Elemental Distribution in Fossilized Dinosaur Bone

Due to their extraordinary size sauropod dinosaurs are among the biologically most interesting vertebrates. Recent estimates based on photogrammetric measurements in actual skeletons or on scientific reconstructions place common sauropods consistently in the 15t to 50t category. Sauropods are tetrapods, a body similar to proboscideans (elephants) is combined with a very small head on a very long neck and a long tail. Due to the very long time that has passed since the sauropods lived (their diversity and range peak was in the Late Jurassic and they went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago) sauropod bones today are fossilized. During the burial and the fossilization of the sauropod bones, their organic parts degenerated and the bone histology, bone porosity, protein content, the crystallinity of the bone apatite, carbonate content, and their content of chemical species in general changed. Thus the determination of the elemental distribution in bones from dinosaurs can provide essential information when studying these diagenetic changes occurring during fossilization. Moreover the knowledge of the elements and their distribution in ancient fossil samples may allow for conclusions on the dietary habits of extinct animals.