How Drones Guess Dinosaur Ages

Cleo Abram

We’re starting to use drones to guess a dinosaur’s age. Let me explain... When estimating a dinosaur’s age, paleontologists often rely on elevation maps - assuming that most fossils found in an area are from the same time period. But layers of earth aren’t straight… they’re wavy. They’ve been warped by thousands or millions of years of continental shifting. So paleontologists in Alberta are using drones to create detailed 3D maps of the landscape. These help give a birds eye view of all the folds and layers of soil. So when a fossil is found, they aren’t just relying on its elevation, they can zoom out to see how that layer winds across the landscape. This helps researchers get a more definitive picture of when plants and animals lived, when they went extinct, and what may have caused it. Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories! #shorts #animation #illustration #dinosaur #science #stemfacts