Re: The bigger they were...

[Martin Baeker <martin@turtle.ifw.ing.tu-bs.de>]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 zone65@bigpond.com wrote:

> >> This is a very serious consideration, given the way sauropods
> >> are currently depicted; they'd go crashing sideways to the ground
> >> if they were so much as a few inches off balance.
> >
> > I don't see that. Just as I don't see it in an elephant.
> >
> >> Nevertheless, elephants swim well with columnar legs.
> >
> > But they don't swim for a living.
>
> Nor am I proposing sauropods did. Just that they waded in depths
> sufficient to provide some buoyancy. To take a load off, as it were.
Well, but in this case, wouldn't the buoyancy, which effectively reduces
the weight of the sauropod only below the waterline, make it even more
top-heavy instable? The CoG would in effect be determined only by those
parts of the animal above the waterline.

Martin.

                   Dr. Martin Bäker
                   Institut für Werkstoffe
                   Langer Kamp 8
                   38106 Braunschweig
                   Germany
                   Tel.: 00-49-531-391-3073
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                   e-mail <martin.baeker@tu-bs.de>