Just as w/ the petrified palm and petrified wood spheres that I showed earlier, this dinosaur bone is rock. Minerals have replaced the organic material millennial ago. Exactly how long ago might be hard to tell. You've probably heard of carbon dating which works well on human artifacts. The half-life of carbon-14 is only 5,730 years so it's useless for dinosaurs. To date something from the dinosaur eras you need Uranium or Potassium which have half-lives of more than a million years. Those elements are usually found in igneous rock. Wouldn't you know it, dinosaur bones aren't found in igneous rock (hot magma tends to do a number on most everything in it's path). So to figure out the age of dinosaur bones, the age of nearby igneous rocks in the same strata are used. Since my sphere has been removed from it's original site, can't do that. There are a few other dating methods but I plan, when asked, to just call this a generic "dinosaur bone".
No comments:
Post a Comment