Fossil Fish Salad: Washed-up bodies of paddlefish from the Tanis fossil site in North Dakota. They were tossed onto a riverbank by a seismic tidal wave when, one spring day 66 million years ago, the great asteroid struck and ended the reign of the dinosaurs.
Image: AFP
Sensational fossil discoveries are also shown on television without a proper specialist publication. It’s not bad if you know.
AAt the beginning of April, the paleontologist Robert DePalma, who has not yet earned his doctorate, gave a lecture that was listened to with obvious enthusiasm by a Nobel laureate in physics, among others. However, this was by no means the most drastic break with the conventions of a scientific establishment differentiated according to subject and seniority. DePalma spoke about a fossil site called Tanis in North Dakota. It consists of petrified animals and plants that were washed together on the exact day the asteroid hit that wiped out dinosaurs and ended the Cretaceous period. That in itself is a sensation, albeit a well-publicized one.
But now, in just 50 minutes, DePalma presented at least three other sensations from Tanis: a pterodactyl egg with a nearly fully developed chick inside, a dinosaur’s leg that was ripped off in the catastrophe, and a splinter of the bolide itself which even the exact meteorite subtype can be determined. The BBC has already filmed a documentary that aired a few days ago, in which Sir David Attenborough personally presents Robert DePalma’s “Crime Scene Investigation” into the last hour of the dinosaurs.
Only: None of these new sensations have gone through the review process of a specialist publication. Some of DePalma’s Ph.D. colleagues are cautiously incensed. But even fossil researchers will probably have to get used to the fact that research that is of particular public interest no longer reaches the willing public only through the proven gates of scientific quality assurance. The public, however, is expected to assume that some of the things that have already been credited to media libraries will ultimately turn out to be mistakes.