Recreating Fossil Floods at SAFL

How do animal bones become fossils? How far do they travel before burial? In a new study from the Saint Anthony Falls Lab, researchers used large-scale flood simulations to test how dinosaur and mammal bones move in real-world water conditions. Read the brief. 

To accompany the research publication, lead researcher and Ph.D. candidate Michael Chiappone created a video that takes viewers on a scientific adventure, digging into questions about how bones can be moved and buried by overbank flooding, ultimately becoming part of the fossil record! Watch fossil science in motion through full scale experiments at SAFL, one of the most cutting edge fluid dynamics facilities in the world!