Over 5 million years ago , a mass stranding of whales create what is now a whale cemetery in modern day Chile . Just why those whales died was a mystery — until now . Nick Pyenson , the palaeontologist who top the team that crock up the case , is here to respond your questions !
He will be joining us here from 11:30 – 12:30 ( Pacific time ) , so start asking him question now .
Top image : The Smithsonian ’s digitization squad scan a whale fogy / Smithsonian Institution ; Bottom ikon : A 3 - D synergistic graphic of a whale fossil that they brought back with them / Smithsonian Institution
The culprit in the case turned out to be a toxic algae that kill off the hulk in four separate events over the twosome of 10,000 to 16,000 years , depart more than 40 fossilized whale at the site known as Cerro Ballena in Chile ’s Atacama Desert .
But , the graveyard at Cerro Ballena was actually exposed because of route grammatical construction in the country , which was destroy the fogy website . So , researchers tried an experiment : Using the Smithsonian’snew 3 - 500 modeling tools , they digitalise the entire web site speedily in under a week , and took it back with them as file cabinet to analyze .
https://gizmodo.com/you-can-now-print-your-own-wooly-mammoth-thanks-smith-1464385721
Here ’s one of the interactional nontextual matter of the fossilized whales that they were able to contribute back .
you may also read the whole paper , publish in Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences , here .
Pyenson is also the curator of fogy marine mammal at the Smithsonian ’s National Museum of Natural History , where he oversees the cosmos ’s big aggregation of fossil marine mammal . His research focuses on reply the enquiry of how and why whales and other aquatic life made the changeover from land - to - sea .
Pyenson will be unite us here from 11:30 – 12:30 ( Pacific time ) . Start require him questions now about just how one does a PM on a 5 million year - old whale , the tech he used to do it , the organic evolution of whales , and anything else you want !
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