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ZoomDinosaurs.com DINOSAUR FOSSILS |
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| First Dino Fossil Discoveries | What are Fossils? | How Fossils Form | Types of Fossils | Finding Fossils | Dating Fossils | Excavating Fossils | Bony Jigsaw Puzzles | Famous Fossil Hunters |
| Fossil Locations Worldwide | ||||||
| North American Fossils |
South American Fossils |
African Fossils |
Asian Fossils |
European Fossils |
Australian Fossils |
Antarctic Fossils |
After being found, a fossil must be carefully freed from the rocky matrix that encased it for millions of years. Then it's time to put the pieces together.
Only rarely are complete dinosaur skeletons found. Sometimes there are even extra pieces from different dinosaurs at the same site, adding to the confusion. It is very difficult to piece together fossilized bone fragments to reconstruct a whole skeleton. A thorough knowledge of animal anatomy is necessary in order to piece the fossils together and guess what the missing pieces are.
The fossils (or replicas of the fossils) are glued together on a framework after the dinosaur's stance is determined. Clues about the skeleton come from proximity of bones at the dig, modern animal physiology, lack of tail-furrow trace fossils, footprint fossils, and engineering experiments that test the stability of the model (for example, does the tail counterbalance the head and neck area?)
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ZoomDinosaurs.com DINOSAUR FOSSILS |
|
| First Dino Fossil Discoveries | What are Fossils? | How Fossils Form | Types of Fossils | Finding Fossils | Dating Fossils | Excavating Fossils | Bony Jigsaw Puzzles | Famous Fossil Hunters |
| Fossil Locations Worldwide | ||||||
| North American Fossils |
South American Fossils |
African Fossils |
Asian Fossils |
European Fossils |
Australian Fossils |
Antarctic Fossils |
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