Titanosaur eggs in France
Titanosaur eggs in France Titanosaur eggs ResourcesA great eggstravaganza
The Aude region of southern France was the location of the team's great egg-stravaganza. Pieces of fossilised eggshell had been turning up in a vineyard and the locals wanted to know what had laid the eggs. The vineyard was already the site of a dinosaur excavation headed by the suitably named Jean Le Loeuff who was supplying the excellent museum at Esperaza with the remains of Ampelosaurus, giant birds, crocodiles and various other Cretaceous (see Timeline) beasts.
The bits of eggshell appear after heavy rain, so Sarah Gabbott drafted in some local school children and with the help of the fire brigade, simulated some very wet weather. The kids were then set to work hunting for more eggshell. At the same time, John Howell was getting to grips with what the Cretaceous world would have looked like by studying the local sediments and Dave Martill was starting to assess the potential egg-laying candidates.
Eva the Ampelosaurus
Eva the Ampelosaurus was the prime candidate. Eva was a large herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaur who would have wandered through the region in the Cretaceous period. She and her sisters were not the only candidates, however: also in the frame were a giant bird, crocodiles, turtles and other dinosaurs.
Dave and the team immediately got involved with the main dig and there was almost as much speculation about the potential egg layer as there were bad egg-related jokes and puns. John quickly established that the sediments in the area were laid down in meandering rivers flowing across broad, low-lying, vegetated flood plains. He then disappeared on the trail of a geological priest.
World egg-spert
Dave decided he needed help from someone with more egg-sperience (sorry!) and called in Terry Manning. Terry is one of the world's egg-sperts (no stop it!) when it comes to fossil eggs. He brought some amazing specimens with him, including one egg that had been etched to show the foetus of the baby dinosaur within the egg – probably one of the world's most remarkable fossils. The presence of a dinosaur foetus in an egg enables a direct link to be made between the egg and the layer. Whilst there were no babies in any of the eggs found in the vineyard, perhaps there were some similarities between the two.
With this theory in mind, Sarah borrowed a piece of dinosaur eggshell from Terry and with the pieces the team had found, disappeared in search of a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The SEM is a very powerful microscope, which Sarah used to look at the very small-scale structure of the material that makes up the eggs. The structure could then be compared to eggs whose parents were known.
School attic and wine sampling
While Sarah wandered the French countryside looking for hi-tech scientific equipment, John and Jean were in a school attic studying the work of Abbe Jean-Jacques Pouech, who had made the first geology maps of the area back in the 1870s. Pouech had also collected samples and found eggs which he believed might be from dinosaurs. The establishment at the time said that he was wrong – but what would Sarah's analysis say?
Several hours later and back in the vineyard, Dave and John were earnestly testing the theory that there is a strong link between wine quality and the underlying geology. It was tough work, and serious scientific method and a lot of sampling was required. Sarah returned with the news that she had solved the mystery. The micro-structure of the shell proved without doubt that the eggs were laid by a dinosaur. Further wine then had to be consumed as the team toasted Eva the Ampelosaurus.
