Ginormous dinosaur bones unloaded here
At the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal today, the label on the outside of the big orange container said "Super Heavy."
At the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal today, the label on the outside of the big orange container said "Super Heavy."
No kidding.
There were enormous bones inside - 16 tons worth, including the plaster that they were packed in.
Sixty-five million years ago, the big bones belonged to a massive, 60-ton dinosaur, the second-biggest ever discovered.
"We're looking at about a dozen elephants here," said Ken Lacovara, a Drexel University paleontologist.
Lacovara led a team that has been digging up the sauropod bones in Argentina since 2005. This week the prehistoric shipment finally arrived in Philadelphia, and the container was opened for a public viewing today.
Sauropods are a group of plant-eating dinosaurs that include the brontosaurus. The scientists won't know what specific species this one is until they carefully remove the plaster.
The bones will stay here for four years while scientists prepare and analyze them, at Drexel and also at the Academy of Natural Sciences and at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Museum-goers can watch the bones being prepared at the Academy's fossil lab this summer, Lacovara said.
Eventually, the bones go back to Argentina for display in a museum. But first the Drexel team will scan them so replicas can be made.
