Jason P Schein

Jason P Schein

Feb 18, 2015

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Bighorn Basin Dinosaur Project - Not Just about Dinosaurs!

The Bighorn Basin Dinosaur Project leadership is made up of several individuals with widely varying areas of expertise. Among us are paleoartists, anatomists, geologists, sedimentologists, fossil preparators, and archaeologists, represented by students, professors, and everything in between. Our collective goal is to be the most well-rounded, complete paleontologists and natural historians that we can possibly be. It's this focus on being not-overly-focused that has proved to be a major factor in the success of the Project, not to mention a big part of the fun!

Case in point - last spring we were involved with one of the most astounding paleontological discoveries of all time. Truly, this was a once-in-a-lifetime discovery, and even though it had nothing to do with dinosaurs, it is no less an incredibly exciting and fascinating discovery. It made the news in countless print and on-line articles, and across the globe.

Take a look at the video below, and feel free to download our article about the discovery in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

We're always happy to talk to folks about this discovery, or anything else paleo-related, so please don't hesitate to leave comments and ask us questions. And of course, thank you to all of those people who have already supported our project. Or, if you haven't already, please consider supporting our dinosaur excavation project (which you can join!)! If this story makes it very clear, you never know where one discovery will lead . . . or when!


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  • Oscar Jasklowski
    Oscar JasklowskiBacker
    Holy cow. It's unreal how closely they fit together. Do you have an estimate of how much this turtle would weigh?
    Feb 19, 2015
  • Jason P Schein
    Jason P ScheinResearcher
    Good question, Oscar (and thanks for asking). We didn't speculate in the paper, but it's fun to do, so why not? There are a couple of ways we could guestimate. 1) We have the same element (the right humurus) from a modern loggerhead sea turtle that weighed about 1,000 lbs, and is no more than 1/4 the size of the fossil version. So, that overly simple math would place the weight of Atlantochelys at 4,000 lbs. 2) To the best of our knowledge, Atlantochelys was the second biggest turtle to ever live - second only to the famous Archelon (do a Google image search - it's incredible!). The same element from Archelon was about 19% bigger than our Atlantochelys humerus, and Archelon is thought to have reached 5,000 lbs.. So again, that puts our turtle's weight at around 4,000 lbs. I'm sure there are more scientific ways of estimating this, but I think this is a great place to start. I hope that helps!
    Feb 19, 2015

About This Project

In 2014, in a remote and barren corner of the Bighorn Basin, NJSM paleontologists and participants in the annual Paleontology Field School made a remarkable discovery. We found at least three partial dinosaur skeletons, including the world's most famous predator - Tyrannosaurus rex. With YOUR support, our team will return in 2015 to excavate the skeletons and bring them back to our research labs for preparation, study, education, and exhibition.

Blast off!

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