Re: New Dromaeosaur Specimen.

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Filippo Calzolari (calzola@iol.it) wrote:

<I'm a bit puzzled (obviously because of my ignorance..);by
saying that "both sides are lingual views" you're saying that
bone is present on both slabs so that on each slab we see a
medial view of the skull?? I used to think that "slab and
counter slab" referred to the presence on one of them of the
bones(ok, too simple situation, but just to imagine it) and of
the impressions on the other one. Am I completely wrong?
 
Anyway, if the counterslab contains only the impression, then if
the preserved side on the slab is the labial one, it would be
the same on the counterslab, no?>

  Yes, it would. Take a animal, lay it on a limestone sediment,
compress it between layers of same, then after 80my, take the
layers containing them and split them. The stones will split at
their weakest contact, in this case the one including the fossil
inclusion. The specimen, depending on its orientation, may or
may not leave material on both sides of the split slab. If the
skull is lain sideways, the slabs may equally share the
material, as apparent in this case -- to some degree. I see all
of one side of the skull on both sides, meaning portions of the
skull are preserved so that the top layer of the bone is on the
_other_ slab, whereas it seems the snout has -- if even
partially -- been split equally, so that we see the jaws from
within on _both_ slabs. The distribution of material is never
equal, I note, and one can make ready comparison of this when
examining slab and counterslab of other Solnhofen organisms:
*Archaeopteryx,* for one, and Ostrom made special note of the
preserved material on the counterslab of the Bavarian *Compsognathus.*

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
  Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/