02-November-2008, 07:30 PM
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Established Member
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 1,044
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Footprints?
I had missed the problem of footprints when I read through the article. These guys are really thinking.
So there is a problem both with the biological limitations to support the massive dinosaur and then there is a separate problem that the dinosaur footprints should be deeper than observed in fossilized remains.
http://mb-soft.com/public/dinosaur.html#legs
Footprints
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A related subject also applies. A human might weigh 200 pounds and have a foot that has an area of 1/4 square foot. While walking, there are times when one foot is in the air. At these times, the entire 200 pounds is supporting on that 1/4 square foot, meaning that there is 800 pounds per square foot pressure ….may press a half-inch into the ground, leaving molds of the person's foot after the ground dried out.
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The large brachiosaurs appear to have had feet that had around three square feet area, and at least two of them were probably always in contact with the ground while such a creature would have been walking. The 160,000 pounds of its weight would therefore be supported by six square feet ….27,000 pounds per square foot, almost 40 times that of a human and many times that of any known modern creature. Such an animal walking on soft or muddy ground probably wouldn't sink in 40 times as deeply as a person, but certainly very deeply. It is very likely that such footprints would be pits around a foot deep, in even moderately soft ground, because of the enormous pressure created from the weight of the creature.
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Some fossilized footprints have been found that have been identified as being made by large dinosaurs. These footprints tend to be just an inch or two deep. They still have enough detail to be identified as dinosaur footprints, so they are not shallow, eroded remnants of earlier, deeper ones. This implies that less pressure (weight per square foot) may have been present when the footprints were made (or the ground was extremely hard).
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