| MadSci Network: Other |
Yes, if you were digging 80 million years from now, the location WOULD determine if you find anything. Today's dig sites are not just chosen at random. Dig sites are carefully selected, taking not only anthropology in mind, but also paleo [ancient] environments as well. All living things require certain resources to survive. These inevitably must come from the environment. An environment in which a species flourishes is one that contains, in abundance, those certain resources required for it's existence. People, for example, tend to build their civilizations around and/or near water bodies just like packs of animals tend to stay in territories with high amounts of food and water resources. The environment itself, even over long spans of time, can alter the entire geologic record of the earth very little. There are several places on earth where one can actively view the banded iron formations in over a billion years of age, formed well before the earth contained "complex" life. Even major catastrophic events cannot completely obscure an entire stratigraphic record. Even periods of "erased time" from the record can usually be found in areas adjacent to the region, so that at least a patchy picture can be formed of the general area. Moreover, geology employs the Principle of Unitarianism, which states, "Geologic processes occurring on and within earth occurred in the past, also occur in the present, and will occur in the future in similar ways. In sum,the present is the key to the past and the future." Geologic clues are essential in that they are indicative of environment: river, 645 million years ago, still deposited sediments, sands or pebbles in varying proportions just as a river does today. The deposits are extremely similar to those today. When the dinosaurs were the prominent life form on earth, the catastrophic event that caused their extinction was recorded in the geologic record all over the world. It is well known that dinosaurs required water for survival, as indicated by many large deposits several species of dinosaurs, very varied in other aspects, congregating around 'the old watering hole.' by combining knowledge of the dinosaur water requirements along with the geologic record of water deposits would yield a much higher probability of larger quantities of dinosaurs within a specific dig site. You will not find a snake living at the top of Mt. Everest. Due to the techniques employed in selection of dig sites, combined with over 100 years of research into the behavior of dinosaurs, that makes the probability of a lost civilization of dinosaurs (still unfound) almost 0.
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Other.