierTransform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) to spatially resolve organic functional groupswithin Eocene (~50mya) to Cretaceous (~120mya) aged fossils that showbiological control on the distribution of amide and sulfur compounds. Thesecompounds are most likely derived from the original biomaterials present in thestructures analysed because other non-fossil derived organic matter from thesame geological formations do not show intense amide or thiol absorption bands.Infrared maps and spectra from the fossils are directly comparable to extant samples.X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) of sulfur in some fossil tissues shows itis present in several oxidation states, including organic sulfur compounds andinorganic sulfate minerals. By using this information to tune the incidentX-ray beam energy to a value below the critical excitation energy for inorganicsulfur, we were able to use Synchrotron Rapid Scanning X-ray Fluorescence(SRS-XRF) to discreetly map organic sulfur in discrete biological structures.This approach resolves fossil-derived organic compounds with striking detail.In addition, in this and other fossil specimens, XAS analysis of trace metalscorrelated with soft tissue structures indicating that a significant and insome cases dominant portion of trace metal inventory is organically coordinatedwithin tissue residues. Quantitative synchrotron-based XRF point analyses arepresented to show that concentrations determined within fossils are comparableto those of extant organisms, that phylogenetically bracket fossil samples. Ataphonomic model involving ternary complexation between fossil bio-derivedorganic molecules, divalent trace metals, and silicate surfaces are herepresented to explain the survival of the observed compounds.

Synchrotron light captures the phosphorus (P) of feathers and the iron (Fe) of fine feather structures.

Dinosaur's can be lickable.....

2011-09-21T14:58:00.002-04:00

Forgive my absence from the blog these past few weeks, but a move back from the USA to the UK, an earthquake, a hurricane, two tropical storms and a conference have kept me busy! I would never have guessed that Philadelphia could yield so many natural disasters in such little time...a mere two week period! However, it is fair to say that I miss Philly. A fine city, but am nervous that a plague of locusts might have descended if I stayed a week longer!

A couple of blogs ago I posted an image or two of a spectacular pair of dinosaurs from the Hell Creek Formation. Many have since contacted me after salivating over the couple of beauties locked in immortal combat since the late Cretaceous. I cannot say too much about their affinities...as this has to be done properly...and I know a rather nice chap in South Dakota who is the right man to do it. So, here is a few more images of the said 'Dulling Dinosaurs'...enjoy...first the theropod!

Gorgeous gastralia.....

Moving along....

Clear not an 'armless' theropod....

Up the body cavity towards the skull....

Bent double, kissing its.........goodbye!

But now the skull.....

.....woof!

Enough for one night....more to follow!

Synchrotron, dinosaurs and Hell

2011-08-20T13:54:00.001-04:00

Waiting for a grant is painful. It's hard to second guess the slings and arrows of peer-review. However yesterday, I got some great news...a grant was awarded for two more years work on the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light source (SSRL). This will mean that the University of Manchester Palaeontology Research group can continue our work on elementally mapping beasties from the past.

SLAC facility....so, so big!

The next fun step in this work, is raising funds to ship-in the team of 8-10 folks for each beam run. The 24 hour experimental runs can be brutal in terms of sleep depravation, so a large rotating team is a must. The experimental station is manned 24 hours a day and their is always prep-work of some variety in play prior to and after every experiment. Funding the transport, food, accommodation and vast quantities of coffee for such are large team is not cheap. Raising the funds to support such a beam team is often the hardest part of undertaking synchrotron research. Out of the last ten or so beam runs, only two of the 'expenses' bills have been picked-up by external funders (thank you to those external funders!). The remaining beam runs, each team member has had to pay expenses from their own pockets. To date we have papers in PNAS, Science and the Royal Society...with several in review or preparation. So, it really is worth it. We all love the science we are working upon. Even with this regular financial headache, we each and everyone look forward to beam time at SSRL. The correlation coefficient between financial support and high-ranking papers is not as high as we would hope, but maybe this will change in the future. We just need to keep pushing out the science and showing folks the relevance of palaeontology to everyday 21st Century issues (see my prior post on 'A pigment of our imagination').

A 'holy' leaf...shows evidence of leaf-mining predator, Hell Creek Formation, South Dakota.

You may recall some of the beautiful Hell Creek fossils we plucked from the ground this field season. They too, I hope, will come under the quantitative x-ray gaze of the synchrotron. The opportunity to unlock the elemental inventory of plant and animal fossils from the last gasp of the Cretaceous has interested me for some time. I wonder what environmental or biological secrets are locked in the samples from Hell........Creek?

Just like a dinosaur fossil....only better!

2011-08-12T13:27:00.000-04:00

Even after a good nights sleep....the dueling dinosaurs are still amazing. To say they are not the most impressive dinosaurs I have ever seen, would be the understatement of the century. When Pete Larson explained that these were his favorite dinosaur fossils....ever...I knew they would be good. However, nothing could have prepared me for the site that met my eyes yesterday in Montana. The preservation of the theropod dinosaurs bone is akin to black porcelain and the ceratopsian it choose an immortal embrace with, is a stunning dusk brown. These timeless beauties will someday be the centre-piece of a VERY lucky museum. I am grateful to have seen these beautiful fossils in transition between their 65 million year old tomb and their future resting place.

Woof......stunning, gorgeous, amazing....just one part of an incredible find!

The rancher who dug-up the specimens and the couple who have lovingly prepped the bones have only added to what is an amazing specimen. Folks who devote their lives to such endeavors have my heartfelt respect and special thanks for showing me their special find. Since I picked-up my first fossil as a 7 year old and asked the simple question, 'What is this?'...I have dreamt of seeing such a fossil (ideally finding it myself, but hey...I'm not choosy). Even when we were digging-up the dinosaur mummy ('Dakota') in 2006, I joked that the only thing that could make the fossil better, was a T. rex holding the tip of Dakota's tail between its teeth. Little did I know, that such a fossil was literally being excavated as I said those words....a fossil that pretty much fulfills my optimistic statement.

Aladdin's Cave.....more than any palaeontologist could wish for!

If you are within a 1000 miles of this specimen, it's worth the drive to see it.

Gob-smackingly gorgeous dinosaur!

2011-08-12T02:16:00.000-04:00

Forgive this short post, but it's late in deepest South Dakota....Today, the remainder of our field team drove 'just around the corner' to northern Montana...a mere 800+ mile round trip, to see a VERY special fossil.

Some of you may be familiar with the 'fighting pair' that consists a greyhound sized Velociraptor locked in 'immortal' combat with Protoceratops....the fossil we saw today was even more impressive than this pair!

I shall try and find time to upload some pictures of the 'dueling dino's' in the next day or so. This unique pair of fossils, one a Hell Creek theropod and the other a ceratopsian dinosaur, appear to have exchanged blows some 65 million years ago and come to rest in sediments that are now in northern Montana.

Their fatal embrace seems to be one of the most impressive dinosaur fossils on the planet....I promise you that this is no exaggeration from a travel-worn paleontologist. The last time I was gob-smacked by a dinosaur, was the hadrosaur mummy that we excavated with Tyler Lyson nearly five years ago....today, once again, I was totally and utterly...gob-smacked!

Rattle snakes and Go Go Arnau!

2011-08-08T20:10:00.002-04:00

What can I say. Today was the last day of our field season at Site 1. After tidying-up and finishing off the last few plaster field jackets, we decided to scout a new area, as the said plaster dried.

This past 24 hours I have been slower than a narcoleptic tortoise, after putting my back-out whilst digging a trench to collect sediment samples for analyses in Manchester. All I could manage today was my backpack...which is more than yesterday!

We split into two teams (always in contact via walkie talkies) and agreed to meet behind a large butte that was west of our main site. We had not explored this area yet, as Site 1 and 2 had kept us so busy the past two weeks. Brandon (one of my graduate students from UPenn) found a Rattlesnake. He screamed loudly, his girlfriend calmly led Brandon away from the said snake. Cathy was brought up on a ranch and is used to dealing with squealing townies....and slithering snakes...often easily confused.

Brandon in a less squeamish moment...

The relatively mild winter and wet summer has made a great year for rattlesnakes. The weather and plentiful supply of food had allowed many more to survive and breed. The hemotoxic venom they are capable of delivering makes them potential field problems for all crews. However, the distinctive rattle, a series of modified scales at the tip of the tail, usually gives plenty of warning. I am always more worried about the very young snakes, which do not have a rattle and cannot gauge how much venom to pump into their prey, often delivering too much. Small snake does not always equal less venom! The availability of anti-venom has reduced the fatality rate of rattler bites to a mere 4 percent. I was glad that Brandon did not add to the statistics today!

One of the team from Catalonia (Spain) shouted over that he had struck bone. Arnau Bolet, a micro-vertebrate expert, spotted the tell-tale line of bone weathering from a sandstone ledge high on the slope of the butte. I was already marking another trackway horizon across the butte from Arnau and soon found a partial ceratopsian skull whilst walking towards him. However, I would have dragged myself over far quicker, had a known what he had found.

Bernat's leg (left), then Judit, Arnau, Albert, Brandon and Cathy...all admiring 'Arnau's Ledge'

He beamed a smile at me, pointing at a beautiful collection of bones. Sat on the ledge was a pile of limb, backbone and even skull elements from a sub-adult ornithischian dinosaur. Stunning! There is little doubt that this is at least a partial skeleton, the most complete found this field season, but of course...we did not have the time to dig the said beastie. All we could do was make safe the site and hope that the South Dakotan weather does not relocate this pile of bones between now and next year...when we will come back and excavate another part of the Hell Creek jig-saw puzzle. My back-pain was forgotten for a while as we tweaked our way through the toe bones of a dainty little dinosaur.

Bone, bone, bone, bone and bone :-)

As we walked back to the field vehicles, I let the team walk ahead of me, until they disappeared over the ridge to where we had parked. I stood one more time on a high butte that overlooked the whole site. All I could hear was the wind blowing through the sage-brush. Shadows of clouds gently dipped the site in and out of shade. It had been a productive, hard, sometimes wet, but thoroughly enjoyable field season.

A very peaceful place.

48 Hours to go in the field.....then the work really starts!

2011-08-08T00:04:00.000-04:00

It is coming to the end of this summers field season. Only a few more days in the field, before I fly back to Philadelphia. Several members of the team have already started their way back to their respective corners of the globe, leaving eight of us in the field.

We all toasted an anonymous donor again, known only to me as the 'Leprechaun' from Philadelphia...this kind person provided funds for two full dinners for the field team. Top of the day to you sir/madam, as you have a very grateful and well-fed group of palaeontologists.

Tomorrow we will close the main site, in so far that we will hoover-up any surface bone and remove any sign of our being in this beautiful wilderness. Whilst we love to dig, scarpe and excavate...we also like to leave as small an environmental footprint as possible.

We have bagged a decent part of a Torosaurus skull, several hadrosaur post-cranial elements (from a very large beastie), not to mention several bones from the infamous T. rex. To top it all, the micro-vertebrate finds have provided us with evidence for many other non-dinosaurian organisms that thrived in the shadow of the mightiest of all archosauria....my beloved dinosaurs. Teeth of several species hail their presence, but accompanying bones still allude us....for the time being.

The fossils plants, insects and amber will hopefully yield information on the late Cretaceous Hell Creek environment, but this will take many months of sifting through samples accompanied by many experiments. Some of the samples will undoubtedly end-up under the quantitative x-ray gaze of the Stanford synchrotron.

The LiDAR survey scans will soon be aligned and linked, so we can revisit our site in a virtual environment, placing samples we have collected within a 3D framework. The initial previews of our 3D site survey are looking good...but again, more time must be spent on this data. The digital outcrop models will be updated every year to map changes to the site and the relative position of bones as we uncover them.

The samples collected from the sedimentary succession below, within and above our hadrosaur site will be diced and sliced and made into polished thin-sections of rock at the University of Manchester. These will then be analysed at both at the University of Manchester and at the Stanford Synchrotron (at SSRL).

The tridactyl Hell Creek footprint(s) will need describing, but not given a name. I baulk at naming tracks of dinosaurs...unless the hapless maker of the track is found literally dead in its tracks (a termination trackway...one of my favourite terms). We also now seem to have at least one more track horizon and at least two trackways...so much work here.

All-in-all, fieldwork is great fun, but the real work starts when your sifting through and interpreting the vast piles of data and samples collected in a field season. It will be this data that forms the backbone of next years field season and many years research. This years finds allow us time to construct preliminary hypotheses that we can then test and validate using corroborating data from other studies and sites relavent to our own. It also allows us to strategically plan next years BIG excavation. Our three weeks in the field this summer, might translate into 2 months next year. The future logistical and financial nightmare is already yielding a few sleepless nights.

Before I close the curtain on this years field season....our team still has another 48 hours to nail another spectacular find. As I recall from last year...our best finds were made in the last 48 hours!

Getting plastered with dinosaurs!

2011-08-05T01:22:00.002-04:00

The last few days have been a tad frantic...plaster not setting, bones keep appearing, bugs keep biting, rain stops play...too many variables trying to thwart our teams dino-bone-extraction hopes. The team have worked very hard, but it seems we now have to work even harder...it will be a 5:30am start for some of us tomorrow, in the hope we can get thoroughly plastered...well, at least finish the plaster field jackets for the extraction of a large fibula and rib from our hadrosaur site.

Cathy, Marco and Brandon plaster the end of a VERY large femur.

The plants and amber are also still coming and getting bigger and better preserved with every layer of Late Cretaceous pond that we pick from he Hell Creek sediments. We are keen to search for a feather in the pond deposit...as I KNOW one has to be lurking in there somewhere.

Hell Creek Formation leaf fossils...spot the insect-chewed one at the top!

We even managed to add another dinosaur to our haul today...maybe an Ankylosaur! Only a tooth left behind, but with a root...so maybe more to follow! These armor-plated beasties from the Cretaceous include some of my favorite dinosaurs.

Ankylosaur? tooth :-)

Tonight...I will be dreaming of extracting a rather long, thin bone from its 65 million year tomb...and hoping we get the jacket to hold this great piece of hadrosaur together....

Hadrosaur fibula...and yes, thats a 10cm scale bar!

...I'll also be hoping we do not find another bone underneath the fibula, as I want to close this site to move onto our main site...our next excavation fun will entail a skull!

Rain stopped play....but we soon slipped into fossil action!

2011-08-03T00:50:00.001-04:00

Last night it rained. It rained so hard, it sounded like the Dutch clog dancing team were choreographing a new routine in the roof of the motel. Rain in the Badlands is not much fun, as it equates to mud, not just any mud...the sort that stocks to every and any surface that comes into contact with it. As I feared, as soon as we touched foot from prairie to 'solid' geology...it was suddenly not so solid after all. As one of the BLM Officers with us commented, 'Slippery as snake-spit'....something I do not wish to validate.

Threatening skies over the Badlands....taken on the road, during a hasty retreat the day before!

We headed down to one of our two dig-sites and were all soon skating through the slippiest landscape I have trodden in many years. Soon our walking boots resembled giant clods of mud...and became heavier with every step. We ended-up tracking along sandy river-beds (that were thankfully not flowing) up to our first dig site. On arrival at the site, we all realized it was pointless trying to start excavating...it was a mud-bath. To add insult to injury, our first site was facing to the west, with a tall cliff above us...so no sun for us until after mid-day.

We decided to trek the mile or so across the Badlands to our second site...we can see each site across the prairie, but as soon as we dip into the channels and valleys of the Badlands, almost all landmarks (bar the tallest buttes) disappear. Luckily the twisting canyons and river beds are becoming more familiar, so we soon wound our way to the other site. I'm pleased that we did!

As soon as we hit the base of the butte for the other site, we found tracks. Not deer, antelope or fox, but of the dinosaurian variety. Dinosaur tracks in the Hell Creek Formation are relatively rare...so we were all a tad pleased. Many photographs and measurements were taken...as this will be a publication, we hope, in the near future. All I will say now, the track maker had three large toes.

After a quick scan of the bones at the second site, we sat and had lunch in the shade of some channel-laid sandstones, that were deposited over 65 million years ago. It was the same sandstone units that housed the dinosaur tracks at their upper surface. After a swift lunch of water trail mix and beef jerky, we headed back to our slippy site, in the hope that the mid-day sun had dried-out our site a little.

Hadrosaur caudal (tail!) vertebra

Thankfully, our site was quite sandy, so much of the water had either evaporated or drained away by 2pm. We set-to on excavating a femur, fibula, several vertebrae and a rib from a VERY large hadrosaur dinosaur. Our youngest team member, an undergraduate from UPenn named Emma, spent the afternoon hunting for the beautiful fossil leaves and amber that was rapidly becoming the highlight of the whole site. The leaves are simply beautiful and the amber has much research potential. This is Emma's first time into the field and she has made a name for herself by helping collect some gorgeous plant fossils (see below).

65 Million year old fossil leaves from the Hell Creek Formation....gorgeous!

We worked until 6pm, at which time drinking water was running low, it was time to head back to civilization...here endith another day at the office!

Hot, hot, hot....bug, snakes and bones!

2011-07-31T21:13:00.000-04:00

My apologies for a slow update...there is simply too much to say! We have been busier than a team of ants pushing water up-hill.

The team have been fantastic and so too have the finds. One and all have been worked into an overheated ball of dribbling energy every day...in the field at least 10 hours every day. With temperatures reaching 110 Fahrenheit in the shade, its hotter than Habanero chili sauce in the eye....plus, we're seeing plenty of wildlife....rattle snake, scorpions, ants, birds, bugs and beasties.

The bones just keep coming, as does the beautiful plant fossils, amber and all manner of late Cretaceous beasties...including some stunning mammal fossils. We are happy....this is an understatement!

In fact, some of us will be staying in the field a little longer, to eek a few more prehistoric morsels from our two productive excavation sites.

We even managed to LiDAR scan both field sites....stunning!

My apologies....I will try and find time to write more when I am not dribbling with tiredness.

I'll stick some pictures up later....when I have time!

Weather...

2011-07-25T02:30:00.001-04:00

The weather in the Chicago and Denver regions is doing its best to delay and/or prevent field team members getting to South Dakota. Having only been delayed an hour myself, I feel lucky...some of my colleagues were sat between 5-10 hours waiting for 'weather' to get out of the way of their respective areas.

I'm sat typing this blog, waiting for Bill Sellers. He too has suffered the slings and arrows of weather delays at Denver, but thankfully only one hour. Hopefully he will not be too trashed after his 18 hour ordeal from Manchester to South Dakota.

Tomorrow morning, its a 7am breakfast, followed by a test run of the Leica LiDAR....I was checking the charge of batteries today, in reparation for the mornings dino-surveying session. We have a rather stunning...or was that stunted...T. rex to squeeze into digital format...a NEW specimen. Quite wonderful.

Once we are happy we have mastered the loaned Leica LiDAR unit, we will set off into the field.

Juggling planes, theses and automobiles!

2011-07-23T11:01:00.000-04:00

Waking-up at 7am today I was greeted by a cool outside temperature of 87 F….yes that’s over 30 Celsius., with a mere humidity of 40%. This is the coolest its been in the last few days….cool?

I was dropped off at Philadelphia Airport by a colleague, who will be joining the field-team next week. As we drove to the airport, traffic reports from the prior day recounted tales of roads ‘peeling’ in the heat…'imagine what that does to your body’ a overheated Philadelphian recounted in the same news report. Too true.

Even the usual freezing wall of aircon that smacks you in the chops when you enter the airport, was struggling to keep pace with the now 98 Fahrenheit (36.5 Celsius) temperatures outside…its not even 10am. It's going to be a hot day in the city today.

I don’t need to complain to you all about flying again, but yes…I still hate flying. Thankfully a quick hop to Chicago and then Rapid City is all I have to endure today. Looking at the weather, it’s going to be bumpy…thunderheads on the horizon. Great L

My reading for the flights and also for the next few days (we can’t dig fossils at night!), is a PhD thesis I am reviewing. Thankfully its great work, so not too much of a chore.

I think it will be cooler at my field site...I hope! Here begins my Hell Creek fieldwork season for 2011.

Twaz the night before fieldwork.......and all was hot and frantic!

2011-07-22T20:19:00.001-04:00

Those of you who are not in the USA at the moment, might not have heard that its rather warm over here. In fact, I sit writing this post in a puddle of perspiration, with an aircon unit optimistically puffing air in my direction, shifting the 85 F (~29 C) air around my office. I can't complain, as it is 105 F (~40+C) outside. With temperatures soaring into these dizzying height, it must time to do some fieldwork!

Dealing with both high humidity and temperatures in the City of Philadelphia is bad enough, but when this is combined with the splendid isolation of the Badlands...keeping cool and hydrated is a matter of life or death (This is just a subtle/gentle reminder to all my field crew who might read this post tonight!). The heaviest thing we haul into the field, bar our own bulks, are gallons of water to drink. The heat in South Dakota is wonderfully dry, so evaporation from your skin is rapid, and you don't even know your loosing pints of water an hour. One of the most important things to remember, is to simply drink. This is why my spanking new hydration pack can take two gallons of water at a time...and is insulated...there is nothing more amazing than a cool slurp of water, when the ambient temperature is above that of your body. I will drink between 2-3 gallons of water per day when working in the field, and not gain an ounce by the close of play each day!

On a more challenging and practical note. I'm sat looking at a pile of impossibly full bags. One for clothing, the rest... field gear....lots of field gear...and there's more to pick-up at our destination. I shall even be dragging my MacBookPro into the field, as I have coaxed it into talking 'PC' via Parallels (a crafty piece of software), that will allow me to run the Leica software that stitches together the digital data from the LiDAR scans. Whilst we still take brushes, spades, trenching tools, dental picks and plaster into the field, the array of digital and electronic equipment is now quite staggering....and heavy.

The bags look full, but I have that nagging doubt...I must have forgotten something?

Dinosaurs, lasers and portable x-rays!

2011-07-16T14:58:00.001-04:00

Excitement is mounting....a few days from now, and it's South Dakota bound!

This field season, we get to use a top of the range Leica LiDAR unit (a C10 laser scanner)....it even comes with it's very own, branded, rain jacket! I love this kit. It's the attention to detail that Leica does with all its equipment that makes it so damn functional in the field. The new LiDAR unit will allow us to spatially map in 3D and in glorious colour, the whole of our field site to sub-millimeter resolution. Woof! This means that any samples we collect, which will mostly be rock and sediment this year, can then be later placed into a 3D framework. This literally provides a 3D virtual field map of our entire site, so we can re-visit the location again and again, but from the comfort of our office... where there are fewer mosquitoes, snakes and less sunburn.

We are also testing a portable x-ray fluorescence unit in the field for the first time. This wonderful piece of technology provides us with valuable elemental data from in-situ sediment samples, as well as information on our beloved fossils. The sensitivity of the unit allows us the luxury of pre-screening the elemental inventory of fossils....before we have to drag them all the way to Stanford (SSRL) to be scanned at the Synchrotron. This will hopefully save us both time and research money (which is always scarce!). The great thing about the unit...it looks like a large hair-dryer....so, we will look quite mad to anyone who comes across us, in the middle of no-where, styling the dirt of an outcrop!

We have also just gotten our supply of USGS 1:24,000 maps that cover the new field site. I love maps...precious things that are works of art in their own right. I have just spent the last few hours pouring over the maps and checking boundaries, access, etc. Nothing can be left to chance. The downside of my beautiful maps...by the end of the field season, they will be torn, tattered, scribbled upon and throughly used...but, totally invaluable.

As with last year, I will endeavor to write something every day about our fun and games in the field. Stay-tuned over the next few weeks to share the highs, lows, frustrations, excitement and hard work that is fieldwork with dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous.

Heavy workload, then fieldwork....

2011-07-08T18:33:00.001-04:00

I am sat working my way through dozens of papers, in the the vain hope I will have time to draft a paper with colleagues before I head-off into the field. Plus, I'm still coordinating folks from four different countries to converge in the same place to play, 'map this site'. A fun game of lasers, heat, sunburn, bites and bone! Its going to be a busy few weeks. Sometimes, only sometimes, it feels like a large cliff is on top of you....

....no idea where I get that feeling from?

How to use dinosaurs: Jurassic CSI

2011-07-07T22:05:00.004-04:00

Jurassic CSI is transmitted for the first time in the USA tonight on the National Geographic Channel. This is one of six episodes that follows my team and I around the globe, doing things to dinosaurs....well, at least their fossil remains. UPenn's Pennsylvania Gazette has already ran a fun story on the whole series...but I am hopeful the series is well-received by as wide an audience as possible....when it is completely aired later in August.

Laser-scanned dinosaur bones are fun, but nothing beats a bit of flesh...but where do you start?

Dinosaurs are often hailed as a scientific communication breakthrough, but is this really the case? Does the ‘and finally’ news story, usually based upon a recent publication, give credit to the years of painstaking work from discovery to final interpretation? The same can be said for many areas of science, where the object of the science becomes the story but not the science itself. This, in part, is the fault of both media and the scientists, given we must be more aware of how our science is translated into digestible chunks that can be understood by non-specialist audiences. Dinosaurs, however, are in a unique position. Apart from the fact that they are all dead (bar their descendants the birds) these animals have the potential to unlock many new areas of research to the public, given they provide a unique vehicle to deliver often complex science.

Adding flesh to this sauropod dinosaur, but with a twist of 'giraffe' in the mix!

Whether it be particle physicists blasting fossils with high energy X-rays at a synchrotron (see earlier blog) or computational biologists making dinosaurs run in virtual environments (yes, we really do try!), it is clear these extinct giants have a role to play in engaging the public with more than just old fossil bones.

The intense touch of synchrotron light reveals some of the secrets from Archaeopteryx 'In Living Color'

In the past ten years the science of palaeontology has been reinventing itself, looking to new disciplines to help solve very old questions. Now that palaeontology is such a diverse, interdisciplinary research area, it has successfully facilitated in the communication of multiple fields of science. Interdisciplinary work with engineers, physiologists, geneticists, computational scientists, chemists (even paleontologists!) and many other disciplines provides avenues that might excite interest in what might be considered discrete or obscure areas of research. Indeed, computational palaeontology is a splendid example of how the digitisation of specimens and subsequent computational analyses are both eye-catching and easy to distribute though modern media. The new series for National Geographic, Dinosaur CSI, was our take on this rapidly evolving field of science. I just hope that you all agree.....

Computer graphics bring Archaeopteryx back to life in Jurassic CSI...albeit in a virtual world.

A Pigment of our Imagination?

2011-06-30T14:03:00.008-04:00

Trace metals as biomarkers for eumelanin pigment in the fossil record.
Today we publish our most recent research in Science Express (the online arm of the journal Science). Our team has been able to show a remarkable relationship between copper and pigment within exceptionally preserved fossils of feathers and other soft tissues.

Fig. 1. False color chemical image (left) of an approximately 120 million year old fossil of Confuciusornis sanctus, the oldest documented avian species to display a derived beak, with superimposed model of a eumelanin-copper chelate complex. The image was produced using synchrotron rapid scanning X-ray fluorescence. In this image red corresponds to copper and the distribution of this metal shows the patterns of original eumelanin pigments in this extinct species, thus allowing a reconstruction of pigment shading. Blue corresponds to calcium in the fossil bone, and green is zinc within the sedimentary matrix.

The results include important species such as the oldest beaked bird yet found, the 120 million year old Confuciusornis sanctus, and also the 110 million year old Gansus yumenensis, which looks similar to the modern Grebe and represents the oldest example of modern birds.

Pigment is a critical component of colour. Our team can map the presence of pigments over whole fossils, revealing original colour patterns (but through a monochrome filter). Our findings indicate that pigment chemistry holds the future key to the ultimate goal of discovering the full colour palette of past life, from dodos to dinosaurs and beyond.

Colour has played a key role in the processes of evolution by natural selection that have steered all life on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. Whether this be sexual selection or camouflage, colour and patterning plays an important role in the struggle to pass one's genes to the next generation....else many top clothing brands would be bankrupt, given our own species desire to look gorgeous!

Fig. 2. Synchrotron rapid scanning x-ray fluorescence image of the calcium distribution in a fossil specimen of Confuciusornis sanctus, an ~120 million year old avian species, the oldest documented to display a fully derived beak. Calcium is high in the bones as shown by the bright white areas, but calcium is also high in the areas corresponding to residue of downy feathers in the neck region. This is interpreted to be due to the distribution of calcium being controlled by eumelanin chelates in the neck feathers, indicating that these soft tissues were originally darkly pigmented.

This unique scientific breakthrough can allow paleontologists and biologists to reconstruct pigment patterns in extinct and living animals respectively, as well as provide an understanding of the way in which biological compounds are preserved in specific environments through geological time.

This could provide a far greater understanding of the feeding habits and environments occupied by extinct creatures, as well as shedding light on the evolution of colour pigments in modern species. Here the data from living species was so crucial to deciphering the chemical code locked in deep time.

Roy Wogelius

Fig. 3 (Left) Collage of images. Top, optical images of: blue jay feather, squid, and fossil fish with feather. Bottom: x-ray images showing the distribution of copper (red) in the same organisms. Copper in the dark parts of the feathers, the fish eye, and the squid ink sack indicates the presence of eumelanin pigmentation and in combination with other elements can be used to map pigment distributions in fossils and existing organisms.

The X-ray team, led by Dr Roy Wogelius, Dr Uwe Bergmann and yours truly (‘Dr Phil’), took the unique approach of using the super-bright x-ray light of a synchrotron to analyse the soft tissue regions of fossil organisms. The application of X-ray physics to palaeontology has shed new light on this tangled tale of prehistoric pigments in deep time and how to map and recognise specific chemistry in fossils that are hundreds of millions years old. Roy Wogelius, lead author on the paper and University of Manchester geochemist, said: “Every once in a while we are lucky enough to discover something new, something that nobody has ever seen before. For me, learning that copper can be mapped to reveal astonishing details about colour in animals that are over 100 million years old is simply amazing. But even more amazing is to realize that such biological pigments, which we still manufacture within our own bodies, can now be studied throughout the fossil record, probably back much further than the 120 million years we show in this publication.”

To unlock the stunning colour patterns, the Manchester researchers teamed up with scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (USA) and used the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource to bathe fossils in intense synchrotron X-rays. Also working on the synchrotron team were Pete Larson, Holly Barden, Nick Edwards, Bill Sellers and not forgetting SLAC's Sam Webb. As I have mentioned before, this type of experiment runs 24 hours a day for a week…so is the ultimate sleep deprivation study. Without a large support team of colleagues, we could not undertake such exciting research. Several other team members made major contributions to the acquisition of material and its analysis back in Manchester.

Phil Manning (left) and Uwe Bergmann (right)

The key to their work was identifying and imaging trace metals incorporated by ancient and living organisms into their soft tissues, in the same way that all living species do today, including humans. Eumelanin pigment has a copper atom at its structural heart, allowing us to map its presence, via its distinctive signal. Eumelanin is possibly the most important pigment in living species and our study clearly identified this pigments presence and distribution in several extinct species. We can now use this copper-coordinated molecule to help unlock the pigment palette of man other extinct species.

Without essential trace metals, key biological processes in life would fail and animals either become sick or die. It is these essential trace metals that the team has pinned down for the first time.

Fig. 4. (above) Shown here is an artist’s conception of the pigmentation patterns in Confuciusornis sanctus, an ~120 million year old species, the oldest documented to display a fully derived avian beak. Patterns are based on chemical maps of copper and other trace metals in several fossils of this organism. Trace metals, copper especially, are found to exhibit patterns which reveal eumelanin pigment distribution in the living organism. In the background is a picture of one of the fossils used to derive the artist’s drawing. Drawing of C. sanctus is by Richard Hartley, University of Manchester.

It is fair to say that the fossils we excavate have even more potential to unlock secrets on an organism’s life, death and subsequent events impacting its preservation before and after burial. To unpick this complicated chemical archive that fossils represent, can only be achieved through the hard work of multidisciplinary teams that can bring in to focus many areas of science. In doing this, we can unlock much more than just palaeontological information; we now have a chemical roadmap to track similar pigments in all life.

Our results clearly show that chemical remnants of pigments may survive even after the melanosome (biological paint pots) containing pigment has been destroyed. Some of the samples they publish clearly preserve a chemical fossil, where almost all structure has been lost in the sands of time. The chemical residue can be mapped to reveal details of the distribution of dark pigment (eumelanin), probably the most important pigment in the animal kingdom.

Bill Sellers (left), Holly Barden (centre) and Uwe Bergman (right) check alignment of specimen on stage.

This pigment gives dark shading to human hair, reptile skin, and bird feathers. Using rapid scan X-ray fluorescence imaging, a technique recently developed at SLAC, our team was able to map the residue of dark pigment over the entire surface of a large fossil, for the first time giving clear information about fundamental colour patterning in extinct animals. It turns out that the presence of copper and other metals derived from the original pigment gives a non-biodegradeable record of colour that can last over deep geological time.

Nick Edwards (left), Roy Wogelius (centre) and Holly
Barden (right) glove-up for action!

Uwe Bergmann, SLAC physicist and co-author on the paper said: “Synchrotron radiation has been successfully applied for many years to many problems. It is very exciting to see that it is now starting to have an impact in palaeontology, in a way that may have important implications in many other disciplines. To work in a team of such diverse experts is a privilege and incredibly stimulating. This is what science is all about.”

Using this novel method to accurately and non-destructively measure the accumulation of trace metals in soft tissues and bone, the team also studied the chemistry of living species, including birds. Roy Wogelius added: “This advance in chemical mapping will help us to understand modern animals as well as fossils. We may also be able to use this research to improve our ability to sequester toxic materials such as radioactive waste and to devise new strategies for stabilizing man-made organic compounds”.

The synchrotron at SSRL has been used for many years to probe the innermost workings of molecules to an almost impossibly small scale. The team from the University of Manchester and SSRL has shown it is possible to retain the sensitivity and probing ability of the synchrotron, whilst working at a much larger scale (these fossils are giants in terms of synchrotron samples). The information gleaned from the current study is way beyond anything we could have dreamed of a few years ago.

Pete Larson (left) and Uwe Bergmann (right) prepare
another fossil run in the beam line station.

The potential for this technique to gently un-pick the chemistry of long extinct species is quite breathtaking. The possibility of mapping biosynthetic pathways, enzymatic reactions and mass-transfer of elements between organic and inorganic systems through deep time...offers many areas of science, not just palaeontology, cracking insight to the past. More importantly, the hindsight that the fossil record provides will undoubtedly have benefits for understanding Earth processes, both today and in the future. Advances in one field are often the function of a curve ball from another.

Take a look at our podcast on the Science web site, just click HERE to link to Roy and I talking about this research.

A final reminder that 'In Living Colour' will be transmitted on the National Geographic Channel in the USA at 10pm EST on Thursday July 7th. You can watch Uwe, Roy and I...along with many other folks in our team, take a close look at colour in the fossil record.

Once more into the field......

2011-06-28T18:26:00.002-04:00

It's June. The mosquito larvae have transformed into the adult bloodsucking fiends....so it must be nearly time to go back into the field. The mosquitoes must be hungry for the blood of an Englishmen.....again. Last year I must have single-handedly boosted the Culicid population for the whole of South Dakota....I am sure this year will be no different. Whilst my colleagues work unaffected by the beasties that bite and suck, I am like a walking target and blood donor rolled into one.

Bleak but beautiful, the Badlands of the Hell Creek Formation

We will have a smaller team in the field this year, around 6-9 folks. We hope to survey and record our new site that we discovered last field season. This will entail laser-scanning the whole outcrop....using a fancy new laser surveying device, called a LiDAR, short for Light Detection And Range. This one is being loaned to me, so we have to look after it... especially as replacing it might cost $80,000....yikes.

Using a LiDAR laser scanning unit in Fumanya (Spain) to track dinosaurs.

We have already used LiDAR before to map track sites and even to 'weigh' dinosaurs, or at least measure their volume from mounted skeletons and then calculate their body mass with a simple bit of arithmetic. This technology has multiple uses in the field this year, but its primary function is to provide a 3-dimensional digital outcrop model that we can plan all the major excavation, environmental impact and site remediation with for next year. We can also place all the data we collect this year, into a fancy 3D model, providing us with a chunk of virtual Hell Creek Formation to visit from the comfort of our office's in UPenn and Manchester....where there are NO mosquitoes.

Dinosaur!......What Dinosaur?

As with last year, I will endeavor to keep a daily fieldwork diary for one and all to experience the heat, bugs, exhaustion and sheer delight of plucking beasties from the Earth.

'Life in Color' or 'Life in Colour'?

2011-06-18T19:03:00.000-04:00

National Geographic have kindly brought one of the shows from the 'Jurassic CSI' series forward in transmission to July 7th on the NG main channel. It will be the first of the six shows to be aired in the USA, the rest following from mid-August through September 2011. It's strange seeing something on the box that was filmed nearly two years ago, in some cases. However, it will hopefully provide an injection to the growing number of documentaries about palaeontology that show 21st Century technology being applied to this broadening field of science.

The 'In Living Color' (spelt minus the 'u' for the US market) will explore some of the latest research that has been undertaken between the University of Manchester and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light-source (SSRL). You will see Roy Wogelius, Bill Sellers, Uwe Bergmann and myself applying our disparate (that's not desperate!) skills to precious fossils from around the world. Worth a watch if your in the USA.

I feel remiss that I did not mention a couple of weeks ago, I finally managed to see the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) making 'whoopy' on the Delaware shore...in their usual vast numbers! A remarkable mass mate/spawning that occurs every year on this long section of the Atlantic Coast of the USA. On both full and new moons through May and June, this incredible spectacle can be seen almost anywhere along the Delaware and New Jersey shore. These wonderful beasties drag themselves up onto the beaches in their millions, dumping BILLIONS of eggs, to ensure the next generation. I will endeavor to sort my images from this wonder of nature and tell you more about this enigmatic creature, whose ancestry long pre-dates dinosaurs.

Blogging with Dinosaurs

2011-05-29T11:44:00.002-04:00

Time disappears a little too quickly when your very busy, but still having fun! Fifty Seven blogs later and a year has passed and I am stilling finding time to write about the wee timorous beasties (such as Archaeopteryx below)...not all were so 'wee' I suppose.

The bulk of my time these past few months spent organising this year's field season and writing-up research. I will soon have teams of palaeontologists, biologists and geologists coming from the UK, Spain and the USA to help dig a site that we have in the Hell Creek Formation. This will keep my field team and I up to our armpits in dirt, a happy place, while the Jurassic CSI series is transmitted in the USA.

Planning for the excavation has several hoops that needed to be jumped through...all very necessary. Earlier this year I had to complete formalities with the suitable authorities to arrange access to the said dig site. This has been done and we are now waiting for the final say on the excavation paperwork.

Funding such excavations is not much fun. The economy is hardly booming and this impacts directly on many areas of research, especially in the UK. Last year I had to use my own savings to keep some of my field team in South Dakota. I should say, it is not uncommon for palaeontologists to dip into their own pockets to fund digs. I am still hunting for funds from various places to see if I can keep the 18 folks on my field team in a mosquito populated, arid, windy, sunburnt, dirt-shifting 'heaven' for a month.

For those of you who have been following the blog from last May, a big Thank You! In the past year you will have read how palaeontology can comfortably hold its head high, when it comes to the relevance of our research to everyday life. The information that we are now able to glean from the fossil record is influencing many fields, including; climate research, the burial of waste, long-term storage of radioactive waste and the impact of oil spills and suchlike on living species and many other crucial areas.

Whilst our research is firmly anchored in the past, we set our sights on its application to the future.

Seeley, dinosaurs and divisions...

2011-05-21T16:58:00.001-04:00

Harry Govier Seeley gave us something that neither Huxley, Cope nor the infamous Marsh could (but this was not from a want of trying). In 1887 H.G. Seeley gave us the lasting major division within Richard Owen's tribe of beasties, giving us the saurischian and ornithischian dinosaurs. You have already met the tooth and claw of the saurischia ('lizard-hipped') that ultimately gave rise to all birds today. Now this is the rub, the ornithischian ('bird-hipped') dinosaurs have nothing to do with birds, other than being the sister group to the saurischia that did...confused? When folks say, 'Whats in a name', maybe here hindsight would have made Seeley chuckle. His division is robust, but the names often confusing, given each groups evolutionary products...sadly zero for the ornithischian dinosaurs post-Cretaceous. One thing about this group, if you visit the AMNH in New York, you'll get to see some of the most important ornithischian fossils from north America. Here is a brief tour of the said gallery.

Triceratops with its distinct horned face and solid frill has been having a rough ride with its contemporary Torosaurus... identifiable from its larger perforated frill. Jack Horner and colleagues have recently suggested the latter is an adult of the former...'slaying' a species with a stroke...or should I say 'stage' of ontogeny (growth). This is not a new approach to slaying dinosaur species, as Peter Dodson did the same back in 1975 with his analysis of hadrosaur skulls...reducing nine to three species in a stroke. However, folks must have been more careful when naming species since Peter's work back in 1975...or have they? Other palaeontologists have urged caution, such as Mike Benton at Bristol, who also suggests that ~50% of dinosaur species might not be valid! Something to think about when we explore museums, their collections and the barren Badlands when hunting 'new' species...or maybe just another growth stage. Lets just say, we must be careful when naming new species of dinosaurs.

However, my favourite fossil in this gallery is not something horny from the Cretaceous, but wrinkled hadrosaur (Edmontosaurus) that looks like it overstayed its welcome at a sun-bathing contest. This 'beautiful' fossil was dug-up by the royal-family of palaeontology collectors, the Sternberg's...as this was a family of fossil hunters extraordinaire!

When you stand above this remarkable dinosaur, with its arms and legs wide open and its chest caved in...it looks almost too incredible to be 65 million years old, but that is exactly what it is, incredible and 65 million years old! What is most amazing for me, Charles Sternberg and his two sons prepared the fossil, as you see it today, while still in the Badlands of Wyoming.

When dinosaurs are not fully grown, they really can fool us...this skeleton has been given several names in the past, but now most agree it is either a juvenile Lambeosaurus or Corythosaurus! This is possibly why our research group has concentrated on understanding more about the preservation, biomechanics and anatomy of these enigmatic beasties. I shall add some more on my visit to the AMNH ornithischian gallery soon!

Long overdue AMNH visit!

2011-05-20T17:02:00.001-04:00

Oh how time disappears quicker than a rat down a drain-pipe...It seems only last week that I was promising images of the American Museum of Natural History )New York), but failed miserably at getting back to my blog...until now!

Just entering the museum provides you with a stunning dino-tastic diorama...and that's before you even have to part with any money! If you get a chance...just stand underneath this vast animal and look straight up. Some dinosaurs were not just big, they were huge...

The dinosaur galleries are something to behold and have long been a favorite of mine. This is where I shall pictorially take you now.

The dinosaurs are divided into two main halls, one saurischian and the other ornithischian...lets start with our friends the lizard hipped beasties.

Here Apatosaurus ambles along in some Paluxy River (Texas) sauropod tracks....quite apt! Opposite is a theropod...

...possibly my favorite large predator from the Jurassic...which always leaves room for the skull and skeletal mount of possibly the most famous, or should I say infamous, predatory dinosaur in the world.....

...yup, Tyrannosaurus rex. This is the skull that we all want to see....well, almost! I have to admit there are other stunning predatory dinosaur fossils in this exhibition, some who lack in size, make-up on tooth count to cause major trauma...such as my favorite small theropod, Deinonychus.

However, before I depart on a Cretaceous note, why not end on a rather important predator from the Triassic of Ghost Ranch (New Mexico). A great location name, filled with beautiful fossils of one of the earliest predatory dinosaurs, Coelophysis...

Last and certainly not least...we must not forget the strange theropods from Mongolia, no...not Velocirapter, as they are not that strange at all, but jumping beak-first into the theropod (I forgot my teeth) strangeness awards, is Oviraptor...

...perched, or should I say 'nesting' on a clutch of eggs. This mis-named dinosaur, mistaken for an egg-thief, should have been named 'Ovimaiasaura'...the 'egg-good-mother' dinosaur!

It would be unfair to show you all the saurischian dinosaurs at the AMNH, as you HAVE to visit there if you ever find yourself in New York City. Now...that is enough tooth (toothless) and claw for one day. Tomorrow (I hope) I will take you to the land of bird-hipped dinosaurs, the ornithischians at the AMNH.

Caught between continents!

2011-04-26T21:58:00.000-04:00

My blogging has fallen by the wayside these past few weeks. The day after my visit to the AMNH I had to dart over to the UK to put a Gobi dinosaur vertebra on the X-Ray CT spit, then jump on a plane to Germany to give a paper at a wonderful meeting in Obernkirchen. I then had to hop back on a plane to the UK, via Zurich...spending a night writing-up a paper with a colleague in Manchester, before heading back to the USA the next day...and that's when I started getting busy!

Close Encounters of a Saurian Kind....A night a the Obernkirchen Dinosaur Track Site in Lowe Saxony.

I realize that I have a great deal of blogging to catch-up with...I shall endeavor to do this at the weekend....now let me think, what day is it today?

A day at the Museum.....

2011-04-08T16:25:00.004-04:00

I find myself sat in a coffee shop, en-route to New York City...realizing that I have not written my blog for a couple of weeks! The wonder of free WiFi comes to my rescue. To be honest, I have been buried with work these past few days...yes, the usual. Reviewing and writing papers, teaching and also completing my BLM permit application for this summers excavation in the Hell Creek Formation (South Dakota). As always, life is never dull, just busy.

So, why New York? That's easy to answer, as located there is one of the museological gems of the world, The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). I shall not be alone on this pilgrimage, as I have a group of undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania along with me. They too share my enthusiasm for this historic institution and its incredible collections. No less than the first Tyrannosaurus rex arrived here in the first gasp of the 20th Century. The then assistant curator, Barnum Brown, excavated this 'Coca Cola' of dinosaur brands into the world, but his boss Henry Fairfield Osborne was responsible for naming it in 1905. Thankfully, the name has stood the test of time, unlike the unfortunate case of Brontosaurus...a long 'tail' I must recount at some point.

The AMNH became even more famous, if that were possible, after the release of the film, 'A Night at the Museum'...a splendid tale of bones that go bump in the night. The said film was set in the hallowed halls of the AMNH, with its impressive outlook on Central Park. However, when visitors first make their way up those famous museum steps and in through the grand front entrance off Central Park...they are met with a very different museum from that seen in the Film. This is simply because all the interior shots for the said film were shot elsewhere on an artificial set....you cannot blame the AMNH for this. Imagine the chaos of filming a Hollywood movie inside one of the most popular visitor attractions in New York. Impossible!

Tomorrow, I shall endeavor to take you on a pictorial tour of my 'Day at the Museum'.

50 Million year old Reptile skin....splendid!

2011-03-23T20:07:00.004-04:00

Today the University of Manchester Palaeontology Research Group published another paper in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B. The subject of this paper, some beautifully preserved reptile skin. The brightly-coloured image below shows the presence of amide groups – these are organic compounds (building blocks of life) – in the ancient skin of a fossil reptile, found in the 50 million year-old rocks of the Green River Formation in Utah, USA.

This image had never been seen by the human eye, until our team, in this case led by Dr Roy Wogelius and graduate student Nick Edwards, used state-of-the-art infra-red technology to reveal and map the fossilized soft tissue from this beautifully-preserved reptile.

These infra-red maps are backed up by the first ever element-specific maps of organic material in fossil skin generated using X-rays at the Stanford synchrotron in the USA, working in collaboration with Dr Uwe Bergmann at SLAC. This is the same technology that was used to hed light on the chemical ghost of feathers preserved in Archaeopteryx, published again by our team last year in PNAS.

Chemical details are clear enough that we able to propose how this exceptional preservation occurs. When the original compounds in the skin begin to break down they form chemical bonds with trace metals, and under exceptional conditions these trace metals act like a ‘bridge’ to minerals in the sediments. This protects the skin material from being washed away or decomposing further...literally a fossiliferous hard-hat!

Roy is as chuffed as ever about the results, saying, “The mapped distributions of organic compounds and trace metals in 50 million year old skin look so much like maps we’ve made of modern lizard skin as a check on our work, it is sometimes hard to tell which is the fossil and which is fresh.”

Roy is also keen to point out to the palaeontological community that, “These new infra-red and X-ray methods reveal intricate chemical patterns that have been overlooked by traditional methods for decades.”

The new images are compelling, and represent the next step in our research programme to use modern analytical chemistry and 21st century techniques to understand how such remarkable preservation occurs, and work towards discovering more on the fossil chemistry preserved in ancient life.

These new results imply that trace metal inventories and patterns in ancient reptile skin, even after fossilisation, can indeed be compared to modern reptiles. The infra-red light causes sweet vibrations in the fossilized skin, and a map of where these vibrations occur can be obtained from a fossil by using a trick: a tiny crystal (like an old phonograph record stylus) which moves from point-to-point in a programmable grid across the surface.

At each point where the tiny crystal touches the fossil, an infra-red beam that shines through the crystal reflects off of the crystal base, but a small amount of the beam probes beyond the interface- and if organic compounds are present, they absorb portions of the beam and change the reflected signal.

This has allowed our team to non-destructively map large fossils which do not themselves transmit or reflect the beam – a revolutionary process for paleontologists.

Nick Edwards, first author on the publication, said: “The ability to chemically analyse rare and precious fossils such as these without the need to remove material and destroy them is an important and long overdue addition to field of palaeontology.

Here physics, palaeontology and chemistry have collided to yield incredible insight to the building blocks of fossilized soft tissue. The results of this study have wider implications, such as understanding what happens to buried wastes over long periods of time. The fossil record provides us with a long-running experiment, from which we can learn in order to help resolve current problems.

You can learn more about this discover on a video podcast with myself and Roy! Just click HERE

...that's funny?

2011-03-15T13:40:00.005-04:00

Last week was fun. In a fossil-kind of way...where I had time to sit down and talk with colleagues from across the many departments and faculties at Manchester who make-up the Palaeontology Research Group. From Mike Buckley with his protenacious approach to palaeo, Bill Sellers bounding forward with his locomotion work, Bart van Dongen blasting organic molecules into revealing their identities with his thermal hammer (Pyrolysis unit!) and Roy Wogelius burying his head into surficial processes at the atomic level on squished animals now entombed in rock....precious fossils. I also managed a quick dash to Paul Mummery's x-ray CT emporium, but alas he was off to Oxford with my palaeo-computational colleague Lee Margetts. All these folks and more make-up the unique, some say quirky, group that is the University of Manchester Palaeontology Research Group.

As I have said in prior postings, it is this cross-faculty, multidisciplinary nature of our group that has been the secret to our success. We have all found common ground in long dead beasties...or 'fossils', as some prefer. The most important aspect of this group for me, is what I have learnt from these diverse disciplines, changing the way I conduct, collaborate and manage my research. The fact that I am now happy to talk about the interaction of intense monochromatic synchrotron x-rays with the electronic orbitals of atoms and the associated x-ray induced K-L shell transitions of electrons in fossils,...has simply reinforced how important collaboration is with scientists from outside my discipline. I feel privileged that my knowledge has significantly broadened, but at the same time my understanding has deepened. This is a function of both patient and good colleagues.

Isaac Asimov, a brilliant (possibly the greatest) science fiction writer and an excellent scientist to-boot, once said, 'The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

It great working with a group of scientists that at almost every twist and turn in our research we meet curious results that engender a similar Asimovian response. However, the key in our group is having the broad expertise to follow-up with sensible hypotheses that can then be tested and validated, before we go public on those 'funny' moments.

Dear Diary......

2011-03-04T14:18:00.003-05:00

On Sunday night I head to Manchester. Once again I face the gauntlet of airline seats so vast that a garden gnome would feel claustrophobic, this combined with an atmosphere so thick that a very sharp knife would be required to even dent the said fuselage smog. The mere thought of airline food has me reaching for my supply of melatonin in the vain hope I will sleep through the optimistic nudge from flight staff asking that I partake in there wares. At times like this, I recall a French PhD student's comment while on fieldwork in the UK. I asked him his view of British Cuisine, his thoughtful reply was, 'Phillipe, this is not cuisine; this is food'...this makes my airline food by comparison look protenacious at best. If....a large 'IF' underlined in bold ink, with large flashing lights...I manage to nod off to sleep, I always end-up precisely folded into my available space like a piece of well-packed, pre-assembly Ikea furniture. The uncomfortable 1 or 2 hours of sleep (at best) is always broken by the announcement of our impending arrival to UK shores...an unhelpful one hour in advance of landing...I beg airlines to let us economy class folks sleep till 10 minutes before we start our descent, in the same way that they allow business class passengers! I was not aware that the upgrade correlated with how much sleep you were allowed on a long-haul flight. I often look enviously at the light blue drapes that lead through to the peaceful world of business class, where the dim-lit cabin affords its occupants those precious extra minutes of slumber.

As soon as we hit the tarmac at Manchester Airport, it's off to the University of Manchester to work through my haze of jet-lag. I'm sure that the US military sleep-depravation exercises did not feel this bad. My schedule next week is complex...I say 'schedule' now, given each time I asked a US colleague to share their diary with me, this was met with a frightened expression, often with rapid recognition that another 'British-ism' had crossed their path. A diary is a very private 'dear diary' kind of place in the USA...and is nothing to do with a schedule... pronounced 'sked-duel'. I tried arguing that this was pronounced incorrectly and should always be a 'shed-duel'....this is usually met with disdain and the follow-up of 'So, which 'shool' did you attend to learn English?'. My reply to that is, 'In an English 'shool' in Wells, England...where they taught me to speak English'. Churchill was right, we are 'two countries divided by a common language'.

However, back to my diary! The week will be driven by working through a PhD thesis recently sent to me to proof-read by one of the graduate students I co-supervise at Manchester. This will be punctuated with many meetings, the CT scan of a Gobi dinosaur's twisted vertebra, pyrolysis gas-chromatography mass spectrometry of some dinosaur fossils and a podcast. The latter is with a team from the Royal Society (London)...a function of a research paper that will soon be published in one of their journals. More on the contents of the said paper later, now...I must pack.

Dr Scott, Dr Phil and the Orange T. rex

2011-02-21T00:19:00.004-05:00

Today I had the pleasure of giving a public lecture at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Little could have prepared me for the teeming hordes of 4-7 year olds clambering past and over each other to gain a glimpse, or maybe even a touch of the sacred hide of a rather fluffed-up orange T. rex...no, this was not a mad dream, but the telle-tubby-like reality that was 'The Dinosaur Train'.

I snuck into the back of the lecture theatre where I would give my talk in an hour. I was met by a packed auditorium listening to Dr Scott Sampson talking dinosaurs. Dr Scott is a real 'Dr' of palaeontology..a well-respected and extensively published scientist...who took the leap, like myself, into the world of the media. I choose documentaries with National Geographic, the History Channel and the good old BBC, Dr Scott choose pre-school TV...brave Dr Scott. However, we both choose public engagement in science as a major part of our careers. His scientific work truly rocks, but I think even he was surprised at the size of his audience...most were under 3 feet in height. With a maximum average height of 3'6''...the tales of nesting raptors and the important message that birds were dinosaurs was being swamped by the mutual diminutive wish that a 5'4'' orange T. rex going by the name of 'Buddy'...would soon join the erstwhile host of the said show...our friend Dr Scott.

I stood mesmerized at the back of the auditorium. Dr Scott valiantly pushed-on with his talk as the excited chatter of 'where's Buddy', gradually increased in volume among the expectant crowd. From a cracked door in the corner of the auditorium I'm sure I spotted a nervous human-head poking out of the top of a bloated orange dinosaur body...that was about to be fitted with a bizarrely enlarged theropod dinosaur head, complete with bulging eyes...I was not sure if this was a function of the fear levels being felt by the incumbent of the said costume. Having worn such a dino-outfit myself back in my Yorkshire Museum days, I was well aware of the kicking, pushing, thumping, dino-tipping antics of children...and their parents. I would just like to point out to all parents out there, that when a dino-suit wearing person is kicked over and is lain helpless on their backs, it does not look cute and is definitely NOT a photo-opportunity.

As Dr Scott summed-up his lecture to the listening parents, he hailed the coming of his good friend, Buddy. Huge gasps and screams were let-out by the waiting throng as the giant soft-toy gingerly entered the theatre...was that a timid step back towards the entrance? My heart went-out to the orange velour-clad student who had clearly been assured that this 'event' would look great on their CV...but maybe without the picture. You can imagine the line in the said CV, 'I took part in a major palaeontology open day at the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, where I actively engaged with children from many areas of the City'... beats saying, 'I dressed-up as an orange T. rex and was chased around the building by thousands of screaming, over-excited kids'.

As the teaming hoard ebbed slowly from the room, I'm sure I heard Buddy scream for help...as the said dumpy-dinosaur was chased to the upper floors of the building by never-ending tide of kids. Every now and then a staff walkie-talkie would report on Buddy's current location...the hunt for the orange T. rex was merciless!

I looked down at computer screens and at the content of my lecture. Then I looked-up at the audience. I looked back down again at my lecture and realised that the 'Dinosaur Train' had cut my usual expert audience of 9 year olds to a mixture of toddlers, confused parents and exhausted Academy staff. My title of 'Blasting dinosaurs into another dimension'...and more importantly the content of my lecture... suddenly looked impossibly difficult. My slide of an atom, with its simple nucleus and careless orbiting electrons, now looked like quantum mechanics... and my birds-eye view of a synchrotron...might as well have been the blue-print for space ship design a long way away in the dim and distant future. I hastily re-wrote my talk in my head and looked at how much stage space there was for Monty-Python style silly walks...this would be a short 45 minute talk...more like 30 minutes!

I was introduced to the expectant audience. The lecture theatre lights dimmed, I took a deep breath...and stepped into the jaws of a battle-ship grey T. rex...bring back Buddy...I might just need him!

Chicken Curry, dinosaurs & Chemistry?

2011-02-19T21:38:00.002-05:00

It was a standard busy day at the University of Manchester, combined with a swift lunch-time shuttle to the Royal Northern College of Music. Finding decent places to eat at the University is a constant quest for many academics at Manchester, thankfully there are many places from the Buisnes School to Geography were the trail for cuisine often ends in food. However, this particular day had chicken curry on the menu in the Music School, so the usual gathering of geologists from the School of Earth, Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences (SEAES) were loading their lunch trays with the said British favourite...fish and chips has long been knocked-off as the top favourite for some time by curry. At that time I was quite new to the said department, having just been appointed between the Manchester Museum (University of Manchester) and the SEAES. I sat at a table with one of our planetary scientists (Prof. Jamie Gilmour), an environmental geochemist (Prof. Dave Polya) and an inorganic geochemist (Prof. Roy Wogelius)...it was the latter who has since provided me a paradigm shift in my understandings of the preservation of dinosaurian beasties from days gone by.

Dr Roy Wogelius (foreground), Dr Peter Morris (left to Roy)
and Tyler Lyson (right)

As we sat inhaling our food, as time was short for lunch, I threw into conversation that I had just started working on a 'mummified' dinosaur. To have both the words 'mummy' and 'dinosaur' in a single sentence made all three look up and, albeit for a brief second, appear almost interested in palaeontology. I was getting used to the dry wit and humour of the three, so I waited for the barrage of quips on fossils not being what they used to be, or that the Late Cretaceous embalmers chasing dinosaurs and sticking natorn (Egyptian embalming salts!) where the sun would no longer shine! Dave Polya did not let me down on this front as he sat pondering the mechanics of inserting large quantities of salts up dinosaur rear-ends...However, Roy was sat opposite me and stopped eating, 'Do you want to know find out how the skin of your dinosaur got persevered?', Roy's question was one I had much pondered since seeing the bizarre preservation of Tyler Lyson's amazing find. 'I can help you Phil, if you can get me some samples'...this was the start of my journey into inorganic and organic geochemistry.

Fossil 'skin' from the 65 million year old dinosaur from
the Hell Creek Formation (North Dakota, USA)

I realised quite quickly that Roy had a healthy disrespect for palaeontology (or more precisely many palaeontologists)... something to do with an early college experience and a dance involving ping pong bats and an extinct group of arthropods called eurypterids. Having worked on eurypterids for my masters degree...I quickly change the subject when this experience is raised in conversation. This had clearly harmed Roy in some deep way. However, lucky for me Roy had spent the ensuing years becoming a leading geochemist. His realm of x-ray defraction, synchrotrons and infrared spectroscopy, was about to open-up the invisible sides of the electro-magnetic spectrum for me...a realm that would soon include the analysis of one dinosaurs particularly tough hide from late Cretaceous North Dakota. Since the 'Chicken Curry' moment in 2006, Roy has helped open Pandora's taphonomic box...taphonomy literally meaning 'burial-laws'..a science that we are beginning to play a small part in translating fossils into the processes that lay behind their preservation.

Sunlight and Synchrotrons

2011-02-15T13:03:00.004-05:00

The snow has started to melt. The temperature is beginning to rise above freezing in Philadelphia for the first time in weeks. Leaves are starting to shoot and the grass is turning from rust-brown back to green. The organic geochemistry of life is re-booting for Spring. Sunlight is doing its job on these new shoots, fuelling the photosynthetic pathways that convert carbon dioxide into carbs...sunlight is a powerful source for the essence of life, energy.

Palaeontology has also started using light, in ways that I would never have guessed early in my career. We too are relying upon an interaction with light, but not with sunlight and plant chlorophyl, but with the surface of beautifully preserved fossils and more invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Todays blog I thought I might bring-up the subject of a more familier part of the electromagnetic spectrum to many of us, X-rays. For many, their first interaction with X-rays is not a pleasant memory...as hospitals tend to come to mind, along with broken limbs! However, since September 2007 I have been getting used to another, more intense source of X-rays...those generated by synchrotron radiation. The synchrotron at which my group and I work is based at Stanford University (California) and is called the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

SLAC from the air

You may recall in an earlier blog I was working crazy hours (20+ days) along with the rest of the Manchester team, basting fossils with X-rays...this was at SLAC. Here synchrotron light (in our case X-rays) are generated when electrons traveling near the speed of light take a curved path around a storage ring (above left red ring on aerial shot of SLAC). The particles blasting around the storage ring emit electromagnetic light in X-ray through infrared wavelengths. The resulting light beam has characteristics that make it ideal for revealing the intricate architecture and composition of many kinds of matter—in our case fossils!

See Bergmann et al 2010 in PNAS for more gorgeous images!

The elemental composition of fossils and the matrix in which they sit can be spatially resolved to ridiculous levels of accuracy here at SLAC. Our team works closely with Dr Uwe Bergman (no less than Deputy Director of the SLAC facility) who helps our team recover these delicate chemical fossils from past eons. Lest we not forget, we are a bag of chemistry...at SLAC, we can start to unpick the remnants of this chemistry that has survived through the sands (muds and limestones) of time.

Synchrotron sheds light on 150 million year old feather biomolecules!

Fortunately for palaeontology (and also the oil industry) the organic building blocks of life can sometimes be stubborn. They do not like breaking down. One such major group of molecules that form the backbone of many organic molecules, goes by the name of functional groups.These groups of atoms are responsible for much of the reactivity of a given molecule as it plays its part in the processes of life. It is these potential 'biomarkers' from deep time that we are so interested in hunting down and mapping in fossils. In my next blog we will take closer look at these chemical flight-recorders...with both x-rays and infrared light. To do this, we will enter the inorganic and organic world of my good colleagues Dr Roy Wogelius and Dr Bart van Dongen from the University of Manchester.

Teasing organic molecules from fossils

2011-02-11T13:49:00.001-05:00

This last couple of weeks have been a tad busy...just for a change. A series of papers to complete, review and submit, coupled with meetings at the University of Manchester, entailing a rapid hop over the Atlantic (and yes, you all know how much I 'love' flying). Today, once again, I am sat back in my office at the University of Pennsylvania, watching my 2nd Mac start to splutter as it renders a 3D volume of a T. rex brain case from a micro CT data...as you do. I think I might just have pushed the poor machine a little too far this time, as its been nearly two hours since it started rendering the said volume and its still not responding. This is why I have two Mac's. One to continue working upon, while the other works by itself...slowly, so slow...it has a morning shadow by the time it is done thinking about a problem. That said, it works, but you need patience!

While my 2nd Mac is stumbling its way through thousands of T. rex brain-case slice data, my other is being a little more organic. I have been burying myself into the fun world of organic geochemistry... please keep reading! As if it wasn't for the organic chemistry popping away inside of you, you would not be reading this. However, I have to ask, Why subject myself to such wondrous delights? Its quite simply the only way I can continue to work with my colleagues Dr Roy Wogelius and Dr Bart van Dongen (both at the University of Manchester). They have both been giving me a crash course, these past four years, on the organic and inorganic phases of life...a balance that exists now and into deep time. It seems that if I really want to get to grips with my fossils, I have to know my hopanoids from my geo-hopanes (I assure you that these are not medical conditions associated with digging dinosaurs) and also my FTIR from my Py-GCMS....not to mention your MALDI-TOF (now I'm sure that one should be a cocktail?).

Bart van Dongen hard at work with his Py-GCMS samples!

Over the next few weeks I shall start sticking some of our latest results on these pages, as thankfully we got another paper accepted on soft tissue preservation today...hurrah! Each paper published in a journal is a big step forward for our group, given the techniques we use are quite new to the field of palaeontology, making the review process long in some circumstances. With this in mind, I thought I might dare drag one and all into the fun world of methods, machinery and chemistry that orbits on planet organic...I might even drag vital life processes into the debate, such as fermentation..to help ease the transition into this tricky field. More importantly, you will soon see that fossils are organic mines that we are only just learning how to excavate. I would never have believed that when I was a 7 year old plucking my first fossil from the ground, that I would one day be as interested in the chemistry of the said lump.

Jurassic CSI

2011-01-21T23:11:00.003-05:00

Early last year I completed filming a new series for the National Geographic Channel. The fruits of that labour are starting to appear on TV screens around the globe. This series is not just about palaeontology…although dinosaurs are clearly an important theme. The series explores many new techniques in the earth, physical and biological sciences, from proteomics to particles physics, and from locomotion to geochemistry. The series would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of many scientists at the University of Manchester, but especially Roy Wogelius (SEAES), David Hodgetts (SEAES), Bill Sellers (FLS), Paul Mummery (Materials), Chris Martin (Materials), Phil Withers (Materials), Adam McMahon (Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre), Terry Brown (MIB), Alan Crossman (FLS), Jon Codd (FLS), Mark Ferguson (FLS), Matthew Cobb (FLS), Lee Margetts (Research Computing Services) and the staff of the Manchester Museum.

The series will be transmitted in the UK from February 3rd (National Geographic Channel Wild), then in Canada, France, Russia, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Asia (distributed through Taiwan Nat Geo), Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and South America National Geographic.

If you want to learn more about the series, click on the links below, as this will take you to the National Geographic Channel web pages for the UK launch of the Jurassic CSI series.

http://natgeotv.com/uk/jurassic-csi

A large number of video clips have also been placed on the website:

http://natgeotv.com/uk/jurassic-csi/videos

My apologies for the lack of postings this past week, but research, teaching and writing have kept me more than busy. Tonight was a late night again, as Dr David B. Weishampel from John Hopkins University, came to Penn and gave a stunning talk on 'Transylvanian dwarf dinosaurs'...great title and even better lecture!

Tasmanian bouncers and egg-layers!

2011-01-17T19:43:00.002-05:00

Our drive into the Tasman bush was almost as exciting on-road, as it was 'nearly off-road'...It seems that the accepted local driving technique on dirt-roads with many blind corners involves speed, lack of breaking, expletives, fist-waving and juggling of mobile phone...well, that's what many locals were trying to teach me via positive reinforcement. Each time a tell-tale plume of dust appeared ahead or behind us, I prepared myself for the spray of dirt, gravel and expletives. Given I was nominated driver, I should have taken photos of the said driving, as I am sure photography could be added to the multitasking ability of Tasman road etiquette. One thing is for certain, the large number of road-kill at the side of every by-way was almost certainly a function of the Taman dirt-road driving code...or lack of one!

A Kangaroo watches us from a safe distance...away from the road!

As we headed north on the island to Mount William National Park, the roads became very narrow, this possibly gave the local wildlife a chance of getting across alive. This was not due to cars slowing due to the narrower, twisting roads, more to do with the animals having less ground to cover as they dash in front of oncoming vehicles...some, I noted on occasion, on the wrong side of the road (vehicles that is!). As we entered the Park we turned off the main dirt road towards the Eddystone Lighthouse, where a campsite was situated drawing many vehicles to this remote part of Tasmania. Off the 'main' dirt road, we slowed our pace to a crawl...in the vain hope we might see local wildlife...alive! We had been saddened by the sheer body count on the road, but slightly heartened by the fact that Tasmanian Devils would get a free meal...albeit the ultimate in fast food, else they too might join their departed meal.

A dark shape at the foot of the tree moved...

Looking for beasties in the Tasman bush initially reminded me of hoping to spy a Kiwi in New Zealand...you know they are there, but you do not stand in a chance of seeing one. Frustrating. Tasmania is different. If you stand still and remain quiet for a few minutes, the bush soon delivers up a bouncing pouched wallaby or suchlike. However, hiding in the shadows near our road was something that none of us expected to see...a monotreme! There are only two groups of monotreme left in the world, found both in Australia and New Guinea. They include the bizzarre egg-laying mammals, the platypus and echidnas, that are essentially like us mammals, bar the egg thing. They have an interesting evolutionary history, in so far it is very poorly known, with a few fossils from Australia in the Cretaceous. These Cretaceous fossil monotremes indicate this group radiated at least 70-80 million years ago...but surely there has to be earlier fossils? Alas, none have been found to-date.

We stopped the car and slowly approached the base of the tree and were greeted by a site we really did not expect. A ball of fur, spines and the pointiest nose you could ever imagine, perched on such a round animal. It was as if a golf tee had stuck itself to a golfball...a spiky golfball. This was our first and possibly last siting of an echidna. Often called the 'spiny anteater' this small spiny ball also supplements its diet with worms, insects, termites and am sure anything the right size that crawls within range of its long sensing nose.

Molecular studies of both the platypus and echidna suggest they share a common water-living ancestor, some 30-50 million years ago. Leaving a watery habitat at this time would have been a brave leap for such a group, given marsupials ruled the Earth...well Australia. Many pouched beasties would have been looking for similar ecological niches to occupy and share with the early echidnas, but it seems they managed to eek-out an existence in the face of such bouncy competition. It has been suggested that the echidnas egg-laying adaptation provided them the edge over the marsupial reproductive strategy.

After a few minutes of watching the echidna, we all returned to the car with broad grins. Knowing that we had all had a close-encounter of a spiky, monotreme kind. Simply stunning. The echidna waddled-off about his or her business...am not sure how you might determine the sex an echidna?

As we drove further into the Park, the kangaroos and wallabys became less weary of our car...possibly because they did not recognise it as a car, given we were driving slowly, engine not screaming, and horn not blowing. As I spied a wallaby almost outside our car, I stopped. With a hint of guilt, we all snapped photographs of the shy herbivore, remembering the 'Wallaby Jerky' I had eaten in Sydney airport a few days earlier.

While many of us happily eat cow, chicken and pig...(ah, the memory of the CCP burger in South Dakota last year...yes, a CowChikenPig burger!), the thought of eating marsupial was initially odd. But I have also to admit, the night before we had all tried wallaby sausages and they were good! Gives a whole new twist to, 'One mans meat is another mans marsupial'....

For many years I have been fascinated by wallabys, this in part was due to a paper by McNeil Alexander on the elastic recoil he measured in the hind limbs of these hopping macropods (literally 'big-foot'). If it wasn't for the fact that they hopped, when seen at a distance...a long distance...you could be forgiven for thinking they have an almost dinosaurian body outline...until they move. However, as Bill Sellers, colleagues and I suggested in a paper last year...hopping might well have been in the locomotor repertoire of some bipedal dinosaurs! Even I, as a child, have been driven to hopping...usually in a school race! I'm not suggesting that dinosaurs hopped around the Mesozoic, just that they were capable of a hop, if the mood took them.

However, the limb and pelvic adaptations of macropods places them in a hopping league all of their own, with some of the larger kangaroos being able to reach speeds upwards of 40 miles per hour for the 200 pound red kangaroo (Macrpus rufus). This bounder can also leap up to 25 feet in a singe hop, but also clear a 10 foot fence...that's accomplished hopping!

By the end of our long day in the north west edge of Tasmania we headed back to Hobart and to the our hosts Andrea and James. Tomorrow, we had work to do...of a bunny variety. Alas, I cannot share this work with you, as its part of a research program of a colleague at Penn. However, I shall pick-up my Tasman tale with a brief look at some very, very, very old fossil wood!

Wild Tasmania

2011-01-08T17:23:00.004-05:00

The great thing about staying with James and Andrea, was that we all got to meet plenty of interesting species on our doorstep. They both have a passion for looking after beasties...not surprising given James is a vet. However, I have met few vets as dedicated as James (Karen of course!). He answered his cell phone and made house calls for owners with vomiting cats to dogs that were refusing to eat...on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when few would even consider picking up a phone! Let us return though to the several acres that James and Andrea work is jam-packed with alpaca, Highland Cattle, etc.

The day after we arrived in Tasmania, James decided to put us all to work. We were to move 20 or so alpaca from one enclosure to another, and then coax them into a shearing pen. A simple task. It was summer in the southern hemisphere and their coats were thick, so the shearers had been booked for the following day. James and Andrea organised our 'team alpaca' into an disorganised line of 'herders'. Phase 1 of the exercise went smoothly, possibly courtesy of the large number of fences corralling the alpaca from one enclosure to the next. Phase II, involving the shearing corral...was interesting...James possibly found it infuriating, frustrating, annoying, confusing, amongst other verbs, usually combined with loud expletives, that were liberally offered to the whole team. This far from focused us, having the main affect of making us break-down into fits of laughter...sorry James.

To say we were hopeless at herding alpaca would be very generous. James knew exactly where he wanted us each to stand and what each of us had to do, we were just not very organised in translating that wish into reality. After several attempts of gental arm-waving and coaxing we had only managed to persuade two sheep, who lived with the alpaca, to enter the shearing pen. This they mainly did by themselves....when we were not looking. The alpaca were successfully herding us, more than we were them.

The worse we became at herding, the more frustrated James became, but Andrea on the other hand just remained calm and smiled, "It took us years to figure these animals out"...we had only a few hours and were at that point...far from functional alpaca herders! After much arm-waving, expletives, running, stumbling and coaxing, the alpaca finally gave up on their playful game of 'avoid the corral' and slowly entered their shearing pen...much to one and alls relief. We were all exhausted. I still think James is convinced we were deliberately being daft?

A couple of animals that were slightly easier to deal with were the Clydesdale/thoroughbred giant horses...and I mean giant, as both were over 17 hands! Jim is pictured below with one of the said giants...its worth pointing out that Jim is 7 feet tall....

Whenever James, Andrea or Jim called to the horses, they would skip over like two colossal puppies...the horses that is. Enough of the animals 'back at the ranch', it is time to show you some of the Tasmin wildlife that is so incredible. The first wildlife sortie we made, entailed getting up at 4am...at a location near the northern tip of the Island.

Its rare that you see a sign with the words 'Beware penguins'...but come to the southern hemisphere and its not too uncommon. However, the species of penguin we were interested in here, was the smallest penguin known in the world, the Blue Penguin or Fairy Penguin (Eudyptula minor) and is far from common.

Sporting flashlights and cameras, we headed to the shore at 4am, to a locality that Karen had visited before, for the same reason. Being an avian vet, Karen is inordinately fond of birds, but lets face it, who is not fond of penguins?

Jim, Karen, Victoria, Hillary and I were the only ones to rear our heads at 4am...El decided to sleep it out. As we pulled-up to the beach in my 'soccer-mum' people carrier (a badge I wore for the whole trip!), we were instantly greeting by the calls of waking penguins and the smell of raw/processed fish. When I say processed, I mean via the gut of the said penguins...not a pretty smell.

As soon as we stepped on to the rocks, we almost stumbled over the Blue Penguins...they were incredibly tolerant of us and our lights, as they hopped and waddled their way to the shore, to make for their feeding grounds.

Some spied us warily from beneath rocks and coves, but most waddled about their morning business.

As the sun began to rise over the shore, fewer and fewer penguins could be seen or heard. The sunrise was suitably tastastic...a great way to start any day.

As we packed up our cameras and headed back to the car, we decided that today would be a wildlife day...besides, it was Boxing day...now what species would be a suitable species to look for on boxing day?

We soon found a sign that confirmed our potential boxing wildlife had undertaken the dangerous past-time of car-tipping...possibly a function of the said species miss-hearing in conversation the unpleasant practice of cow-tipping. Personally, I have no idea why one would want to give spare change to a cow?

Bounding marsupials and spiky monotremes to follow soon!

Tasmania....Blighty in disguise!

2011-01-05T09:50:00.005-05:00

This has been a slow blog to write, which is certainly no reflection of the time spent in Tasmania...more due to the tortuous flights from Sydney to LA and then Philadelphia. I recall being picked-up at Philadelphia airport, but little else. I seem to have slept for the past two days. I shall now try and observe blogger etiquette and add a day-by-day take on the trip in a few blogs..not one big one as I have in the past.

The team going to Tasmania all met in Sydney Airport. Dr Karen Rosenthal was leading our group, that included myself, Victoria, Jim (Karen's husband) and her two daughters (El and Hillary). We all felt flight fatigued already, but knew we still had a few hours to wait before our connecting flight left for Hobart (Tasmania). We caught a taxi (yes, its too far to walk and there was no other transit) from the international to the domestic terminal. We then sat drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, waiting for the flight. El and Hillary foraged for some local delicacies...Emu Jerky, Crocodile Jerky and Kangaroo Jerky!

The flight to Hobart was short, as most of the team slept. As our plane made its final approach to the Hobart airport, I could not understand why it was heading for such a small strip of road alongside an estuary...until I realised that this was the airport runway! More striking than the optimistic landing area was the likeness of the Tasmanian countryside to that of England. The rolling hills and patchwork of green fields were a complete surprise to me. How could a land so well-known for its biting, stinging, poisonous occupants look so familier.

To say Hobart Airport was small would be an understatement, but to suggest this was a bad thing, would be wrong. The single luggage belt delivered all our luggage and a stuffed seal (as in the marine mammal!), in double-quick time. Unlike Sydney and many other airports where you loose the will to function as your luggage does not arrive, Hobart was a refreshing change.

We soon despatched ourselves to the car hire, where I became nominated driver for the week. This had nothing to do with my skill as a driver, but more to do with the fact that Australians drive on the correct side of the road...i.e. not the right! The lefthand drive and rolling countryside were making me feel quite homesick, but at the same time at home...until I saw my first marsupial roadkill! Large quantities of roadkill became a recurrent theme on the trip...usually accompanied by the words, 'now what was that?'.

We drove through Hobart and then up towards Mount Wellington, a marker I would navigate to and from over the next few days. The winding road took us higher and higher and as we turned off the main highway it soon became a dirt road. After going down hill for only a few hundred yards we turned off onto the 'road' where James and Andrea lived, our hosts for the trip. We wound our way between trees along the track and soon a clearing ahead marked our destination. After being greeted and fed by our hosts, we all collapsed into our beds. I should say that being 'fed' is not doing justice to the wonderful cuisine that Andrea created...as she would each successive night.

We all slept soundly that first night in Tasmania.

The longest day?

2011-01-01T07:50:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow at 12:35pm I set-off for Philadelphia, this being Sunday January 2nd 2011 in Australia...I arrive 20+ hours later in Philadelphia, again on Sunday January 2nd 2011 at 5:30pm in the afternoon. I love the international date-line...it has provided me with the longest January 2nd I have ever had to endure...I say 'endure', as once again I will be flying. My favourite thing :-(

This past week has been stunning. The geology, palaeontology, wildlife and people of Australia have been wonderful. I have to say that Tasmania is a hidden gem, packed with beautiful landscapes, amazing climate and very friendly inhabitants. We all felt welcome and at home.

New Years Eve in Sydney....wow!

Fireworks over the Opera House in Sydney Harbour

Forgive this short blog, as I shall do as I did with China and later provide a longer and more pictorial blog of the past week...but shall write this on my flight to Philadelphia, via Los Angeles. I shall once again disobey the rule of long blogs...my apologies in advance!

Now I must sleep.

Taz-tastic place lost in time...

2010-12-28T06:51:00.000-05:00

Stunning...simply stunning! Tasmania is beautiful and ever changing. The climate is about as constant as a snowman in the desert. Mornings will freeze you, breakfast breeze you, lunch comes the thaw and my mid-afternoon your baking. If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes!

The past few days we have all been staying in the hallowed halls of James and Andrea...neither of whom ever stop working! This is possibly for good reason, as between them they maintain a veterinary practice, art studio and a small 'safari' park on their land, complete with chickens, ducks, geese, alpaca, highland cattle, turkeys, pigs, goats, sheep, giant horses....and many more beasties that I will furnish you with pictures of soon.

These past few days I have wrangled with a sheep, herded the alpaca (badly) and chased rabbits (at high speed, but with to little affect). As of yet (this is tempting fate) I have not been bitten, stung or poisoned...although Jim ate a dodgy pie from a road-side cafe that had him galloping into the bush clutching his rear-end...we kept out of his way!

Internet is hard to find here...my mobile phone does not work...this is the first (dial-up) internet I have accessed in nearly four whole days...this truly is a splendid place! Forgive the lack of images, but uploading any of the many...would possibly cause an IT overload in this portion of Tasmania...as per usual..images will soon follow!

Just to say...we have found our first Taz-fossils...but no dinosaurs yet. Stay tuned, as there is much to tell!

Traveling light to Tasmania...

2010-12-22T15:09:00.000-05:00

23kg...this is my limit for nearly two weeks fieldwork...in the bush...with the usual array of biting, stinging and crawling beasties to deal with. Do I take the 1kg tub of 100% Deet...that melts all clothing, rucksack straps, watch-straps, etc., that it comes into contact with...or do I risk buying some in Australia (first stop-off) or at my destination, Tasmania? The fact that these repellants dissolve almost all known substances, bar hardened steel, I worry sometimes what it does to human skin! However, the choice of looking like a carbuncled elephant-man (not too different from normal, for those of you who already know me) or slowing melting my field-gear...I choose the latter. This last summer in South Dakota had me attacked on a daily basis by mosquitoes the size of pigeons (see 'Sunburn with Dinosaurs', one of my August postings on this Blog), so I shudder to think what the multiple legged antipodean beasties have in store for me. I am sure I will be able to provide some first-hand descriptions and interactions with the said beasties in only a few days.

Back to my 23kg problem...why do clothes weigh so much? I also have to take my camera gear...now that halves my luggage allowance already. I suspect not having underpants and socks would also be a mistake in the Tasman bush...maybe just three changes of clothes for the ten days?

Thankfully I have my library digitised onto my hard-drive. The digital dino-library is a priceless resource when in the field or on the road...and thankfully my Macbook fits into my 7kg hand luggage allowance. Looking at the luggage allowances online (it is a very small plane that drops our team in Hobart), I have realised that a big overcoat (albeit a tad warm in mid-antipodean summer) is a useful asset in such mass-challenging situations...one with big pockets! It seems that airlines do not weigh overcoats...regardless of how many pockets you have or what is inside them. Having just tried the said garment on, stuffed with camera bodies, lenses, GPS, calipers, etc.....I now resemble a travelling sumo-wrestler....with an inbuilt technology market. If I get body-scanned in airport security wearing this coat, I will look like a walking shop-display.

My flight leaves for San Francisco (SFO) tomorrow, then from SFO to Sydney Australia tomorrow evening...arriving on Christmas Day in the morning. The International Dateline is depriving me of Christmas Eve this year. I had better get-on with my packing...oh for a Dr Who style Tardis!

Tasmania-bound.....

2010-12-19T16:55:00.001-05:00

Having just got back from China and then San Francisco...my dislike of air-travel is about to be tested once more. I have been asked to join a research group on an expedition to Tasmania...that vast island that looks so small off the south east coast of Australia. This will mean, I spend Christmas Eve and Day in the sky...in-fact skipping Christmas Day, as a function of the International dateline. This sucks!

Tasmania is possibly most famous for its zoology, such as the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and the Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), the former very extinct, the latter alive and well in both animation and the real world!

I have been reliably informed that the real-life Tasmanian Devils do indeed spit, growl, bite and try to eat you...as per our carton friend above. However, they are quite small....but nobody seems to have told them this...so they try and eat anything they can get their sharp teeth into.

Like Australia, the island of Tasmania is a refuge for many species that died-out elsewhere around the world. Believe it or not, marsupial mammal species were once one of the most dominant forms of mammal on the planet...now they predominantly exist in their vast pocket of Australia and in smaller numbers elsewhere around the world. So, why would I be interested in Tasmania?

Whilst the majority of the island is very ancient....news of some Jurassic pockets with land plant remains have reached my ears. Jurassic-age, Terrestrial plant fossils are usually great indicators of good places to hunt for terrestrial vertebrates....dinosaurs hopefully!

Like on my other sojourns into the prehistoric past, you are invited to join me, via my Blog. Am sure you will be tucking into Christmas dinner, as I find a suitable cliff to scale or ravine to dive into....fun, fun, fun!

Atoms to Phillysaurus wrecked

2010-12-15T22:25:00.006-05:00

Once again, the Manchester team completed the synchrotron beam-time at SLAC. I have to say that Roy, Holly, Nick, Pete, Bruce, Karen, Jim and Bill worked long hours to gently bathe a large number of fossils in a monochromatic x-ray beam. Uwe Bergmann was as cheerful and helpful as ever, helping to set-up our experimental hutch, but also drive the said experiment over the last week. When I hear of sleep depravation studies, I think of synchrotron work...as all I could do today, after my return to Philly at 2am this morning, was sleep.

On the last day at the synchrotron, Uwe had a treat in store for us all...a visit to the LCLS, the LINAC Coherent Light Source. This two mile long....yes TWO MILES...linear accelerator is the most powerful of its type in the world. This is where potential Nobel Prize winners are queuing to get beam-time. Stood in the main accelerator housing (below) the hum of vast power was palpable.

Bill, Roy, Bruce and Pete in the LCLS 2-mile long accelerator!

The LCLS produces pulses of X-rays more than a billion times brighter than the most powerful existing sources, such as the synchrotron source we were using to map fossil chemistry, which are also based upon large electron accelerators. Why such power? Well, if you want to image atoms and molecules in motion, this is where you have to come! The ultra-fast pulses allows the stop-motion capture of dynamic processes at the atomic level. If you want to understand how vitamins work on an atomic scale...you will want to work at the LCLS. Being a camera fanatic, I had to know the speed of this 'pulse-laser-shutter'...as my camera can hit a rapid 1/8000 of a second. Well, I was a tad surprised to here that the pulse of the LCLS allows a 'shutter-speed' of less than 100 femtoseconds (100 femtoseconds = 1/10 of a trillionth of a second)...this is fast!

LCLS from above...a vast facility!

The whole facility is so vast, that I had to take a picture of a picture (above) to give you an idea of the scale. The LCLS Far Hall (bottom left) is still being completed, but the nearby LCLS Near Hall, is up and running....only for a few weeks! It has already generated a stack of scientific papers in top-ranking journals...more importantly, it is pushing back the frontiers of knowledge.

Bill, Holly and Uwe align a sample in the beam-line hutch.

However, for the time-being...our team will continue to use the SSRL synchrotron....as it is bright enough for what we need...well, at least for the next few samples! Who knows, one-day, we too might get to shed some very bright light on fossils at the LCLS...and who knows what we might find!

Working with dinosaurs....

2010-12-12T15:32:00.002-05:00

These past few days have been a tad long and interesting. I am afraid that I am unable to tell you much, if anything, about the fossils we are studying here at Stanford, such is the secrecy around our current research. However, it is fair to say that we are making progress on several existing lines of research that we started here over four years ago.

The problem with many areas of research is that the fossils we study are the hardest thing to negotiate access to. This really should not be the case, given we have international codes that govern the free access to material in public collections...else we should not be publishing on the material. We know that the fossils that we are currently working upon have been already scrutinised by several other research groups this year...as the collection from which they come is open to seeing new techniques being applied to their collections.

However, if only one person or research group can access a fossil, and prevent or restrict other scientists studying the same material, it slows or halts the progress of science. Hence why the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) makes it clear that all fossil material described should be openly available for scientists to study. When an organisation or research group prevents or restricts access to their collections, they risk the scrutiny of the ICZN....and hopefully the journals and funding agencies with whom they seek to publish or raise funds respectively.

Why might one scientist want to prevent another from studying the same material? It is usually quite simple....grants and papers...the staple on which we scientists must function. However, without the fossil fuel to stoke the fire of science, we cannot function.

While I am unable to relay which fossils we are working upon, I can assure you that they are freely accessible to all who wish to see and work upon them.

Red-eye-o-saurus wrecked

2010-12-11T09:53:00.001-05:00

The Stanford synchrotron is where the Manchester Palaeontology Research Group are working this week...working hard!

In the past 40 hours, I have had 4 hours sleep...this is normal when your pulling 24 hour days on a particle accelerator, as the time in such a facility is so precious.

I'm about to give a live lecture to Manchester via Skype, from the beam-line on which I am working...the wonders of modern technology!

This is an amazing place to work...in the past few days I have met a NASA astronaut (images soon to follow), silicon-valley folks and nobel prize winners!

Manchester is calling...must go!

Walking in the footsteps of giants

2010-12-07T15:55:00.010-05:00

Where shall I start….I suppose at the beginning. In a gasoline-haze, sat in the back of a ‘taxi’ that had seen better days. Clutching a set of directions to a field, somewhere outside of Zhucheng. Here be dragons…well at least their tracks! The word dinosaur in Chinese literally translates to ‘terrible dragon’. Brandon and I were headed to a locality that has the promise of being one of the single largest dinosaur track site in the world, with over 5000 tracks on a single surface. Martin Lockley, had worked on the lower 10% of the site already, but since his visit last year the whole hillside was now exposed, along with a stunning series of tracks from sauropod to theropod dinosaurs. A veritable ichno-feast…meaning stacks of tracks and traces to study.

The track site has landed!

Brandon and I arrived at the site via a dusty track through a series of cultivated fields, well off the beaten track. Thankfully Brandon has mastered enough Chinese to relay our directions to the site. As we ambled up the hill it was clear that a large ‘spaceship’ had landed…in the form of several tons of scaffolding and plastic sheeting, now covering the precious tracks. On entering the vast ‘tent’ we were greeted by a larger than football pitch-sized rocky outcrop…we immediately spotted dinosaur tracks on the leading edge of the outcrop…and they did not stop!

Brandon walks in the footsteps of dinosaurs

This lower Cretacous slice of Shandong province provides a gimpse into the busy world of the Zhucheng fauna. From tutles to crocs and from predatory to plant-eating dinosaurs, the site records the activity of these animals, where they left their marks over 100 million years ago. Subtle variations in environment spread from one corner of the site to the other, from gentle ripple marks to billiard-table smooth mud-flat deposits. Each bump, groove and hollow relaying important infromation n the distant environments that once persisted here. However, like any geological outcrop, it is hard to absolutely nail the palaeoenvironment from over 100 million years ago…given we only had a tiny (several thousand square feet!) window into this world. It was good to have Professor Martin Lockley (below) along with us a day later to look at the site with us. Martin has spent his life tracking dinosaurs over the world, has written hundreds of papers on the subject and published many books on this topic.

Martin Lockley finds a track or ten!

Over the years Martin and I have gotten to scramble up and down our fair share of cliffs, desert outcrops and coastal sections in various corners of the globe. However, it was the first time that we were both in China at the same time and place. We have decided to work together, also collaborating with Dr Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, on the said track site. We both agree that such a vast site requires a touch of the light fantastic…or LiDAR as it is more commonly known!

Brandon needs to loose weight, as he leaves vast bowl-like tracks

Using a Light Detection and Range laser scanner (LiDAR) on the track site will allow us to map the whole locality in a single day. This would usually take us weeks or months. The resulting scan is (if I get hold of the right Z+F LiDAR unit) at sub-millimetre accuracy. Something that is very hard to achieve using traditional mapping techniques. The scan of the site will provide an accurate measure of trackway geometry, size, gaits, speeds, etc. This data will then be used by colleagues in Manchester (Dr Peter Falkingham and Dr Bill Sellers) to make sense of the thousands of tracks and trackways. Martin has already named some new track types from the locality…plus the first ever tutle tracks from China. We hope much more can be plucked from the surface of this ancient ‘sandy mud-flat’.

Stacks of tracks made by theropod dinosaurs....I think!

Some corners of the site look as if a ‘flock’ of theropods made there way across this surface back in the Cretaceous, leaving delicate traces of the soles of their feet. However, many of the tracks are not ‘true’ or surface tracks, but a reflection of the animals foot shape, as the soil failed beneath its feet during track fromation, disturbing lower layers, leaving transmitted tracks that we find today. This explains firstly why they survived…they were already buried…plus why they are not as sharp as we would like. Some folks call these ‘ghost’ tracks…I like that. To ascribe a species of dinosaur to a track or trackway is a dangerous game, unless you find an animal dead at the end of its tracks, your unlikely to identify the species of maker.

Laminated mudstone, overlain by massive sandstone track horizon

We not only took a look at the tracks, but also the geology of the surrounding outcrop. There were two major units exposed associated with the trackway horizons, a lower finely bedded mudstone overlain by a courser massively bedded sandstone unit. Dave Eberth, from the Royel Tyrell Museum (Drumheller, Canada), was with us on the second day we visited the track site. He is a brilliant field geologist and soon buried himself into the stratigraphy and sedimentology of the site. In time, we hope to publish our finding on this remarkable locality.

It was not just the trackways of Shandong Province we had come to see…in nearby slightly younger Cretaceous rocks, is possibly one of the 7 wonders of the dinosaur world; The Zhucheng hadrosaur bone-bed. I had seen this on my last visit to China, but could not wait to oggle this remrakable site again. Having worked at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah last year, I realized that the Zhucheng bone-bed makes the US-monument (which is very impressive), look more like a rockery. The bones of the giant hadrosaur Shantungosaurus litter a gully that has been excavated by the folks in Zhucheng. The originally horizonally lain beds have been uplifted and tilted…a perfect angle to view a lot of bone surface! This excavation was a massive undertaking and has been ongoing since the 1960’s, but few westerners have seen this remrakble site. This particular hadrosaur was of great interest to Dr Paul Barrett (Natural History Museum, London) who was along for this invited meeting of minds in Zhucheng. Paul is probably the worlds leading expert on ornithischian dinosaurs, to which our giant hadrosaur belongs. This type of dinosaur is not unique to China, as its sister group is commonly found in the Late Cretaceous of North America, my old friend Edmontosaurus. However, the Chinese hadrosaur is so much bigger…its trying to be a sauropod dinosaur in terms of bulk! I have been keen to see these giants again, as working with colleagues in Manchester, we hope to learn more about the locomotion of such giants. We will hoepfully get the scan the mount (below) in the Zhucheng Dinosaur Museum. From these scans we will rig muscles onto our virtual giant and put it throught its locomotary paces in the super-computer.

Shantungosaurus...who ate all the pies!

A single femur of this giant hadrosaur (below) is taller than me…ok, I did not exactly jump into the deep-end of the gene-pool when it comes to height…but any femur over 6 feet is impressive! The one below has been assigned ‘magical’ powers by the locals and has been ‘enshrined’ in the Museum…complete with its own mood-lighting. Touch this bone and you shall be very lucky…I already felt very, very lucky just to be there…but I still could not resist touched another bone.

Look at the size of Phil's lucky bone!

We drove up to the excavation, that is no longer under cover, as they are now building a permenant roof over the huge site. Like kids in a candy store we all lept into field mode as soon as we arrived. Dr Paul Sereno (Chicago), Dr Mark Norell (American Museum of Natural History), Martin Lockley, Dave Eberth, Paul Barrett and I all gawped in wonder at the sight before us…as I turned to Mark Norell and said, ‘Its like a bone-bed, only bigger!’.

Paul Barrett sneaks-up behind Martin Lockley at the Zhucheng bone-bed

Dave Eberth is the worlds leading expert on the interpretation of bone-beds was grinning from ear-to-ear at the site…I urge you to read his book ‘Bone-beds’ which is currently my bed-time reading. He has worked for many years on the vast ceratopsian bone-beds of Canada, that have made Dinosaur National Park so famous in the halls of palaeontological fame. Dave has worked for years on the excavation, data collection, mapping and interpretation of the said boney problems…the biggest question here, ‘How do you emplace thousands of beautifully preserved, giant, disarticulated (in the most part) Shantungosaurus bones?’

Xu Xing sits amongst the bones of giants

Dr Xu Xing (IVPP, Beijing) was also along with us, as it was he who had provided us all access to the Shadong Province sites…incluidng the stunning bone-bed. You can see Xu above sat amongst one part of the vast bone bed. The weird thing about many of the bones, is they are so well-preserved..but not all! Dave Eberth was like a rat up a drain-pipe…scrambling up and down the exposure, not just looking at the bone, but also at the geology. We were all puzzling the emplacment of what Dave called, ‘the mother of all bone-beds’. The bones were encased in mudstone, which when you looked closely hosted a number of smaller inclusions (tiny rocks, pebbles and clasts of other sediment types). The complete lack of structure to the whole muddy-bone-stoked-mess immediately pointed to a very specific causitive process. Dave Eberth grinned and shouted, ‘ This is a bloody huge mud-flow!’…and it seems he is quite right. The rock-type (lithology) almost matched many of the samples Dave was so used to finding in the Canadian bone-bed sites…but the Canadian sites were an order of magnitude smaller than the Zhucheng bone-bed.

Thousands of bones litter the horizon

I headed-off to the top of the gully, as I saw some familier lithologies to those I cut my dino-palaeo-teeth upon on the Isle of Wight. The island just off the South Coast of the UK has similar Cretaceous-aged (albeit Lower) channel sands, overbank mud and flood-deposits to that seen in Zhucheng, but I had not seen a bone-bed of the likes of this on the Isle of Wight. However, I was used to finding fossil soil horizons (or palaeosols) on the Isle of Wight. They are often marked by the growth of distinctive carbonate minerals into what we often call a calcrete horizon. Such soils are indicative of arid environments and here I was, in Zhucheng, looking at a typical calacrete palaeosol. I called over Dave Eberth, who excitedly confirmed what we were looking at. It was clear that Dave had pieced together the geological evidence that would enable the site to be formally described and interpreted. Stunning.

Dave Eberth dismounts the Zhucheng palaeosol

We both scrammbled down from the palaeosol horizon (above) as we were being called by the other members of the team…we were making folks late! The rest of the team were already in the main prep-labs for the site…oggling at vast reconstructions of impossibly big dinosaurs. Its rare that you see Paul Barrett bragging about the size of his skull (below)…but today would be an exception!

I say Paul....what a large skull you have!

After a healthy few days in the field, we knew it was time to eat, drink and be merry. The eating bit was beginning to take its toll on my apetite. Many years ago I worked on arthropod palaeobiology, which included studying the respiratory function in scorpions…I never thought I would get to eat them, again, and again, and again. It seems scorpion is firmly on the Zhucheng menu…bare that in mind when you visit here…which you must!

Scorpions on a stick...going fast...as they were still alive :-(

Not only was their scorpion, but also cicada on a stick…they were not chirpping too loudly. The only sound they had left to make was the crunch as you bit hard through their exoskeleton, only to be greeted by a soft, oozing centre…not quite a box of chocolates!

Cicada on a stick...crunchy on the outside, goopy on the inside.

At the end of the field days, all the experts (Paul Sereno, Paul Barrett, Dave Eberth, Martin Lockley, Mark Norell and I) gathered around the table with local offcials from Shandong Province, inluding the Governor of the province, the Zhucheng mayor, IVPP scientists and many other folks. We sat and talked about the future development (both scientific and economic) of the sites we had seen. It was clear the Province possessed a unique mixture of trackway, bone-beds and even dinosaur eggs (that’s another story to be told!). We, the six visiting scientists, were all asked to contribute to the scientific research and development of the sites…a no-brainer on our part! Methinks the six of us will be regular partakers of deep-fried scorpion in the near future.

As the meeting drew to a close, much had been agreed…most importantly, the sites were being actively conserved and researched. It had been a successul few days deep in Shandong Province…it was time to return to Beijing; time to work with some particularly stunning fossils at the IVPP.

Brandon drools over the fossil of Microraptor

Brandon (above) and I arrived at IVPP on a bitterly cold December day. The Institute is situated opposite Beijing Zoo….which was helpfully remembered when explaining to the airport taxi driver where our hotel was in this vast city of 20+ million people. The IVPP has a pubic museum…a must for any visitor to Beijing, but also its hallowed collections halls...that is where Brandon and I were headed.

We had prearranged to meet with Xu Xing back at IVPP, as he too had flown back from Zhucheng (like us, via Qingdao). Our main objective was to review as many avian theropods as we could…although I would be heading back to the USA a full week ahead of Brandon. The first specimen brought out for us to work upon was that of Microraptor, a bizarre bi-plane of a winged theropod dinosaur from the lower Cretaceous of China. Like many fossils from China, it was beautifully preserved…albeit squashed as flat as a pancake against the rocky bedding-plane that became its tomb.

I have to say that it is the happiest I had seen Brandon all week, when he opened the first silk-clad box (the fossils are housed in beautiful silk boxes).

Mei long....dorsal (top) view

However, it was not to be a flat-pack dino-bird to get my heart racing. It was to be the deliacte 3-dimensional remains of a beautiful avain theropod dinosaur, Mei long. This most perfect, palm-sized fossil is exquisitely preserved. If there were flesh preserved upon the bones, you would be tempted to nudge this sleeping dinosaur awake. The picture above shows a top view of my new favourite fossil…head wrapped from bottom to right of the fossil, with its legs and arms tucked neatly beneath its body, sleeping. It seems likely this animal did fall asleep, but was not woken till the gentle tap of a palaeontologist released it from its geologically-long slumber. Flipping the fossil over (below) you can also imagine this dinosaur gracefully stretching its feet out and wiggling its stony toes, such is the level of preservation. Simply gob-smacking.

Mei long...ventral (bottom) view

I have probably disobeyed the first rule of blogging, by writing a tad too much for a single posting…but I feel I owed it to those folks who follow my ramblings.

Sunset over Beijing

I have now left Beijing on another freezing sunset and am sat on a turbulent flight (did I mention how much I hate flying) to San Francisco. I have been holding-back on a little secret…I have possibly one of the most special fossils in the world meeting me in San Francisco. It is there to get a dose of rapid-scan x-ray fluorescence synchrotron treatment! More on this later. I will leave you with this final thought…visit China not just to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City, make a B-line for the Great Fossils of Zhucheng and the Stunning Fossils of IVPP!

Internet snail-pace slows blogging!

2010-12-06T09:41:00.000-05:00

My apologies for the lack of posts, but my internet connection in Beijing is hopeless!

I am writing a HUGE blog offline that I will upload...with stacks of pictures from the last few days....when I arrive in San Francisco tomorrow afternoon.

I have been working at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology today...so expect some drop-dead (being fossils this is easy) gorgeous images of avian theropods!

Thanks for your patience!

Phylogenetic soup!

2010-12-04T00:51:00.001-05:00

The past few days have been a tad hectic...just for a change. We have been shown dinosaur bones that would make any palaeo-hungry child green with envy. More fossil bone than you can shake a very large stick at...a petrified one at that! In between the too and fro from dig-sites to Museums...we eat. I might have indicated in my early blog that I was a tad nervous about my possible diet, a function of my prior trip to China with Peter Dodson. This time I have tried to knuckle-down and try some local delicacies...and have been somewhat surprised!

My meal had legs....eight of them!

Yes, these are deep-fried scorpions on my plate and yes...I ate them all. Crunchy and quite satisfying really...no sting in these tails. The deep-fried cicada were a little more soupy...I only managed two of these juicy offerings. The pig knuckle and chicken feet were kind of chewy, with not much meat and more like a mouth full of cartilage. If I see another sea-cucumber...I might just scream.

Paul Barret (Nat Hist Museum) & Dave Eberth (Tyrell Museum) recover...

The vast array of food set before you is quite amazing.

Martin Lockley and Mark Norell...examine their food....carefully!

Dinosaur tracks and tribulations

2010-12-02T10:36:00.003-05:00

Today I awoke early, as I knew we would get to see a new track site....one that no one has published anything on...yet! Given Martin Lockley (Dinosaur track guru) has already been to this site, the publications will no doubt be appearing very soon!

Brandon and I ate breakfast early (ish) and then headed-out to the track site. We hired a mini-van driver...this was our first error of the day! As we got into the back of our trusty vehicle, we were greeted by a strong smell of fuel...it was all over the floor. By the time we had decided, 'this was not a good idea'..we were already moving. So, windows down we headed into the country just outside Zhucheng. If you click this link...you can see where we went: CLICK HERE

The link was sent from my rather nifty Spot satellite locater that I often taken into the field...might use this on a future blogs?

The plans to build on the site were clear when we arrived, which was surprising given the remote nature of the locality...but dinosaurs are looking to become an important driver in the Shandong Province economy, so this site certainly fits into those aspirations.

Fossil dinosaur tracks have the potential to reveal additional information on the size, gait, and speed of dinosaurs, their locomotive evolution and also to provide clues to their behavior. Furthermore, the tracks, together with the surrounding sedimentary rocks, are a record of the global Mesozoic terrestrial environments and ecosystems. When interpreted correctly, all vertebrate tracks, not just those of dinosaurs, can assist in the interpretation of past environments, behavior, and ecology, and therefore their study has wide-ranging application to themes such as biodiversity and environmental change.

The underlying assumption of many interpretations, through nearly 200 years of literature, is that what is preserved is a surface track. The geometric data (e.g., track length and width, digit length, number of digits) on which these interpretations and trace fossil classifications are based are therefore recorded essentially as 2-D features. However, vertebrate paleoichnology—the study and naming of vertebrate tracks and traces—has concentrated on describing the trace with little or no interpretation of track formation and preservation. The way sediments behave before, during, and after a track is formed, and the subsequent processes that may further modify a track have been essentially neglected.

The science of un-picking tracks has been close to my heart for many years and will even be the subject of my talk at a conference being held in Zhucheng over the next few days...the reason why I'm having to edit a stack of images....write my talk...and then sleep....I will upload images to my blog tomorrow...forgive a tired palaeontologist.

Slow road to Zhucheng

2010-12-01T08:58:00.001-05:00

The fog lifted from Qingdao by late morning and even Brandon's flight finally arrived from Beijing. I was surprised that he was not dribbling and bleary-eyed after his 40+ hour journey ordeal. We soon loaded Brandon into our vehicle and finally headed off to Zhucheng....only a day late.

We eventually found the Zhucheng road, as our driver was not too familier with Qingdao...you know when your going round in circles when the same person gives you directions.

The journey should have taken a little over two hours...but took four. This was nothing to do with our driver, it just seems that today was the day to have an accident on the Zhucheng road.

All I need again is sleep...so forgive the short Blog, but we have arrived at our saurian destination. Tomorrow, we shall track some dinosaurs.

Foggy-no-saurus in Qingdao

2010-11-30T20:29:00.002-05:00

The first light of morning was a tad muted by a thick cloak of fog smothering Qingdao. After a good nights sleep, in a bed that was harder than rough-cut diamond, I got myself ready for the first day back in China.

Han knocked on my door at precisely the prearranged time for breakfast. Han Fl has been given the task of making sure that both Brandon and I get to the Zhucheng meeting (Brandon is doing his best to make things complicated….well, airlines and weather are). His command of English is quite excellent and he is about as helpful and cheerful as a person can be.

It seems I am staying in the Qingdao Second Hotel, its name a reflection of the clear order of things here. The hotel, I think, is near the airport, but with the fog reducing visibility to 5 yards this morning…we could also be on a cliff, mountain or seafront…and I would not have a clue, until I took a blind step in the wrong direction!

Han suggested we get breakfast outside the hotel and our driver appeared to whisk us off into the morning fog. He looked a little nervous at the fog. I too was a little unsure at how being in a mini-van would improve our vision…it didn’t. We managed a walking pace 100 yards before the driver decided that dodging pedestrians, buses and motorbikes was not much fun…it seems the fog (‘Wu’….my first new Chinese word of the day) had permitted a free-for-all on the roads of Qingdao, as no police or official could see enough to take or give offence. We headed back to our hotel and were told they would supply us a guide to help locate the other hotel, where breakfast would be served.

Meantime, Brandon was also fog-bound in Beijing…but with at least 500 meters of visibility…luxury compared to where I am. The chances of an aircraft landing in Qingdao at the moment are borderline to zero. So, it looks like I’m here for the day! My second Chinese word was ‘yanwu’…it means delay.
Our breakfast-hotel guide arrived and asked that we follow his car, in our mini-van…I assume he had radar or that the constant blowing of his horn providing him with some echo-location ability. We stealthily beeped and slipped our way through the invisible city of Qingdao…avoiding pedestrians, cars, bikes and busses (at least tried to). We soon arrived at our destination…a foggy car park! However, by walking 10 feet made me realize we had parked next to several stories of hotel, albeit cloaked better than a Klingon starship. As we entered the hotel lobby, I felt as if my blindfold had been removed…I could see again!

We ascended a grand staircase to eat breakfast with Han and our driver. Steamed dumplings, seaweed rice, egg and fried chicken. Not my usual cereal breakfast, but remembering the advice of my colleague Peter Dodson, just tuck in and enjoy. So I did! After a brail-like journey back to our hotel, I find myself dutifully writing my blog…but I think I’d better go and explore Qingdao, seeing as I’m here (well, seeing as much as one can in the fog!).

Qingdao is up on in the northeast of China

PS. Apologies for the lack of images….but if I changed the page background to white, you would be seeing as much as I can!

Foggy Qingdao

Tired in Qingdao

2010-11-30T11:09:00.002-05:00

Forgive possibly the shortest ever post to my blog, but 30+ hours of travelling and three flights later...missing a grad student, I arrived in Qingdao (China) at 10:30pm local time.

Brandon, a graduate student of Peter Dodson's (who I also help torture on the ins and outs of palaeontology) missed his flight...somewhere on the east coast of the USA. I await his arrival in the morning...he will be pretty tired by then!

Then we head west to Zhucheng....now, I head to bed!

A taste of the un-dead?

2010-11-27T21:31:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving was splendid. Spending the auspicious occasion at Peter Dodson's house was possibly the best way to experience my first 'complete' Thanksgiving. Last year, I spent the said Holiday in Dulles Airport in Washington, a function of a very foggy day....not very festive. The avian theropod was suitably vast and the accompanying cuisine wonderfully filling. By now you must be asking, why the title to this particular blog? Well, it has nothing to do with Dodson family hospitality and more to do with the past few days. I have picked up a virus from someone...having just been on a transatlantic flight, this is possibly the most logical source.

I feel like this.......

What is curious about my virus, is that it reminds me of a rather big question, how did life start on Earth? Defining life can be tricky sometimes, as some ‘life’ forms are a tad fussy on being dead or alive, for example, my 'lovely' virus. A virus is happy as Larry when causing mayhem and replicating at will in their host, a virulent common cold is a perfect example, but outside the host is another story. A virus is composed of a smatterings of genetic material enclosed in a protein capsule, when outside a host, they are for all intense purposes, non-living. So defining life is not so clear-cut. If your kids are into stories of zombies and the 'un-dead'...an accurate and just as chilling bedtime story is one of the humble, but potent virus...from such a microscopic fellon, we too can get a feeling of being living dead...albeit until our immune systems regains control.

It was thanks to my own virulent virus that I did not make it to the Academy of Natural Sciences to give my talk on Friday....a heinous crime on my part, as I hate letting folks down. However, spreading my virus to a public audience would earn me few friends. For those who turned-up, all was far from lost, as Jason 'Chewie' Poole gave a stunning talk (which has been reported back to me by many folks)...so a large public thank you to Jason!

Now...it is time for me to sleep again, as I have to be well for Monday...when I fly to China!

Shandong Province, south of Beijing. Qingdao and Zhucheng is where I'll be on Monday

Thanksgiving-o-saurus

2010-11-24T19:43:00.009-05:00

Tomorrow, in much of North America, we dine on avian theropod...that's bird to most folks. The feathery descendants of the dinosaurs, birds, provide us with much insight to their toothy ancestors. Many use birds to provide information on the biology, physiology and even behaviour of dinosaurs...often bracketing the said dinosaurs between crocodiles and birds...in an extant (living) bracket to help further constrain the possible characters of the extinct dinosaurs.

Oyster-catcher-saurus?

In the UK, we tend to eat our turkey on Christmas Day, hence why I used to give a lecture at the Manchester Museum each December, called 'Stuffing the dinosaur at Christmas'...this was a fun take on dissecting (and often eating) a roast turkey, but showing the audience the vast number of features (characters) that birds still possess that place them so close to dinosaurs in evolutionary terms (in my mind, they are still dinosaurs). The old saying that something is, 'As rare as hens teeth', is testament to how close birds are to dinosaurs; as occasionally an ancestral gene is inadvertently 'switched-on' yielding a toothy-hen. We too possess 'fossil' or recessive genes in our DNA that surface in our own species, if the right genetic switch is flicked.

The use of living species to help infer or constrain specific characters in an extinct species is not a new thing, but Professor Larry Witmer gave this a name in 1995...the Extant Phylogenetic Bracket or EPB for short. Larry gave a name to something we already used, and in doing so penned a paper that will continue to receive citations (references within other published works) that will help it rocket into inter-steller levels of fame. Its hard to pick up a book or read a paper on dinosaurs without seeing EPB (Witmer, 1995) being quoted...even Larry agrees this is a rather useful paper in his career.

Basic family tree of the dinosaurs and birds....often subject to change!

In many cases we find additional evidence, such as the scars of muscle attachment on fossil dinosaur bones, that show that the EPB data appear to be appropriate (or not as the case may be). Combining such evidence and EPB with a liberal application of comparative anatomy (back to my dissection fun at Penn!), we can build a theoretical understanding of the complete prehistoric animal, as it was with its soft tissues intact. While evidence supports certain aspects of such extrapolation, in other respects this work is necessarily speculative...something palaeontology is often accused of with wagging fingers (and quite rightly so sometimes). About many points concerning soft tissues, we are completely in the dark. The best known dinosaur enigma is their colour, which is a particularly ephemeral aspect of an animal due to the nature of biological pigmentation and the tendency for such pigments to be lost in the fossilization process...but the Manchester team is hot on the trail of this particular conundrum (more on this later I hope!).

Amber can often trap beasties, providing excellent preservation
environments...sadly not big enough for dinosaurs!

Fossilization is a rare phenomenon that occurs to only a tiny fraction of a community’s population of any given place and period, and to none at all in many cases....we are dealing with disjointed sentences of once vast volumes. Nonetheless, if we consider the fossilization of skeletal elements as the standard, then the fossilization of soft-tissue structures is much rarer still. When these unique discoveries are made, this type of fossilization literally “fleshes out” our understanding of the fossil record in many crucial ways. Even a single example of soft-tissue preservation can be of tremendous value in the interpretation of fossil animal types. In each case, special circumstances prevented the ordinary loss of soft tissues. The explanations for certain of these situations have been reconstructed with a high degree of confidence, while the reasons for other localities’ exceptional preservation remain a mystery.

Dissection of crocs and birds can often tell us much
about their relatives, the dinosaurs.

If your into the preservation of soft tissue, you might want to track down a paper that the Manchester team published last year (Manning et al 2009) in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B. This is the direction of much of our research today...so watch-out for future papers chasing bio-molecules in the fossil record...with a smattering of EPB!

Dinosaur embryo's on acid?

2010-11-22T04:18:00.005-05:00

The flight to the UK was thankfully uneventful. The food was predictably scary and the atmosphere thick by the time we arrived in Manchester. I think two hours sleep is as much can be expected on a trans-Atlantic in bucket class. I forced myself to sleep, as I knew I would soon have to be functioning on UK-time...a nasty prospect when flying West to East.

Arriving to an overcast and cold morning in Manchester, I was soon through customs, acquired luggage and headed for the train to Manchester. At 10am I was stood in my office, slightly phased...and then the day could begin, albeit cheated of a good nights sleep.

My first port of call in Manchester was Dr Roy Wogelius, an inorganic geochemist in the School of Earth, Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences. He has been leading on several papers within the palaeontology research group, on the preservation of soft tissue in the fossil record. Roy is a good colleague and a great friend who has provided a paradigm shift in my understanding of what happens when you bury a lump of animal in the ground. This might sound a simple thing to answer, but the pathways of elements around and within this system is not fully understood and are critical to our understanding of what happens when you bury anything in the ground. In our world of waste and pollutants, this question of what happens when you bury something is vital. This is the world of the science of taphonomy (literally meaning 'burial laws').

The hadrosaur dinosaur 'Dakota' the 65 Million year old mummy!

Roy and many others in the palaeontology research group have been working on everything from 65 million year old dinosaur skin, 120 million year old feathers, 50 million year old lizard skin to 80 million year old dinosaur egg shell (with bits of embryonic skin with bone preserved inside!). We are keen to quantify which elements in the fossils have remained relatively stable (and in place) since the tissue (bone, skin, etc) were originally formed and which components came from the processes associated with the fossilisation of the said tissues. What appeared a simple question of mapping and identifying the composition of the fossils, has become a major research program for the Manchester group over the past 5 years.

This work all started when I was having lunch with colleagues and we started talking about the 'mummified' dinosaur that had been discovered in North Dakota. Roy was sat at the table and joined in the conversation, as we munched our way through our curries. It was clear that he would make a major contribution to the research program...and that has to be the biggest understatement I have ever made! He has dragged me into the world of geochemistry and its a journey that I am thoroughly enjoying, albeit it quite hard get my head around sometimes (nothing that a good read cannot put right). The early work we undertook on the dinosaur mummy was published last year in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B (Manning et al 2009) and signified the start of my submersion into geochemistry.

Left to right, Nat Geo cameraman, Dr Pete Morris, Dr Roy Wogelius and Tyler Lyson.

We now have a large team from faculty and graduate students developing new methods and techniques to untangle this tale of tricky taphonomy, with every member playing their part. From synchrotrons to CT units and FTIR to MALDI-TOF....we coax molecules into revealing their secrets. This is some of the most interesting work I have ever been involved with and I always look forward to my meetings with Roy, Bart van Dongen, Mike Buckley, Paul Mummery, Bill Sellers, Holly Barden, Nick Edwards and many others who contribute to the work. Given that the research group is getting larger by the year, it is rare we all get to meet in the same place and time, that was one of my goals for this trip...one that was thankfully met. Being able to just sit and talk about science with colleagues is so productive and often hard to do with the hectic lives that we all leave...it was midnight on Wednesday before I headed to bed. Many meetings, samples and data reviewed, and progress made.

The remainder of the week was much the same. I had bird and crocodile shell samples to get to Dr Mike Buckley for analysis, sediment samples to Paul Mummery for x-ray micro-tomography and folks to chase (and be chased by) on finances, fossils and research papers. The key samples I needed to collect were those of the embryonic dinosaur material, as we are close to getting the various aspects of this research ready for publication...this is my next job. I'm travelling today with my clutch of dinosaur egg fragments, so that tomorrow I can start to physically and chemically pull them apart before handing over the suitably clean-room prepped samples for the team to work upon. Nothing that dental picks and a drop of acid can't put right.

Once again, I find myself sat in an airport, waiting for my flight to Philadelphia. I arrive in Philly at 2pm...and hope to get to a 3:30 research seminar on palaeobiogeography at Drexel University my 3:30pm...its going to be another long day, but one that I would not trade for anything.

UK-bound to tweak some dinosaur samples!

2010-11-16T19:47:00.000-05:00

I find myself sat at Philadelphia International Airport once again…I think I will adopt a bench here in the future…given I seem to spend too much time here. I have to admit that I am a bad flyer. This is nothing to do with my lack of adaptations in the forelimb and feather department, but more to do with the psychology of leaving terra firma. Over the past few years I have clocked-up far to many air miles, usually with a film crew or field crew in hot pursuit. In this time I have had the dubious honour of being dropped into air pockets at 30,000 feet, lightening strikes, turbulence that would not go amiss in a cocktail shaker, engine loss (on a twin engine crossing the Atlantic…we turned back!) and then there is the food.

Where do I start with airline food? Its tough to get to grips with how food can be so distanced in taste from the original proteinacious materials from which it was originally composed. Maybe something happens with airline food between its preparation and the plane? The melding of taste, textures and even colour…as your potatoes takes on the orange of adjoining carrots and green of broccoli…makes this particular cuisine, food at best. The meat is usually covered in gravy, ugly gravy, that congealed long ago into a jelly-like state…so appetising. This grey, wobbling mass of protein is passed-out on TV-dinner trays with impossibly sealed plastic cutely that is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. It’s worth noting that the food on internal flights in the US has almost evaporated into dry boxes of nuts and pretzels…if your lucky. On one flight to San Francisco, from Philadelphia, I choose to treat myself to a chicken sandwich…harmful enough I here you all think. Less than 12 hours after landing and for the following 36 hours I was calling Huey on the porcelain phone…in-between filming sequences for National Geographic. The said event was the filming of the Archaeopteryx beam run at Stanford two years ago…I have never touched a sandwich on a flight since! But back to my international flight food experience, there is one thing that we will never forgot…that smell…

The timing of this culinary delight is also quite splendid. The flight attendants serve food at the precise moment you start to sleep in that impossible upright aircraft seat-induced position. Sometimes the homogenized-food-generated smog slowly wafts down between the seats, ahead of the flight attendants pushing their marvellously designed knee-capping devices…otherwise known as a food carts. Beware if you are lucky enough to get an isle seat, don’t doze off too soon, else your patella might be in for shock awakening of a trolly kind. This is why I now covet the window seats so much…alas, I was too late to get one for the flight that I am about to get to Manchester…I am considering stuffing socks up my trousers…not to enhance anything more than the chance that my right knee will make it through the flight.

As Billy Connelly so aptly noted many moons ago, one of the worst jobs in the world has to be the person who opens the aircraft door at the arrival gate, after a transatlantic flight…courtesy of many hours of recycled and concentrated smells. However, from my perspective, breathing fresh-air as we step over the body of the said door-opener, is sheer bliss. It must be said though, it takes a vast amount of nose and throat clearing to rid yourself from the ‘taste’ of the flight.

As my flight touches down in Manchester at 9am tomorrow, I will head straight to the University to meet with Roy Wogelius, Bart van Dongen and Bill Sellers…as we have a pile of dinosaur skin to work on! More on this later…time for me to run for my flight and practice holding my breath!

Chinese dinosaurs ahoy!

2010-11-07T16:36:00.008-05:00

Dinosaur fossils are the raw material that keeps the embers of my research gently glowing. if you want a roaring fire, you have to go to China. If there ever was a Klondike-size strike of dinosaur bones, it would be here. I was fortunate enough to visit China for the first time last year with Professor Peter Dodson...a veteran of chasing dinosaurs in this part of the world. While my gastrointestinal tract took a severe beating, I was totally gobsmacked by the shear beauty, number, diversity and quality of fossils.

Dr. Xu Xing (left), yours-truly (centre) Prof. Peter Dodson (right)

Peter and I were lucky to have spent time with Dr Xu Xing from the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) based in Beijing. Xu is a legend in his own right, having named dozens of new species of dinosaur from the vertebrate-rich fossil record of China. He is also one of the most modest and humble scientists I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. At the end of this month I get to see Xu and colleagues again in one of the most amazing places I have ever been, Zhucheng. Here is where dinosaurs clearly came to die...in their hundreds (if not thousands!). The breath-taking Dinosaur National Monument in Utah (which I still think is amazing), pales when compared to the Zhucheng material.

Standing amongst bones on Dinosaur National Monument makes you happy!

The GIANT fossil horizon exposed in Zhucheng is hard to understand...there is simply no simple mechanism for emplacing such vast quantities of bone, without smashing-up the bones in the process...as these bones are beautiful! Its as if a prehistoric burcher has just thrown-out (over several thousand square feet) the butchered bones of the day. We are not talking small animals either, as these are sauropod-sized hadrosaurs! The deposits are mostly comprised of the disarticulated remains of the hadrosaur Shantungosaurus giganteus, that were first discovered in the early 1960's, but not named until 1973. The site was locally called Longgujian, literally translating as "dragon bone gully"....a very apt name! At a mere 66 feet long (yes, thats 20 metres!) this is a very hefty dinosaur....and its a hadrosaur! This late Cretaceous aged beastie must have been the largest of its kind ever to walk on the planet.

How many museum displays need a car to get from one end to the other?

The deposits have been patiently quarried since the mid-1960's and the result is one of the dinosaur-wonders of the world. Such is the size and sheer gobsmacking nature of the site, the local Chinese authorities had the foresight to leave many of the bones in-situ, so palaeo-geeks such as myself can stand with tear-in-eye, viewing this unique place.

More bone than you can shake a stick at (and thats whats been exposed so far!)

The reason for my trip here at the end of this month is to celebrate the opening of a new Museum in Zhucheng. The new Museum will concentrate on the regions incredible prehistoric past...no surprise there. I also get to work on some of the fossils from the site, but not bones...as they have now found dinosaur tracks to go with all those bones. As many of you will no from my past research, tracks have much to tell us about dinosaurs and other extinct beasties.

Playing with dinosaur tracks in Argentina back in 2001

I have to be honest that on my last visit I missed seeing the building of the museum and its contents, a function of something I ate...in fact, I missed two days. My friend and colleague Prof. Peter Dodson did not suffer at all from anything eaten on the month-log tour. Rumour has it, his nickname in some quarters is, 'The Badger 5000 Waste-Disposal Unit'....a tad unfair, but I have to admit, I have never seen Peter refuse food...ever!

Too much bone to take-in, even a bit of skull...see if you can spot it?

I shall try and relay the talks that happen at the Zhucheng meeting and also more images of this fantastic site. If you find yourself in China with a couple of spare days...grab a flight south of Beijing to Qingdao (yes, where the beer comes from!) and head a couple hours west to Zhucheng. You will not be disappointed! On top of the stunning geology, lickable fossils and great hospitality...you get to see some of the most amazing sunsets you will ever see in your life.....honest!

Natural sunset....no photoshop needed here!

Limping, sprinting, hopping, climbing or walking with dinosaurs?

2010-11-04T16:29:00.005-04:00

The Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences has kindly invited me to deliver a lecture on the 26th November this year. My chosen topic for the 1pm slot will be dinosaur locomotion. This is an area that I have been playing with for many years. Initially trying to divulge information from dinosaur tracks, but now working with the likes of Dr. Bill Sellers and Prof. Kent Stevens, we get to digitally make dinosaurs dance...so to speak.

Dinosaurs obviously include some of the largest vertebrates to have ever walked on the planet...but also some fairly small animals, as they all hatched from an egg and just got big! When we study variation between different species of dinosaurs, do we account for their extreme growth when it comes to understanding their locomotor ability? How fast could a young T. rex run in comparison to an adult?....should we even care? Did baby sauropods gallop to keep up with their strolling parents? Should we even bother about such things...

Well, I think yes, as matters such as maximum running speed is an important parameter for many living species, predators as well as prey, and is thus of interest to scientists hoping to reconstruct the behavioural ecology of extinct species. Bill Sellers application of evolutionary robotics to dinosaurs locomotion certainly made my life more fun at Manchester, when he started working their with me 4 years ago. He and many other biologists have been intrigued by the locomotion of living animals for years, but it is the application of that knowledge to extinct species that is beginning to make headway with how dinosaurs might once have moved.

Evolutionary robotics race! Take a peek at Sellers and Manning paper in Proc. Roy. Soc. B in 2007.

I must not forget Professor Kent Stevens at Oregon. His lengthy work on sauropod necks, spiky look at ceratopsian posture and moving work on theropods...has much to be appreciated, as his work is not only very thoughtful, but looks sooooo good too!

Models of T. rex & Nanotyrannus by Prof. Kent Stevens

If any folks are in Philadelphia on November 26th, you will see my homage to these folks and others, that help provide so much insight to dinosaur locomotion.