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Digital dinosaur

CAT scan unlocks fossil secrets

An expanded Web version of segments seen on CNN
fossil
movie icon Carl Diegert compares the Parasaurolophus and elephants
QuickTime movie
(334K/8 sec.)

From Correspondent Melissa Sander

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- The dinosaurs that ruled the earth millions of years ago have long since disappeared, but we still know what they looked like, based on fossil records interpreted by scientists and artists.

Now, computers are helping to create an even more accurate image.

The technological advance was achieved through computerized axial tomography (CAT) scans, a type of X-ray used by hospitals as a diagnostic imaging system.

It helped paleontologists Bob Sullivan and Tom Williamson "see" inside the fossilized remains of a crested duck-billed dinosaur they discovered in New Mexico in 1995.


computer images

"Bob ... jumped up and said, 'it's a parasaurolophus!'" Williamson remembers. icon (414K/19 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

Another fossil from the rare dinosaur -- this one found in Canada -- is the basis for how experts think the parasaurolophus (pronounced par-ah-sor-rah-LOFF-us) looked, with a long, boney crest rising out of the back of its skull.

The crest Sullivan and Williamson discovered is perhaps the most complete one ever found.

Computers did what paleontologists couldn't

But it was Carl Diegert, a scientist expert at Albuquerque's Sandia National Laboratory, who digitized the discovery, giving us a more complete picture of what the parasaurolophus once looked like.

fossil

Working with CAT scan technology, Diegert is revealing clues that the paleontologists could not uncover on their own, even by hacking apart the fossil.

CAT scans on the fossil, performed at a local hospital, produced about 500 images of the parasaurolophus crest.

Diegert converted the images into three-dimensional computer models, using some of the same software that helped create the beasts in the dinosaur movie hit "Jurassic Park."

Sandia also uses the technology to simulate nuclear weapons testing, and to help surgeons plan operations -- for example, examining lesions from all sides without cutting.

Diegert found a labyrinth of breathing tubes and passages inside the 4-foot-long Parasaurolophus crest.

'This was a major surprise'

"This was a major surprise," Sullivan says, because the extra chambers and tubes were a new discovery.

To breathe, the animal drew air "through a configuration of tubes and sinuses, and then back down through the skull roof and down its windpipe," Williamson says.

icon (363K/15 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

Paleontologists also think the partially hollow crest may have helped regulate the dinosaur's body temperature and served as a resonating chamber for producing sound.

"If an elephant trumpets through its trunk, the tone -- the frequency of that sound -- is determined by the length of the trunk," Diegert says.

The advanced computer and medical technologies are 75 million years too late to save the parasaurolophus. But they add a whole new dimension to a spectacular find.


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For more information about the Parasaurolophus, visit these pages found on the the Albuquerque, New Mexico Public Schools server:

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