Paleontology question

[Ofaloaf]

This is probably going to sound like a mind-bogglingly simple question for anybody who knows, but...

Has technological progress made it that much easier to find and uncover fossils over the past century? If, say, Sir Hypothetical of the Royal Society had decided to go on an expedition to Mongolia or northern China in the late 19th century, would it have been that much more difficult for him to discover some of the fossils found in the Yixian Formation?

 

[Zyzzyva]

This is probably going to sound like a mind-bogglingly simple question for anybody who knows, but...

Has technological progress made it that much easier to find and uncover fossils over the past century? If, say, Sir Hypothetical of the Royal Society had decided to go on an expedition to Mongolia or northern China in the late 19th century, would it have been that much more difficult for him to discover some of the fossils found in the Yixian Formation?

Yes, it would have been significantly more difficult.

...To be slightly more serious (although that is a perfectly good explanation, IMHO), modern techniques are better at finding buried fossils via eg "subterranean sonar"-type devices, which means you don't have to just wait to find bones actually poking out of the rock, and also tends to be significantly more thorough in terms of collecting small bits. Also, it's better at finding and dealing with skin prints, footprints, feather prints, ossified tissue, and so forth (not that people couldn't back in the day, but they were far less good at realizing what they were looking at and tended to use gratuitously destructive retrieval methods to get at the bones if there wasn't very obvious evidence of impressions or whatever to be preserved).

 

[Ofaloaf]

Yes, it would have been significantly more difficult.

Bah! Smartass.

...To be slightly more serious (although that is a perfectly good explanation, IMHO), modern techniques are better at finding buried fossils via eg "subterranean sonar"-type devices, which means you don't have to just wait to find bones actually poking out of the rock, and also tends to be significantly more thorough in terms of collecting small bits.

But wouldn't that tool only be used if researchers thought it likely that fossils would be found-- mostly likely by finding exposed fossils there in the first place? Especially with all the tales of farmers in Liaoning province uncovering fossils-- faking it sometimes, of course, but still-- would it really be that difficult for a Victorian paleontologist to discover fossil evidence of new dinosaur species if he just went there?

 

[AdirondackSeperatist]

I can say that, as a proffesional geologist, the best way of finding whats underground is still to dig it up. Modern technology only helps make the job more convenient, but you still need to know where to look and what you're looking for.

Also the overwhelming majority of fossils known are small, anywhere from about and inch to microscopic in size. Dionasaur fossils, and even more modern fossils from the early cenozoic are an exceedingly rare find.

 

[eschaton]

Basically, it's just new fossil-bearing formations are being found. If new technology played a major role, we'd continue to see tons of new fossil dinosaurs from Europe, for example, but outside of a few newer formations like the Isle of Wight, new taxa in Europe are few and far between compared to say China or Argentina.

 

[Stephen]

As 4WD's choppers and planesmake it alot easier getting into remote places and hauling out the bones, yes.