SGER: High-resolution digital scanning of the Thermopolis Archaeopteryx

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High Resolution Digital Scanning ofthe Thermopolis ArchaeopteryxJacques Gautier and Ryan Carney, Yale UniversityThe fossil bird Archaeopteryx (meaning ancient wing), the earliest and most primitive flying dinosaur, lived in the Jurassic Period around 150 million years ago. It is the critical missing link between extinct dinosaurs and modern birds, and belonged to a group of dinosaurs most closely related to the raptors made famous in the movie, Jurassic Park. The spectacular quality of the Thermopolis specimen, the most complete and best-preserved of the ten known Archaeopteryx fossils makes this a key specimen for understanding the early evolution of flight, and firmly places it in the center of centuries-long debate on the origin of birds. The specimen will be scanned in Livermore, California at the national security research facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). This particular scanning process, never before used in paleontology, will combine several different state-of-the-art digital scanning technologies normally used to scan space shuttle wings and nuclear warheads to obtain unprecedented resolution of the fossil in 3D. Additionally, given the exciting and novel nature of this project, LLNL has pledged to substantially reduce the scanning charges, thereby providing scans that are not only of better quality, but at a better price than what could be achieved elsewhere. However, the narrow window of opportunity to scan this privately-owned specimen in summer of 2009 adds urgency to this unprecedented opportunity. Scanning will digitally preserve this important fossil for future scientific study and educational use. It will provide the opportunity to examine the entire anatomy of Archaeopteryx in high-resolution 3D, and compare it to that of its closest living relatives, the alligator and the pigeon. Results will be published and made available online for scientists and the public. This may also include interactive 3D images and animations that can be manipulated through web browsers, which would allow the public to easily visualize and understand complex concepts related to anatomy and evolution. The data from this project will in turn spur innovative research in a number of subsequent studies as well. This includes an anticipated project to reconstruct and animate the skeleton and muscles of Archaeopteryx in 3D, in order to study how well this animal was able to fly. These subsequent studies may provide crucial new insights into the trees down vs. ground up origin-of-flight debate, and greatly enhance our understanding of the evolution of birds. Such findings will reach broad audiences through museum exhibits, scientific presentations to the public, and diverse published material in formats understandable and useful to non-scientists. These efforts will have Broader Impacts for promoting the global participation of geographically-underrepresented groups, and for fundamentally enhancing the teaching and understanding of evolutionary science.