I have a new favorite dinosaur controversy.


I have a new favorite dinosaur controversy. There is a claim that the Broome Sandstone in Australia shows sauropod footprints of a titanosaur that are 2 meters wide. Meaning you could lay down in the footprint easily. This is a picture someone on a forum posted (causing excellent "someone is wrong on the internet" arguments) showing how big an animal with that size prints would be. The little sauropod is an Argentinosaurus. Meaning the big guy there dwarfs a blue whale in size.

There are all kinds of reasons this might not be true (no fossils in Australia (or anywhere else) near that size, for one), but it's fun to think about.

Comments

  1. Andrew ShieldsMay 28, 2015 at 1:28 PM

    Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tore NielsenMay 28, 2015 at 1:29 PM

    Geezus Jones! I wish I had the math to calculate how much it'd have to eat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrew ShieldsMay 28, 2015 at 1:30 PM

    Tore Nielsen My calculations yield the conclusion "ALL THE THINGS."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Casey G.May 28, 2015 at 1:34 PM

    Also, the tracks are real. The Broome Sandstone actually erodes into towers of pancake shaped prints stacked on top of each other. There was that much sauropod traffic. The question is if the prints have deformed or not.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Andrew ShieldsMay 28, 2015 at 1:47 PM

    More terrifying indeed is contemplation of the volume of excrement. A trade route could be built along its back trail, it is a mythic beast that clears farmlands and then leaves fertilizer in a central location in a line where there's civilization a day's travel apart.

    You are looking at the God of Trade Routes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Casey G.May 28, 2015 at 2:01 PM

    The hypothetical creature is known as a "Gigantopod" which is just excellent.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tore NielsenMay 28, 2015 at 2:04 PM

    Andrew Shields I like this idea!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Andrew ShieldsMay 28, 2015 at 2:04 PM

    Wait, isn't that just "Dinosaur Bigfoot"?!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tore NielsenMay 28, 2015 at 2:34 PM

    Well, Australia is big. Who are we to say that there couldn't be a blue whale-sized dino out there?

    #TeachTheCryptoversy

    ReplyDelete
  10. Casey G.May 28, 2015 at 2:37 PM

    A sauropod longer than a blue whale isn't in doubt. Massing more than 210 tons though...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is my gaming circle minus my ACKS players.

Image
This is my gaming circle minus my ACKS players. I am such an asshole. Since they're in the big city now, the players really wanted to know if there were any magic weapons for sale. ACKS ain't 3e or 4e though. There is exactly one magic weapon for sale. I rolled randomly to see what it was and... ...it's a cursed -2 sword. So I told the players there's a weapons dealer/fence who's looking to get rid of a magic sword he's gotten ahold of...cheap. Only 6,000gp when usually a +1 item would be 10,000gp. So far they are not suspicious. They're going to be so pissed at me. I can barely contain my excitement.
Read more