82 foot (25 m) long dinosaur skeleton discovered in Pombal, Portugal

over 1 year ago

Dinosaur bones in Pombal
Image: Instituto Dom Luiz

In 2017, a man doing some construction work in his backyard in Pombal came across some bones. Subsequently, the find attracted attention of scientists from a number of research institutions in Portugal, Spain and elsewhere and in August of 2022 they uncovered the full magnitude of that find - the remains of a sauropod, a herbivorous dinosaur that was about 25 meters long and weighed over 75 tons.

This is certainly a very exciting find. And a very humbling experience for anyone who is willing to realistically consider both the powers of science and its limitations. Because without a chance we would have never known these fossils were there, and our knowledge about ancient megafauna would have been lacking this important piece. Now if this is how little we know about animals each of whom weighed as much as a battalion of soldiers - then what is our knowledge of bacteria that existed millions of years ago? And the role of these tiny organisms is huge - for example, phytoplankton is estimated to produce up to 80% of the Earth's oxygen. And that is relatively recent knowledge.

So let us hope this find helps us gain better understanding of the life millions of years ago. And let us also maintain a necessary measure of humility in modeling our planet's changes and behaviour, given how little we actually know. That, naturally, applies to climate modelers more than any other group, given the influence they seek to wield and the disastrous track record of failed predictions they have amassed thus far.