Re: World's 'largest dinosaur' found (with crocs & fish)

[Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

"Tommy Bradley" <htomsirveaux@hotmail.com> writes:

> What I'd like to suggest is fossilization conditions.  Is it not 
> true that 
> any prehistoric creature has to be in "just the right place" and at 
> "just 
> the right time" to be fossilized? And so it is likely that these 
> "near 
> water" finds are more likely fossilized due to their locations being 
> "right 
> place, right time?"  Whereas some locations may not be "right place, 
> right 
> time" yet still inhabited by Prehistoric animals?


That is true.  A dizzying array of factors determine the long-term
geologic fate of an individual.  Put in more graphic terms, whether or
not Jimmy Hoffa will fossilize depends entirely on how and where he was
deposited.  ;-)



> I was just wondering if this was taken into consideration when the 
> idea of 
> "Possible Aquatic Sauropods" was brought up.


<searching memory> I don't believe I have ever seen a dinosaur fossil in
the ground in which a gar fish dermal plate, or a turtle fragment, or a
croc scute was *not* also found nearby.

Since water plays a big role in depositing nearly all terrestrial
fossils-to-be (aeolian deposition being the exception), then the
association of croc fossils and fish fossils with dinosaur bones has no
particular significance.

<pb>
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