Cover Image: March 2011 Scientific American Magazine See Inside

Dinosaur Death Trap: Gobi Desert Fossils Reveal How Dinosaurs Lived [Preview]

On a trip to the Gobi Desert, a team of fossil hunters unearths a death scene that reveals new clues about how dinosaurs lived















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SPEED THE PLOW: Without this bulldozer, on loan from a nearby Chinese army base, the excavation would have taken months, not weeks. Image: Mike Hettwer

In Brief

  • An expedition in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia turns up evidence of a 90-million-year-old grave­yard, including the remains of more than a dozen fossilized ostrichlike dinosaurs.
  • Evidence at the site points to a unique and rare conclusion: the dinosaur fossils were not deposited at the site over millennia. Instead the dinosaurs all met their fate at the same time.
  • By studying this mass grave, researchers have learned about the structure of dinosaur society, the ways in which these creatures interacted, and the division of labor among adults and juveniles.

"Another skeleton with a perfect skull!” I shouted to the team, all of whom were face down on the quarry floor exposing other skeletons. In the years I had spent as a paleontologist, never had I seen anything like this. Our team of fossil hunters had been prospecting for only 15 days in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, but already we had uncovered a veritable graveyard of intact fossils.

Over the next few weeks we would apply chisel, pickax and bulldozer to the site, digging up more than a dozen examples of an ostrichlike dinosaur that was to become one of the most well known in the dinosaur world. But the story would soon grow far richer than a simple body count of fossil bones, as intact and well preserved as they might be. This group of individuals would reveal how these dinosaurs interacted with one another, how their society was built, as well as the circumstances surrounding their gruesome and untimely deaths. We were just beginning to uncover the first clues of this 90-million-year-old murder mystery. Little did I know that what we were about to learn would end up making this the richest site for a single dinosaur species I had ever encountered.


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  1. 1. Bruce Voigt 12:48 PM 3/21/11

    90-million-year-old murder mystery

    The forces of the Sun, Moon and Earth dance together giving us seasons, tides etc. The Sun recently has been stepping on toes as it glides through this dance sending our north magnetic pole whizzing away a thousand miles to wards Russia then coming home to dance around an 85km oval every 24hr.

    This seemingly little dance is causing all kinds of hell for a species that thinks its the be and end all of the Universe. This Sun activity can muck around with slivers of Earth energy causing the Earth to tip, compasses to swing, radio reception, gps problems, tornado’s, tsunami, re location of oceans and climate etc. (BUT)

    The big kahuna Earths NUCLEUS is not PHASED by this UNTIL!

    Our NINTH Planet third or fourth from the sun comes bar-ling around the Sun appearing to be heading right for us.

    I Bruce Voigt claim that the recently discovered Asteroid 2002 AA 29 is really a Moon of (and yes I have named this Planet) OLD BRUCE.

    OLD BRUCE orbits the Sun in close proximity to Earths orbit every 365 point something day’s and the Earth is slowly catching up or visa versa.

    In approximately sixty five million years from now OLD BRUCE will be close enough to change (like a magnet) Earths Nucleus direction. At that very moment instant freezing takes place and because of no gravity anything not attached drifts out into Earth orbit to be collected by the Moon. (Good real estate investment for an optimist).

    These are the Three true Ice ages, one in coming, two as Old Bruce eclipses Earth (the really big sleep) and three as Old Bruce again changes the Earths nucleus and nuclei direction. It is this that reverses Earths rotation direction (for every reaction there is an equal—-

    So now after all that you now know what happened to DINO!

    PS – Old Bruce solves the mystery of the constant changing rotation of Venus

    It is of GREAT IMPORTANCE to establish a constant monitoring system for Canada's North Magnetic Pole Movements. --- WOBBLING of the EARTH
    cbc.ca bruce voigt

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  2. 2. SuperString in reply to Bruce Voigt 07:07 PM 3/4/12

    Help is out there. Hang in there, Bruce!

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
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