Project Prosauropod: Discover a Dinosaur with us.

Parrsboro, Nova Scotia

prosauropod dinosaur, project prosauropod

Become part of Project Prosauropod and watch as researchers uncover the 200 million year old skeleton of a prosauropod dinosaur. Check in every week to see what discoveries have been made, as well as new animations and photographs of this important specimen.

Current Lab Update

Vertebra

The technician removes excess sandstone from a vertebra. This will make it easier for the technician to identify the fossil.
Bone fragments that have seperated from the main piece will need to be re-attached after all the surfaces are cleaned.
Vinac, a strong consolidant, will be used in order to re-attach the broken pieces. The piece shown bottom right, will be re-attached to a much larger fossil, that is still encased in sandstone.

Juvenile Prosauropod

The technician clears sandstone away from the bone fragments. If the bone fragments can be completely removed from the sand they will be easier to re-attach to the larger piece (above right).
A hand pick is ideal for this work as the tip can be sharpened to a very fine point, this is useful when tiny grains of sand must be removed.

Rib Bones

The air scribe is used to quickly remove large amounts of sandstone in order to expose smaller rib bones.
Shown top right is a large rib bone which has been faulted in two areas. Faulting happens when two parts of the Earth's crust move past each other. A fault may be very large, very small, or in between.
More work is required to uncover the smaller ribs, which are buried deeply in the sandstone.

Questions and Answers	Schools
Email your questions to DinoProj@gov.ns.ca When submitting a question please provide your name, age, and school name (if you are a student). Check the Q&A Archive to see the answers to previous questions.	Is your school watching us? We are trying to reach as many students, from as many different schools as possible. Whether you are in elementary, public, private, high school or university, we want to hear from you! Please send us an email with your school name and city, and we will include your school in the list of schools that are following our progress.