African Fossils

http://africanfossils.org/search

by showwebgl • 13 years ago

71 14 13 years ago

africanfossils.org

melkisch• 13 years ago

3D is getting very interesting. I guess a lot of researchers can play with these embeds from across the world.

jcmoscon• 13 years ago

I'm wondering how they end up with numbers like 17 million. Does anybody know?

steeve• 13 years ago

Most likely thanks to Carbon Dating [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating

jofer• 13 years ago

No. Carbon dating is only reliable back to ~50ka (50,000 years before present), at most ~100ka. For older things, you're typically dating the formation of a mineral grain. Common methods are Potassium/Argon and Uranium/Lead dating.

The ages are based on the stratigraphy that the fossils are in. We can "easily" correlate stratigraphy across wide areas, but most sedimentary rocks are hard to date. For these particular fossils, the stratigraphy happens to contain a lot of volcanic ash units that can be directly dated. In most cases, we use the fossils present (biostratigraphy) to correlate with other units that can be directly dated.

The exact numerical age is based on dating things like feldspar grains in volcanic units that can be dated with K/Ar dating or zircons in volcanics that can be dated with U/Pb, etc, etc.

cyrillevincey• 13 years ago

Very nice 3D use case.

Gauhier• 13 years ago

Great stuff! Would also be great to have your own x-ray results in a embeddable 3D some day...Imagine going to the dentist and say:"want to have a 3D view of my mouth ? Go on www..." Or share on Facebook a 3D version of the leg you broke after a skiing session...etc

netcan• 13 years ago

This feels like something that is really in line with early ideas of what the internet/www should be.

When reading about some piece of science I often wish I could gauge how certain science is about something and why. Human evolution is always going to be a fascinating topic. It's got a lot of uncertainties, contradictory theories and less-than-certain facts that make it into pop science.

Do we have hundreds of high quality fossils for some homo species or is it just a few skull fragments? It's great to be able to interact with evidence/finds like this directly.

tjr• 13 years ago

Do we have hundreds of high quality fossils for some homo species or is it just a few skull fragments?

I often wonder in a similar direction. For example, this headline from a few days ago:

"Horrific FLESH-EATING PLATYPUS once terrorised Australia"

...based on finding a single tooth, it seems.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/05/new_platypus_species...

Fauntleroy• 13 years ago

I'd love to see something like this expanded to all fossils and artifacts. I can only imagine how free and easy access to this kind of information would help aid in archaeological research.

duopixel• 13 years ago

The skull labeled as Homo Sapiens is actually a Homo Erectus, which precedes us by 1.5 million years. Amazing athletic performance, crude tools and possible domestication of fire.

freshyill• 13 years ago

One look at that and I was sure theres on way that's a modern human skull. For reference, here's a reconstruction: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Homo_erec...

cardamomo• 13 years ago

An intriguing experiment! But the taxonomic filters could use a little refinement. The application allows me to select incompatible filters, such as "Genus: gorilla" and "Species: sapiens".

ginko• 13 years ago

Is it just me or is the lighting really dark for many of these fossils?

_random_• 13 years ago

That's to give them Quake-style vibe!

African Fossils

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