Re: Lava and dinosaurs

["Jerry D. Harris" <dinogami@hotmail.com>]

> Vesuvius covered the unfortunate Pompeiians with ash.
>
>
> I'd imagine that a body caught in lava would react in
> a substantially different way that a body covered in
> ash.  Dave, I think ash might be the way to go -- I'd
> imagine that it killed far more dinosaurs than lava
> did.

  Correct.  Lava is melted rock; anything hot enough to melt rock is going 
to incinerate organic matter in no time flat -- enough lava to bury a 
sauropod would destroy the sauropod (if it were dumb enough to stick around 
when the volcano blew!) and probably not cool quickly enough to preserve a 
negative mold.  Even on the off chance that it _did_, what are the odds that 
such a large hollow would survive a minimum of 65 million years without 
being subsequently collapsed to be discovered today?

  AFAIK, no one at Pompeii or Herculaneum was preserved in lava...it was 
_all_ done by ash.

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                     Jerry D. Harris
                 Fossil Preparation Lab
          New Mexico Museum of Natural History
                   1801 Mountain Rd NW
               Albuquerque  NM  87104-1375
                 Phone:  (505) 841-2809
                  Fax: ; (505) 841-2808
           >>>>> dinogami@hotmail.com <<<<<

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