In order to determine how different levels of pressure would affect a turtle’s shell, some scientists looked at various turtle species’ shells. In a 2012 study, it was discovered that painted and box turtles’ shells buckled the most, while pond sliders, diamondback terrapins, and turtles of the species known as slider turtles’ shells did not buckle at all.
The interconnecting plates and ribs that make up a turtle’s shell were examined in this study for their material characteristics. The study’s turtles were all unharmed.
Some fossils make for pretty fun playthings. You may observe how they flex and change in appearance under various pressures and environmental factors.
The unusual effort of examining the process by which a turtle’s shell flattens over time was undertaken by Holger Petermann and his colleagues this year. They discovered that determining how deeply a fossil site was originally buried before ages of other geological action is possible through this flattening. The “turtle compaction index” was the term they gave their measurement technique (TCI).
The Colorado rocks from which the various fossil sites were excavated by Petermann and his colleagues date back around 63 million years. These prehistoric sediments offer glimpses of an aquatic ecosystem that was rebuilding itself following the asteroid impact that wiped out nonavian dinosaurs during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. If the burial was properly done, the minerals at these sites could provide significant information about the environmental conditions that led to their formation.
We tried numerous approaches to determine what was wrong before realizing that we had numerous entire turtle shells.
Around 230 million years ago, turtles began to evolve, and they soon spread throughout freshwater ecosystems like rivers and ponds. This is due to the fossil-collecting propensity of freshwater habitats.
Many fundamental studies on how turtle shells behave under pressure had an impact on the creation of the turtle compression index. Over 70 whole shells were examined by the researchers, including 21 from Corral Bluffs, 44 from the Hell Creek Formation in the western United States, and five from other older Cretaceous and Jurassic sites. Then, they determined where the shells fell on the “typical perfect turtle shell to pancake” spectrum, according to Petermann.
Many of the turtles were discovered to have been buried in the ooze at the waterway’s bottom by the Corral Bluff turtle compaction index. The turtles had been submerged beneath silt beds that were 1,700 to 1,800 feet deep over time. The depth to which the turtles had been buried depended on how dense the original mud was.
The scientists discovered that by chopping up the bones of prehistoric turtles, they may discover more about how and how long the turtles had been interred. We can better grasp the turtles’ environment and manner of passing if we have this knowledge.
According to Petermann, it took a lot of imagination to realize that the colors were associated with varied pressure and temperature levels. Finding a pattern requires a lot of imagination and research time into fossils.
Many historical civilizations, including those of India, China, and the Americas, believed that the world was borne on the backs of cosmic chelonians. When it comes to comprehending the old worlds that have been buried, it really is turtles all the way down.
