RE: Archaeopterix? What Archaeopterix....?!

[pharrinj@PLU.edu]

On Tue, 16 Jan 1996, Jarno Peschier wrote:

> The trouble would not exactly the splitting (that occurs quite often), but
> the fact that all the feathers would be visible completely. Feathers are not
> flat and it's almost impossible that the creature would be fossilised with
> *all* the wing and tail feathers nicely flat in one plane.

Not if the bird (and its feathers) are lying on the bottom of a lagoon, 
where the water pressure would press the large wing feathers flat, and 
particularly not if the fossil were later pressed by overlying sediments.

> >i doubt that owen had the capability to produce such a fake that would
> >withstand 150 years of scrutiny!  building the limestone like in the
> >5 specimens is something that has only recently been accomplished by 
> >tile companies who want such stone without having to quarry it. 
> 
> 1) Owen did no do it himself, he let someone in Germany do it.
> 2) They are genuine Compsognathus remains. "Only" the feather imprints are
> fakes.
> Read the book...

1) Some German would have had no more capacity to forge _Archaeopteryx_ 
than Owen himself.
2) They are demonstrably NOT the remains of _Compsognathus_.

> >had that been written by a geochemist or sedimentologist, it might be
> >a believable hypothesis.
> 
> It has little to do with geochemistry or sedimentologie, I think.

It has everything to do with geochemistry and sedimentology.

     Nick Pharris