The World's Deepest Dinosaur

FiReaNGeL writes to tell us BiologyNews.net is reporting that Norway has uncovered their first set of dinosaur remains. The catch? They found it 2,256 meters below the ocean floor. From the article: "It is merely a coincidence that the remains of the old dinosaur now see the light of day again, or more precisely, parts of the dinosaur. The fossil is in fact just a crushed knucklebone in a drilling core - a long cylinder of rock drilled out from an exploration well at the Snorre offshore field."

Forget the dinosaur...

[fotbr]

Give us the details on the drilling rig!

Obligatory

[ral315]

A crushed knucklebone in a drilling core,
Everybody find the dinosaur!

Re:Obligatory

[PixelScuba]

Start up the Bore,
Drill into the Core.
Everybody find that DINOSAUR!

Re:Obligatory

[Dahamma]

That was (not was) one of the best comments I have seen on /. all week.

Wow

[Capt'n Hector]

I wonder what things will be like 200 million years from today, what adanced (or not so advanced) civilization will uncover the golden gate bridge, or statue of liberty. Entire continents submerged under thousands of feet of water and mud? This impetuous yet infinitesimal progression of gradualism really makes catastrophic events like Katrina seem like child's play. There's no greater force than time.

Re:Wow

[aussie_a]

Agreed. That oil rig really is one old dinosaur.

Re:Wow

[Reality Master 101]

You damned dirty ape! [movieprop.com]

Re:Wow

[ozmanjusri]

I wonder what things will be like 200 million years from today, what adanced (or not so advanced) civilization will uncover the golden gate bridge, or statue of liberty.

They'll probably collapse onto the sand and shout "You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"

Re:Wow

[NitsujTPU]

Honestly, I doubt that it would be that dramatic. Consider that, well, if we do blow ourselves up, it will probably be a few million years before anything reasonably intelligent even begins digging. They'll find out civilization, they'll probably have different concepts of emotion and such.

I imagine that if we found fossils that evidenced some highly developed dinosaur blew themselves up, we'd be a interested in it, but nobody would be crying over the matter.

Re:Wow

[somersault]

One of the dinosaurs who travelled forward into the future would.

I wonder how this dinosaur fits into the standard archeological time-scale, age judged by the rocks around it etc

the beauty of the system...

[way2trivial]

if we manage to exterminate ourselves through nuclear weapons, what life remains has a period of rapid evolutionary improvement due to a lotta dna scrambling going on.. a lot more than would otherwise in a few years.

if we manage to do it with biologicals, well.. we're then the planet is fucked.

Re:the beauty of the system...

[Fred_A]

The rapid evolution would more likely be dur to numerous new niches opening up.

To create workable new species, sex presumably works better than irradiation (which tends to break a lot of things), whatever the 50s' scifi movies say.

sex is slow..

[way2trivial]

true genetic sports develop a lot faster with damaged dna...

Damned Dirty Mod Points

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently "Planet of the Apes" references get you modded Insightful.

Re:Damned Dirty Mod Points

[DiscoDave_25]

Or a Funny comment about modding gets you modded Informative.

Can we stop now...

Re:Damned Dirty Mod Points

[MooUK]

A bandwagon comment about modding appears to get you Funny again.

Re:Damned Dirty Mod Points

[operagost]

And pushing the joke too far gets you "-1, Offtopic". Oh, crap ...

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what things will be like 200 million years from today, what adanced (or not so advanced) civilization will uncover the golden gate bridge, or statue of liberty.

Or the Slashdot servers. Holy crap, what if they're reading this post?! I for one welcome our 200 million year future overlords! (Just put my knucklebone somewhere nice please)

Re:Wow

[SEWilco]

Just put my knucklebone somewhere nice please

Hey, Marge! They had knucklebones! The Slashdot users were dinosaurs!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

There will be no 200 million years from today. It all ends 12/21/2012

Re:Wow

[Schemat1c]

There will be no 200 million years from today. It all ends 12/21/2012

Only the end of an age, not the world.

Re:Wow

[RancidPeanutOil]

200 million years is a long time. I'm guessing the statue of liberty, barring some perfect preservation disaster, will be an oblong mass of blue-ish powder, and the golden gate bridge will be a square-ish patch of whatever color its metal will corrode to. Most likely a zigzag shape, what with the earthquakes etc. over that period of time. Our (human) pyramids are only 6000 years old, and their outer surface is gone - another 100k years, they'll just be piles of rubble. Even with millions of years, fossilization is a rare occurance, and the materials of earth are destined to be reabsorbed - aliens of the future will find plastic powders where our landfills were, with little clue as to real shape or function. Makes ya wonder how many skyscrapers and pyramids the dinosaurs made 650 million years ago that have eroded away.

What will remain of us in 200 million years?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The lunar landing sites will still be recognizable in 200 million years. Even the footprints are estimated to survive for a hundred times the age of the Pyramids.

Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 will outlive the Earth.

Re:What will remain of us in 200 million years?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 will outlive the Earth.

I hardly think getting blown up by a bird of prey counts as outliving.

Re:What will remain of us in 200 million years?

[Fred_A]

Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 will outlive the Earth.

Good luck finding them by then though... :)

Ob: conspiracy nut comment

[Bloke down the pub]

Well, the footprints may have already been erased by a sort of wind that disturbs dust along the day/night line on the Moon.

Is that the same wind that was causing the flag to extend & billow [badastronomy.com]?

Re:Wow

[Wyatt Earp]

On the other hand much could and likely will survive. We have dinosaur's footprints, eggs, skin and poo which has survived. We have the banks of an ancient river at Dinosaur National Monument and we have the Burgess Shales in Canada. We have the gigatons of Banded Iron Formations world wide as evidence of bacteria which has survived hundreds of millions if not billions of years. Steel, concrete, titanium and aluminum constructs will survive for hundreds of millions of years in some way, shape or form.

Likely

The pyramid's surface was stolen...

[6th time lucky]

Our (human) pyramids are only 6000 years old, and their outer surface is gone - another 100k years, they'll just be piles of rubble

I believe that their nice shiny white outer surface was actually stolen/reused... in the nice shiny white buildings around Cairo. People cant resist shiny stuff... so maybe that actually proves your point that they wont be around for ever, but it wasnt environmental factors that have removed their brilliant coverings...

a ref [egyptgiftshop.com] that says so... i have read it elsewhere too...

Re:The pyramid's surface was stolen...

[Fred_A]

If you walk in the older bits of Cairo with a keen eye, you can spot bits and pieces of temple stones in the masonry of the older houses...

This of course is nothing new, proper building material has always been hard to come by and already prepared stone blocks from some old ruins nobody cares about are always tempting. It's been done all over the world.

Re:Wow

[zxnos]

the outer surface (dressed stone) of the pyramids in egypt were cannibalized over the centuries for other projects - until is was deceided to preserve them. the coliseum in rome was used as a quarry for stone for a couple hundred years as well. it also has been hit with a couple earthquakes. unless it starts to rain a whole bunch for the next 100k years, i think the pyramids will still be there.

Re:Wow

[x2A]

"unless it starts to rain a whole bunch for the next 100k years, i think the pyramids will still be there"

yeah cuz they're actually just very large sandcastles... it's no real mystery how they were built, large buckets, filled with sand and patted down, and emptied on top of each other. So either rain, or an beach-style-egypt-bully comes along and stamps on 'em... yeah that's it :-p

Re:Wow

[dajak]

the outer surface (dressed stone) of the pyramids in egypt were cannibalized over the centuries for other projects - until is was deceided to preserve them. the coliseum in rome was used as a quarry for stone for a couple hundred years as well. it also has been hit with a couple earthquakes. unless it starts to rain a whole bunch for the next 100k years, i think the pyramids will still be there.

It's worth noting that these are examples of landmarks that are exceptionally well-preserved. In Eqypt there is hardly a shortage of stone for construction, and Rome has been continually inhabited by people who considered the builders of the Coliseum their ancestors.

In parts of Europe where stone is scarce the only signs of Roman presence are Roman milestones found in newer stone constructions like city walls and castles. The towns and roads are completely gone, and we can only guess where they were once located.

Metal is also continually reused. Our large constructions will only survive if there is no mankind around. Places in ancient Eqypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, etc. are preserved because of desertification.

Re:Wow

[DerekLyons]

200 million years is a long time. I'm guessing the statue of liberty, barring some perfect preservation disaster, will be an oblong mass of blue-ish powder, and the golden gate bridge will be a square-ish patch of whatever color its metal will corrode to. Most likely a zigzag shape, what with the earthquakes etc. over that period of time. Our (human) pyramids are only 6000 years old, and their outer surface is gone - another 100k years, they'll just be piles of rubble.

It's worth pointing out that the [Egy

Re:Wow

[cashman73]

Just wait until they discover the historical documents [amazon.com]!

Re:Wow

[R3d M3rcury]

Agreed. Who knows what could happen? [imdb.com]

Re:Wow

[killjoe]

Future civilizations will find all our plastic bits and try to reconstruct our society from them.

Re:Wow

[Fred_A]

Won't plastic be heavily recycled by then ? I'm not sure there will be that much lying around.

Unless we find oil in space and figure a way of bringing it back, plastic may become a valuable material...

Re:Wow

[master_p]

Interesting question. Does it apply to this civilisation? what is the possibility of finding an older human civilisation burried underground?

Re:you can check it out now

[ozmanjusri]

not as much as the olden cultures where a lot of things were made from stone, stone just lasts better.

We make a lot of things out of stone and ceramics too, and given the size of our civilisation, I'd say we make a hell of a lot more of them than those "olden cultures".

Taller structures may fall, but granite plinths, retaining walls, foundations and even smaller detailed pieces have as good a chance of surviving as a dinosaur bone had.

Likely Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The fossil is in fact just a crushed knucklebone in a drilling core

Quick! someone call CSI!

The dinosaur isn't as amazing as. . .

[Who235]

. . .the fact they can tell what species it was by just a knucklebone.

Re:The dinosaur isn't as amazing as. . .

[Random Destruction]

...a /crushed/ knucklebone.

Amazing

[Mark_MF-WN]

What amazes me is that the Great Flood receded so quickly and forcefully that it was able to drive a dinosaur bone over two kilometres into the sea floor. That's divine wrath for ya.

:P

Receded ?

[CmdrGravy]

I don't think there's any evidence the flood receded is there, I don't recall God saying that. No, before the flood there was no water at all in the oceans until the fountains of the deep gushed forth and filled them in, the flood on what is today still land was no doubt the boiling and frothing of the waters as they gushed forth and settled down.

Obviously the areas now covered by Ocean were once the domain of the angels who spent there time planting "dinosaur" bones and other "evidence" in there ready for

Thats strange...

[Elitist_Phoenix]

I though the worlds deepest dinosaur was cowboy neal

Dinosaurs all the way down...

[HermanAB]

Hmm, so the old woman was wrong, the earth is not perched on the back of a turtle, it is dinosaurs all the way down...

Old song...

[Ekhymosis]

Reminds me of an old song "Dem Dem Dry Bones" or whatever it was called. However, I can't seem to recall the "knucklebone" stanza, so hopefully the scientists won't mess up the rebuilding. =)

Cue the....

[gardyloo]

"The FSM put it there!" comments :)

Drilling for fossil fuel?

[Mr. Flibble]

So, they were drilling for fossil fuel? Looks like they knuckled down, and found the source. But still, with the odds of finding a fossil like that, so deep, it almost makes me wonder if the drill was intelligently designed...

Obligatory...

[Monkey]

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Re:Obligatory...

[Scarletdown]

Oh freddled gruntbuggly...

Who do you think you are?

[Perdo]

Nyarlathotep?

Ahtu?

Ahiiieeee! and though you are known by by a hundred hundred names, here on the slashdotted plane your name shall be "Monkey" as only Nyarlathotep is obligated to speak the great deep one's true name.

And lo' it was written:

"There was the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers - the 'Black Man' of the witch cult, and the 'Nyarlathotep' of the Necronomicon."

You are that messenger... obviously.

Sign of Age

[Metabolife]

Usually the lower beneath the surface a fossil is, the old it, due to the fact that soil is deposited over time. I wonder what the results of a carbon dating would show.

On the whole...

[jd]

I'm not convinced rock contains a whole lot of carbon from organic sources. Just a guess, mind you. The oil, on the other hand, probably has LOTS of carbon from organic sources, but is likely much deeper. Unfortunately, carbon dating is not useful beyond a few tens of thousands of years - there simply isn't enough C14 left to date accurately, and it is next to impossible to get any kind of accurate calibration.

(You've also got to consider that rocks don't always progress linearly. Folding - where older rock

It's a balrog

[theurge14]

The Norwegians dug too deep and greedily.

The Lord knew.

[Coyote65]

...and placed that knucklebone there about 6500 years ago because he knew in his infinite wisdom and omnipotence that someday we would send an exploratory core driller down in that exact location. I see it all clearly now.

Damn devil ...

[vonmeth]

... trying to trick us with fossils into believing the world is older than 10,000 years.

Ocean != Sea

[TonyJohn]

A lot of the comments here are as the result of a misquote in the headline. The headline reports that the bone was found below the "ocean" floor, while the article describes it as being the "sea" bed, the North Sea in particular. There is a very significant difference between the two (apart from the depth - oceans are typicially a few km deep, while seas are only a few 100m), namely the way that they formed. The North Sea was once continental crust (upon which this dinosaur lived), but it stretched, sank, and was flooded. Ever since, sediments have been accumulating, and over time these have buried the fossil to its current depth. Ocean floor is formed from spreading ridges, and has never been part of the continent - you would not expect to find a land dinosaur there.

Re:How did it get there?

[breadboy21]

"The question of how dinosaur fossils could be submerged to that depth is pretty interesting."

A worldwide flood perhaps?

Dinosaur drilling accident

[EmbeddedJanitor]

What happened was that the disosaurs decided to drill for oil. One of them had a hand wrenched off by the drill and it got deposited deep.

Moral of the story kids: Oil was bad for the dinos and it will be bad for us too.

Killer asteroid...

[HermanAB]

It puts a whole new spin on the big asteroid that killed the dinosaurs story: Splat!!!

Re:How did it get there?

[realmolo]

I agree. We should use science to figure out where the bones come from, rather than relying on supernatural explanations.

Also, if during the course of the scientific investigations, the researches should become hungry, they should eat food rather than praying for their hunger to end. Similarly, if their mode of transportation should run out of fuel, they probably would be better served by buying a tank full of gas, versus merely "wishing real hard" that they could get where they were going.

And, of course, if they post on Slashdot, they shouldn't Karma-whore by posting the BLEEDING OBVIOUS.

Re:How did it get there?

[lelitsch]

On a slightly more serious note: probably the same way that coral fossiles from roughly the same period ended up in Kaibab Limestone on the Colorado plateau at 7000 feet above sea level. -- Either plate tectonics or the devil sprinkled them to confuse the minds of men.

Re:How did it get there?

[Flimzy]

The ultimate goal of science should be a complete, rigorous explanation of the natural world to the exclusion of supernatural phenomena.

This is a rediculous statement. The purpose of science should be to find the truth--whether that includes "supernatural phenomena" or not cannot be a foregone conlcusion for any _truely_ scientific search for truth.

That would be like somebody 100 years ago saying "The ultimate goal of science should be a complete, rigorous explanation of the natural world with the exclusion of the theory of relativity."

If scientific exploration is limited to our currently understood views of the world, and physical laws, then it's not science any more.

Until science _disproves_ something, that thing should not be discounted as a possibility. That includes God, goblins, and pink dinosaurs under the ocean floor.

Having said that, that doesn't mean we need to _assume_ these things exist, either. It simply means that an open mind, even to possibilities we may personally consider to be impossibilities, is necessary if the results we're going to get are to be unbiased.

There are so many scientific breakthroughs that we've seen throughout history that would never have been reached if they had been approached with your attitude--from flight, to electric light, to the theory of relativity, to space travel, to the "supernatural" time travel theory used by the time machine I used I used to get here to leave this post.

Re:How did it get there?

[cutedinochick]

The purpose of philosophy is to seek truth, but the purpose of science is to explain how things work. "Truisms" and "facts" are not good words to use in the natural sciences, where several hypotheses may be working at once.

The problem is that supernatural phenomena is untestable. Whether things like God or goblins exist are interesting questions, but without physical evidence, it remains speculation and is not within the realm of science. Fortunately, we don't need physical evidence to believe in God (or goblins)- this requires faith which by definition is NOT something we can see/hear/etc. Science can only deal with things that are testable. I do not know anything about the theory of relativity, except that my understanding is that it is largely based on mathematical modeling as well as physical laws, which again, are testable and completely within the realm of science - I think people will respond to you, offended that you believe that this scientific theory is "supernatural." Sometimes indirect testing is in order, but it still works. An open mind is required as you suggest, but to put forward an untestable hypothesis will get you nowhere, as no one can either agree or disagree with you, and therefore the answer will not be found.

I also call your bluff on you owning a time machine.

--
Better go now, running out of room.

Re:How did it get there?

[Kjella]

The problem is that supernatural phenomena is untestable. Whether things like God or goblins exist are interesting questions, but without physical evidence, it remains speculation and is not within the realm of science. Fortunately, we don't need physical evidence to believe in God (or goblins)- this requires faith which by definition is NOT something we can see/hear/etc.

Yes, the completely generic and abstract question "Is there a God?" is untestable. However, the Bible is full of testable questions and ev

Re:How did it get there?

[_Neurotic]

However, the Bible is full of testable questions and events that are supposed to have occured, most of which have been thoroughly disproven.

Such as...

Re:How did it get there?

[NeutronCowboy]

Despite your misconception, science is not a search for truth. To misquote Indiana Jones, "If you're looking for truth, Philosophy 101 is down the hall." Science is the search for an explanation on how the observable world around us works. Nothing more. Nothing less.

"Until science _disproves_ something, that thing should not be discounted as a possibility. That includes God, goblins, and pink dinosaurs under the ocean floor."

Wrong. First, define God, goblins and pink dinosaurs under the ocean. You'll quickl

That is contrary to falsifiability

[Perdo]

And therefore rigorous science

"Until science _disproves_ something, that thing should not be discounted as a possibility. That includes God, goblins, and pink dinosaurs under the ocean floor."

The existance of god and the supernatural is not falsifiable, and therefore must be discounted as possibilities when conducting rigorous science.

Check the wiki for more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability [wikipedia.org]

See also: proving a negative, division by zero, perpetual motion and the recent Intelligent design trial.

Jud

Re:That is contrary to falsifiability

[LordLucless]

The existance of god and the supernatural is not falsifiable, and therefore must be discounted as possibilities when conducting rigorous science.

The existance of god is not falsifiable, but it may be provable. If, for example, the Second Coming ends up happening, then there's going to be some pretty chunky scientific evidence for the existance of god. Likewise, assuming Jesus existed and did what the Bible said, there would be some pretty good scientific evidence for assuming he had unexplained powers. O

Re:That is contrary to falsifiability

[PatrickThomson]

The existance of god is not falsifiable, but it may be provable.

Exactly, this is what many scientific reactionaries forget. I'm a scientist in training, I have the whole provability/evidence/theory/etc thing down pat, and I know that it's impossible to disprove the existence of god, So why does that lead to the assumption that god does not exist? I stick with a firm "I Don't Know For Sure But Wake Me Up If They Find Something That Survives Rigorous Inspection" then I get on with my life, having been sati

Re:That is contrary to falsifiability

[Perdo]

Quantum mechanics is supernatural.

The Riemann Hypothesis is supernatural.

"this statement is false" is supernatural.

The next, undiscovered, mersenne prime is supernatural.

uh-huh.

Please enjoy the universe full of boogy men you live in.

Re:How did it get there?

[arkhan_jg]

This is a rediculous statement. The purpose of science should be to find the truth--whether that includes "supernatural phenomena" or not cannot be a foregone conlcusion for any _truely_ scientific search for truth.

Actually, that's wrong. By definition, supernatural is:
1. not of natural world: relating to or attributed to phenomena that cannot be explained by natural laws

Science is the study of natural facts. It is looking at the known facts, coming up with a possible explanation, predicting new facts, and

Re:How did it get there?

[LordLucless]

If a lot of predictions come true, and the theory stands up for a long time, we tend to call it a law, such as the law of gravity. Evolution should rightly be called a law by now, the weight of evidence is overwhelming

That is the hookiest definition of a scientific law I've ever seen. Scientific laws are not defined by a preponderance of evidence. That's civil suits. Scientific theories are laws if and only if they can be reduced to a simple statement and that statement proven. From wikipedia: "a physica

Re:How did it get there?

[lysergic.acid]

'The supernatural' is defined as that which does not obey the natural laws governing our universe--thus it cannot be explained or understood through science. This precludes any usefulness of incorporating the concept of the supernatural into scientific models or theories.

The concept of the supernatural is an artifact of religious and cultural traditions of relying on mythos rather than logos to explain natural phenomena. It creates an artificial division of reality into the supernatural and the natural, w

Re:How did it get there?

[DrXym]

Until science _disproves_ something, that thing should not be discounted as a possibility. That includes God, goblins, and pink dinosaurs under the ocean floor.

You can't disprove a negative. All you can do is exhaustively apply tests which should detect the phenomena that some people claim (without evidence of the phenomena to back it up). If the result is repeatedly negative, it may as well not exist. It is not reasonable to continuously look for something for which there is no evidence that it exists i

Re:How did it get there?

[Shihar]

Not to feed the original grandparent troll, but science should be working in the exclusion of supernatural. Something that is supernatural is by definition not testable. If one day we discovered that humans have telepathy, a scientist wouldn't accept a supernatural explanation. A scientist would strive to find a mechanism to explain telepathy.

The best a scientist can do to "prove" the supernatural is to show, in so far as much is possible, that a certain phenomenon happens in defiance of the laws of natu

Re:How did it get there?

[TapeCutter]

"The purpose of science should be to find the truth"

Ah, yes truth [stanford.edu]..... There is a difference between "supernatural" and unexplained but many people see them as the same thing.

"Until science _disproves_ something"

Science does not "disprove" anything, I mean how would you prove to me that pigs can't fly?

Re:How did it get there?

[mabinogi]

gah. I'm sorry, but you're a moron, either that or you read the first sentence of the grandparent post and stopped.

He explicitly said that we shouldn't assume such things exist just because we're not assuming they don't exist.

You cannot establish any scientific theory without some evidence. What he's saying is to simply not form a theory one way or the other until such time as you actually have some evidence.

You can be open to the possibility of something without assuming it's true. If you can't, then yo

Re:How did it get there?

[rohan972]

...and without evidence to the contrary they should establish that as a scientific theory?

That's not what Flimzy said at all. Read the post.

Until science _disproves_ something, that thing should not be discounted as a possibility. That includes God, goblins, and pink dinosaurs under the ocean floor.

Having said that, that doesn't mean we need to _assume_ these things exist, either.

Waiting on evidence before making a decision is hardly unscientific. The whole idea that something should not be regarded

Re:How did it get there?

[LordLucless]

Things like flight, electric light, and space travel, while perhaps at one time seeming impossible, are not nor have ever been supernatural!

But they would have seemed so at the time. Cutting it to the core, what the grandparent was saying is that you should discount nothing that has not been scientifically disproved. People have said heavier-than-air flight was impossible, space travel was impossible, hell, there were probably people saying (or grunting) that controllable fire was impossible. The point i

Re:How did it get there?

[product byproduct]

Fast-moving plates?

2256 meters after 200,000,000 years gives a sinking speed of *11 microns per year*.

Re:How did it get there?

[Quixotic137]

To be fair, the article says the fossil was 2256 meters below the seabed, presumably meaning measured perpendicular to the seabed. I don't know at what angle plates move, but I doubt it's straight down. Even at an angle though, the figures could work out reasonably.

Re:How did it get there?

[Lord Crc]

2256 meters after 200,000,000 years gives a sinking speed of *11 microns per year*.

From this [dinosaurer.uio.no] page, it says that the Snorre field is located approx 140km west of the coast. The ocean depth is at around 300-300m, but the reservoir is some 2500m down. It also says that the reservoir differs from most of the other fields in the North Sea in that the rock consists of fossil riverbeds from a time (triassic period) when the North Sea was dry land containing big rivers.

I'm guessing it doesn't really matter how much it has moved, since things were probably very different then anyways.

Re:How did it get there?

[JumperCable]

OR a sedimentary deposit rate of 11 microns per year.

Re:How did it get there?

[FhnuZoag]

Surely the answer is obvious? It got pushed down by the drill bit.

Re:How did it get there?

[Walt Dismal]

Well, so much for 'created in six days', you spoilsport! I'm going to have to tell Reverend Pat Bilgewater about you, you heathen scientist. No, wait. The world was created with subterranean dinosaurs. Yeah, that makes much more sense than this science nonsense.

Re:Assuming a lot

[cutedinochick]

Whales have extremely dense bones, and they also didn't evolve until about 30 ma. Judging from the approximate age of the bone (oil drillers know all this stuff), as well as any diagnostic features, it would be easy to designate it as a Plateosaurus, which is an extremely common dinosaur in western Europe, and is from the Late Triassic (about 200 ma). Even if crushed, a Plateosaurus is the most parsimonious explanation. As I said in another comment, the prosauropods were going from bipedal to quadrupedal and, correct me if I'm wrong prosauropod people, I bet the "knucklebones" were unique, and perhaps easy to ID. I also bet that this bone was washed out to the ocean from a river, as Norway was covered in rivers during this time. You're assuming much less once you actually have a bit of background on the time period and the region.

Re:Assuming a lot

[MichaelSmith]

I also bet that this bone was washed out to the ocean from a river, as Norway was covered in rivers during this time.

Which would also account for the depth at with the fossil was found. The rivers deposit a continous flow of silt on to the bottom of the ocean so the fossil gets buried quickly.

I wish I could mod you up so other people can read

[cutedinochick]

I think hubris isn't really the issue, since apparently I admitted that I didn't know what the theory of relativity entailed. I also seriously doubt that you or anyone else knows about "all things under the ocean," if you want to talk about hubris. I would also think that being an oil rig driller would require some geological knowledge, and so none of this would be news to you.

I think it is clear that NO ONE was around back then. Does that mean we should stop studying fossils, and stop acquiring evide

Re:I'm pretty sure...

[zippthorne]

You might be sure, but you'd be wrong. Whales are mammals, with a mammilian skeletal structure.

http://www.whalesongs.org/cetacean/sperm_whales/sp erm_internal.html [whalesongs.org]

seems to have a decent diagram of a flipper which contains a knuckle bone.

Re:Proof!

[Cyno01]

The flood is pretty widely accepted. Every culture dating back to then (and conveniently located in the middle east/N Africa/Mediteranian) has its own flood myths, and the geologic record supports it. There probably was a huge flood that flooded the whole region at one point, but there probably wasn't a drunk with a boat and 2 of every animal.

Re:Proof!

[MichaelSmith]

The flood is pretty widely accepted. Every culture dating back to then (and conveniently located in the middle east/N Africa/Mediteranian) has its own flood myths, and the geologic record supports it.

The flood myth came to mind when I saw pictures from the 26 December 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Re:Proof!

[Cyno01]

Megatsunamis have happened every couple hundred years throughout history, this could very well be the cause of the flood. I remember hearing somewhere what happend was some entire cliff somewhere in the mediteranian broke off into the sea and flooded most of mesopotamia.

Re:Proof!

[Xeriar]

The flood is pretty widely accepted. Every culture dating back to then (and conveniently located in the middle east/N Africa/Mediteranian) has its own flood myths, and the geologic record supports it. There probably was a huge flood that flooded the whole region at one point, but there probably wasn't a drunk with a boat and 2 of every animal.

The flooding of the Marmara sea and the Babylonian flood circa ~2,200 B.C.E. are fairly well-known, along with a number of other floods in the region. Some of these flood myths, such as the Turkish one, actually recalls the specific flood itself.

There is some evidence, though disputed, of extensive flooding about ten thousand years ago, during the end of the last ice age, that wiped out an extant bronze-age civilization. I don't put a whole lot of stock in it, though it is a nice fancy.

Re:Proof!

[way2trivial]

as opposed to, you know, being sons of Adam or daughters of Eve...

Re:2000 metres...

[Squigley]

"The bugger died and just floated down to the deep."

"floated down"??

Is that at all like "sank"?

Re:Subduction explains the 'below the floor' part.

[CmdrGravy]

I think the scientists have been very hasty in classing this as a platelogicus or whatever they think it is and don't appear to be even considering the possibility it was a large aquatic burrowing mammal easily capable of burrowing through 2KM of mud.

Re:Spice Rubbed Steak with Quick Garlic Fries

[6Yankee]

Awww man! I thought this was going to be a dinosaur recipe. :(

Re:I don't understand..

[cnettel]

There is absolutely no reason to expect human remains that deep down. That would be very surprising, as it would take a rather intense geological event to move it down there in the short timespan involved.