Discovering dinosaurs

Sir Richard Owen
(1804-1892)

Everything we know about dinosaurs is based on their fossilized remains. These are pieced together to make the skeletons we see in the museums. Sir Richard Owen, the famous dinosaur expert, first named some reptile fossils as dinosaurs in 1841.


















Fossils:


Fossils are the remains of ancient living things buried and preserved in rocks. Most fossils were formed from tough body parts, such as the bones of animals or other woody parts of plants, Fossilization is very slow process-- it usually takes million of years.

Fossil bones sometimes when bones fossilized, slow chemical processes capture every detail of their original inner structure and outer shape.Even when bones are cracked and crushed, it is impossible to indentify scars where muscles were attached .


The story of a dinosaur fossil:

1-  The dinosaur struthiomimus  lies dead on a riverbank. For struthiomimus to have a chance of fossilization,it must be buried quickly before it rots away.

2- Buried under many layers of sediment, over millions of years, the hard parts of struthiomimus changes to stony fossils.

3-Earth movements and erosion expose the skeleton at surface .A scientist start to ship away the surrounding rocks.

Uncovered fossil
An almost perfect fossil of struthiomimus, laying in death pose,had been carefully uncovered . Studying this skeleton gives scientists more clue in dinosaur puzzle.