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The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and extinct mammals located in Crystal Palace, London. Commissioned in 1852 and unveiled in 1854, they were the first dinosaur sculptures in the world, pre-dating the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species by six years. Designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins with the help of Richard Owen they were Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002 and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.
We went to the Dinopétrea dinosaur fossil exhibition in Seville on Saturday and saw some great exhibits. The Plesiosaurus was a type of carnivorous aquatic (mostly marine) reptile. They appeared at the end of the Triassic Period and thrived until the K-T extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous Period. While they were Mesozoic diapsid reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, they were not dinosaurs. 2.3m long and weighed 90kg. See more about the Plesiosaur at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosaur
An intrepid plesiosaur ventures onto the land. Presumably this land is in China because that is definitely where this particular reptile was spawned. Or Hong Kong.
Special thanks to Daniel Madzia (identification help) and to Petr Gadas (photography & spectrometry help).
Plesiosaurus sp. tooth (most probably)
Locality: Brno - Hády quarry (Czech republic), age: Upper jurassic, oxfordian. Lenght: 10mm
The images were captured using an electron microscope. There is one point in each image indicating the area of interest, where the chemical composition was measured using spectrometry.
You can see two different materials - light colored, fossilised dentin and darker rock fillings. There is a siginificant difference in chemical composition of dentin and rock filling, since each of the two showed a different spectrum.
According to the spectral analysis, dentin is composed mainly of calcium, phosphorus and oxygen (white spectrum). Presence of fluorine may not seem any significant, but along with the other elements, fluorine is one of the key elements that form a mineral known as fluorapatite - Ca5(PO4)3F. This means that dentin is composed of fluorapatite.
On the other hand, the yellow spectrum shows that the darker material filling the pores in dentin are filled with material composed mainly of silica and oxygen. Most probably quartz grains - SiO2.
*SEM-EDS = Scanning electron microscope (backscattered electrons) & Energy dispersive spectrometry
Plesiosaurs were not dinosaurs, they became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, at the same time as the non-avian dinosaurs. Plesiosaurs had powerful swimming muscles attached to their expanded shoulder and pelvic bones, and they used their flippers to swim.
A 42-foot cast of a Plesiosaurus in the atrium of the Milwaukee Public Museum. The Cryolophosaurus at the bottom is advertising for an upcoming special exhibit, "Ultimate Dinosaurs."
Here's the CP for the head portion.
Quentin suggested that I get a detailed head for my Plesiosaurus, so I designed one. I made it generic so that with little modification I could also stick it onto a couple of my sauropod dinosaurs, such as my Mamenchisaurus.
The plesiosaurus neck is built on 22.5˚ angles, but the Mamenchisaurus uses 11.25˚. A couple of closed sinks and I was able to take care of that problem.
That wasn't the only problem though...
The Leviathan is a sculpture executed by Brian Fell, from Glossop in Derbyshire and unveiled in 1996. an amalgam of marine creatures it has a cormorant’s feet, a plesiosaurus’s tail, the fin of a John Dory, a lobster’s claws and the head of an angler fish. Despite having no prawn features, it has been dubbed the "Barbican Prawn". It was controversial, with demands for it to be scrapped, but I like it.
Special thanks to Daniel Madzia (identification help) and to Petr Gadas (photography & spectrometry help).
Plesiosaurus sp. tooth (most probably)
Locality: Brno - Hády quarry (Czech republic), age: Upper jurassic, oxfordian. Lenght: 10mm
*SEM-EDS = Scanning electron microscope (backscattered electrons) & Energy dispersive spectrometry