Even flossing wouldn't have helped. (Paleontology).Small particles trapped in minuscule minuscule Lowercase letters in calligraphy, in contrast to majuscule, or uppercase letters. Unlike majuscules, minuscules are not fully contained between two real or hypothetical lines; their stems can go above or below the line. cracks or pits in the fossilized fos·sil·ize v. fos·sil·ized, fos·sil·iz·ing, fos·sil·iz·es v.tr. 1. To convert into a fossil. 2. To make outmoded or inflexible with time; antiquate. v.intr. teeth of some plant-eating dinosaurs could give scientists a way to identify what types of greenery the ancient herbivores munched. Many types of plants produce phytoliths--literally, plant stones--in their stems and leaves by converting the silica dissolved in groundwater into a crystalline form similar to opals. These tiny parcels of grit come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and they have a microscopic structure different from that in silica crystals formed by geologic processes, says David A. Krauss, a paleobiologist at Boston College Boston College, main campus at Chestnut Hill, Mass.; coeducational; Jesuit; est. and opened 1863. Actually a university, the school's Chestnut Hill campus comprises colleges of arts and sciences and business administration, the graduate school, and schools of nursing . Because they're harder than tooth enamel enamel, a siliceous substance fusible upon metal. It may be so compounded as to be transparent or opaque and with or without color, but it is usually employed to add decorative color. It was used to decorate jewelry in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. , phytoliths scratch tooth surfaces and can become embedded in small cracks there. Krauss examined a collection of teeth from hadrosaurs and ceratopsians--two different groups of plant-eating dinosaurs--unearthed in Dinosaur Provincial Park Dinosaur Provincial Park is a World Heritage Site located about 2 hours drive east of Calgary, Alberta, Canada or 48 kilometres northeast of the community of Brooks. The park is situated in the valley of the Red Deer River, which is noted for its striking badland topography. in Alberta, Canada. He found that about 25 percent of these teeth had phytoliths trapped in the chewing surfaces. Different types of plants produce phytoliths that look alike, but some groups of species generate distinct crystal forms. Krauss analyzed the phytoliths produced by living relatives of the ancient plants found in the fossil layers holding the dinosaurs. The sizes and shapes of crystals from the fossil teeth suggest that the ceratopsian dinosaurs, relatives of Triceratops Triceratops (trīsĕr`ətŏps) [Gr., = three-horn face], genus of ornithischian quadruped dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period. , may have eaten a high proportion of tough-leafed cycads, whereas the hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs, probably favored ferns. --S.P. |
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