BBC article on the Tanis site: related to forthcoming documentary

[ceratopsian]

An interesting read on newly revealed discoveries from the Tanis site.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61013740

[Faelrin]

Wow that's quite a bit of incredible info and discoveries to be made within that article (the pterosaur embryo, and the dinosaur leg, possibly Thescelosaurus, with integument, etc). And we are spoiled with yet another prehistoric documentary staring Sir David Attenborough this year, and regarding these finds. Shame US folks will have to wait much later for it though. I hope folks in the UK that can watch it on the 15th can share info here.

[ceratopsian]

It was, as expected, very interesting, @Faelrin, and I intend to watch it again.  In terms of content, the BBC article gave an excellent summary of the programme - that covered all the main points I think.  It seemed fairly certain that the Triceratops whose skin was found died before the catastrophic event at the site - signs of decay, unlike the Thescelosaurus leg.  For me, the most exciting find was identifying the unchanged tektites in resin and comparing the chemical signature to Chicxulub material.  Interesting to hear Paul Barrett examining the Thescelosaurus too. 

The programme gave a clear account of the timing of the impact and the swiftness of the wave surge at Tanis, so that it happened at the same time the tektites fell.  They also gave a clear account of how that swift arrival of the wave surge might be explained by gravity waves and showed footage of water disturbances in Norwegian fjords when the earthquake hit Japan a few years ago (when it destroyed the Fukushima reactor).

They must have splashed out on the animations!  These seemed pretty good to me.  Young Tyrannosaurus, adult Tyrannosaurus, sick (cheeked) Triceratops, Thescelosaurus etc.  Nice touch that they "transported" David Attenborough to "stand" or "sit" amid the Cretaceous scenery at Tanis.

Wonderful to see the excitement of the palaeontologists as they found the Triceratops skin and Thescelosaurus leg.  What I would have liked would have been some time scale of when these major finds took place.  I would also have liked more on the fish from the site - they were short-changed, by comparison to a talk I heard by Phil Manning back in 2020!

[leidy]

It was, as expected, very interesting, @Faelrin, and I intend to watch it again.  In terms of content, the BBC article gave an excellent summary of the programme - that covered all the main points I think.  It seemed fairly certain that the Triceratops whose skin was found died before the catastrophic event at the site - signs of decay, unlike the Thescelosaurus leg. 

I was unconvinced with the claim of sagging skin as evidence of decay. 

I was more interested in trying to figure out placement for that skin section.  It had been found in association with the horns and some other section, but judging by the CG reconstruction, the scale pattern appeared to have been placed around the shoulder. 

One thing I was struck by in the documentary, is the complexity involved in the excavation.  You see the fossils coming out of the ground, and in the early stages, it's difficult to judge what you have.  On the one hand, the matrix is soft enough that it can be removed without great difficulty, but it would apparently be all too easy to brush away or dig through fossil material unknowingly.   

I really like the fossils from this site, it will be very exciting if they can recover more of similar quality. I was impressed with the dimensional quality of the preservation.  When they were showing the Thescelosaurus leg, I was thinking of that amazing, fully preserved Psittacosaurus, and what's nice about this new fossil, is that it's uncrushed, unflattened.  I'd love to examine it in more detail.   

The reconstructions are quite good, but it's a mixed bag. I wish I liked their Tyrannosaurus and their pterosaur more.  The Thescelosaurus is good, and looks very much like the fossil they found.  One issue I had with BBC's Planet Dinosaur, was the tendency to place the camera in awkward positions, and that's sometimes the case here.  While the environment photography is excellent, and helps with some very naturalistic scenes, there are also clips that are filmed in ways that would be all but impossible to film with animals in real life, which tends to detract from the believability and can give things an artificial quality.