MovieChat Forums > Deepwater Horizon (2016) Discussion > How common is it for a dino's body part ...

How common is it for a dino's body part to be found at any rig?


What an incredible movie, but I'm keft with a trivial qtn please, after reading many of the other threads here - which already cover the far deeper questions, and this is to anyone who knows about these things:


***[POSSIBLE SPOILER]***


How common is it for a dinosaur's tooth (or indeed any other identifiable part of a dinosaur) to be found at an oil rig? And secondly, how on earth would they find such on a rig anyway!?

Thank you







Sandwiched between The Principle of Mediocrity & Rare Earth Theory, you should see The Fermi Paradox

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Fairly common; in fact, geological research is conducted much in the same way; wells can often be located at the same depth as many dino remains, as the pockets may have existed in the same era. I grew up around construction workers of all kinds, including those who worked on this type of structure; apparently fossils make the rounds just like any other geological artifact that might be resting at a drilling site.

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Hi, just wanted to say thanks for answering.

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Sandwiched between The Principle of Mediocrity & Rare Earth Theory, you should see The Fermi Paradox

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I'm frankly shocked they didn't find an entire perfectly preserved T.rex encased in amber, so much that one could even call it a plot hole that they didn't find it.

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hey supadude no problem. Probably could have explained it better, but it's my dad's expertise not mine lol

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They're playing with you supadude.

While not impossible, it's incredibly rare to find identifiable dinosaur remains at a drill site unless you dig for them yourself. This is because of two reasons:

1. Despite common belief, 99.9% of oil does not come from dino remains. Any basic geology class will teach you that oil was created by innumerable plants and animals that died over billions of years. Their remains were covered by sediment over billions of years, and the decay of those remains combined with pressure (add confusing chemistry explanation here) blah blah blah then created crude oil. While dead dinos certainly contributed to the mass of decaying organism, they were only a very small portion. Plant life was the major contributor.

2. Any skeletal remains would be ground to incredibly small fragments by the drill bit. Think about this for a minute: the drill bits used in oil drilling grind through any type of rock and pulverize it. What bone, however fossilized, do you realistically think will make it past the drill bit?

Some dinos remains have been found at drill sites, but almost always on land and almost never because of the actual drilling.

I was a District Manager for National Oilwell Varco 2001-2008

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https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-04/trco-twd042406.php

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That was from a core, not found in the shakers. I suppose it's just about possible that a fossilised bone could be disturbed by drilling mud once the bit has gone past and in very soft or unconsolidated rock.

Fossils show up in wells all the time, but they are microfossils - the only type that can survive being drilled.

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