By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
May 3, 2006— A knucklebone discovered 1.4 miles below the North Sea represents both Norway's first dinosaur find and the world's deepest dino fossil, according to a paper to be published in next month's Norwegian Journal of Geology.
Picture from here
Workmen stumbled upon the fossil while drilling through sandstone for oil exploration at the Snorre offshore field located at the northern end of the North Sea. Jørn Harald Hurum, lead author of the paper, described the bone to Discovery News. "It is a long bone, probably (a) tibia/fibula or radius/ulna," he said.
"It is only a small fragment, but it contains a histology only known from Plateosaurus of the same age in Germany (Radial fibro-lamellar bone). So our educated guess (same age and same histology) is Plateosaurus."
Hurum further explained that the fibrous bone tissue located within the knucklebone is unique to Plateosaurus. It is associated with very rapid growth and high rates of bone deposits in the body...
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