European Knight
09-11-2015, 06:54 PM
Fossil Finder lets armchair archaeologists search for dinosaur bones in Africa
Researchers at Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya and the University of Bradford, UK want to find bones in Africa's Turkana Basin, and they're turning to drones and citizen science to help do it.
The consortium, which also includes The British Museum, Fragmented Heritage Project and the Arts & Humanities Research Council, has created Fossil Finder: a newly launched website that encourages armchair archeologists to find fossils in images.
Fossil Finder uses both drones and kites to capture high-resolution surface images of the desert region in the Turkana Basin in northern Kenya. The first surveyed area includes the east side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, which is called a "fossil
hotspot" by the research team. Turkana Basin is perfectly suited for this type of study as the Basin is an area of rifting, where the pulling apart of the earth's crust leads to the burying and possible fossilization of bones.
Erosion over time exposes these buried bone fragments, making it possible to view them from the surface.
Fossil Finder lets armchair archaeologists search for dinosaur bones in Africa | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/09/11/fossil-finder-lets-armchair-archeologists-search-for-dinosaur-bones-in-africa/?cmpid=NL_SciTech)
http://global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/FossilFinder.jpg
Researchers at Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya and the University of Bradford, UK want to find bones in Africa's Turkana Basin, and they're turning to drones and citizen science to help do it.
The consortium, which also includes The British Museum, Fragmented Heritage Project and the Arts & Humanities Research Council, has created Fossil Finder: a newly launched website that encourages armchair archeologists to find fossils in images.
Fossil Finder uses both drones and kites to capture high-resolution surface images of the desert region in the Turkana Basin in northern Kenya. The first surveyed area includes the east side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, which is called a "fossil
hotspot" by the research team. Turkana Basin is perfectly suited for this type of study as the Basin is an area of rifting, where the pulling apart of the earth's crust leads to the burying and possible fossilization of bones.
Erosion over time exposes these buried bone fragments, making it possible to view them from the surface.
Fossil Finder lets armchair archaeologists search for dinosaur bones in Africa | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/09/11/fossil-finder-lets-armchair-archeologists-search-for-dinosaur-bones-in-africa/?cmpid=NL_SciTech)
http://global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/FossilFinder.jpg