"Mummified" Hadrosaur

Today's York (PA) Dispatch carried an AP article about a fossil Hadrosaurus unearthed from the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota. What is remarkable about this fossil is that soft parts, including skin, ligaments, and tendons were petrified. Maybe more soft parts--analysis using Boeing's mother-of-all-CT-scanners is being used to examine the fossil. I'm not sure why it was reported today; two books and a television program have already been produced about it. The program will air December 9 on the National Geographic Channel. National Geographic was a funder of research conducted on the fossil. Oh. That's right, TV show promotion. More information about this fossil and related materials can be found at the website of the research foundation set up to study fossils of the Hell Creek Formation.

Now I have to keep an eye on the York Dispatch for letters written to the editor explaining how this specimen proves dinosaurs died in The Flood. Perhaps an editor, impatient with readers for not flooding the mailroom with letters condemning the PBS Nova presentation of Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, was trying to instigate something.