We are now working on a 70-million-year-old Titanosaurus specimen from Argentina. This is a huge sauropod (plant-eating dinosaur with a long neck and long tail) that is being prepared for scientific research by a team including Carnegie Museum of Natural History paleontologist Matt Lamanna. The preparation process involves removing the matrix—the surrounding rock formed from the sediments in which the animal's body was buried—to reveal the fossilized skeleton. This creature could very well turn out to be a new specimen yet unknown to science!

Preparator Dan Pickering working on Titanosaurus

The specimen arrived at the fossil preparation lab in several individual plaster "jackets" which protected the block during transport from the field. Over the course of the next two years, we will be opening these jackets to clean the fossils as well as to consolidate and preserve the many different bone elements encased in the matrix.

Titanosaurus fossil elements in their protective plaster jackets

This work is being carried out in conjunction with teams of scientists and technicians at two other U.S. institutions: Drexel University and Philadelphia academy of Sciences. Because the animal was so large (90 feet long and 13 feet tall at the hips), the fossil elements were distributed among three teams to reduce the amount of time needed for preparation. PaleoLab staff are working on pelvic elements, several vertebrae, and some ribs. When work on the fossil is complete, the titanosaur will be returned to its native country.

Large fossil elements such as the pelvic and shoulder girdles are currently on view in the lab window, along with a single huge neck vertebra.

Left and Center: Pelvic bones, including ischium
Right: Metatarsal (foot bone)

Preparator Dan Pickering works on Titanosaurus in PaleoLab while museum visitors look on through the viewing window