Museum dinosaur labs draw international researchers

BOZEMAN, Mont. – When you have dinosaur fossils in your basement and the hospital down the street does CT scans for you, you get calls from researchers around the world. Especially when your computer can handle 3-D photos and you can send digital images over the Internet. That's what Jack and Celeste Horner have found at the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University in Bozeman.

Jack is curator of paleontology. His wife, Celeste, runs the 3-D Imaging Laboratory and the Histology Lab. Together, they assist dinosaur researchers from all over the globe who study the museum's fossils or need its sophisticated technology.

The museum has a 3-D laser scanner and at least eight computers for manipulating 3-D images. Celeste can scan the leg of a Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, and show how it might move if it were part of a live dinosaur. She can scan a sinus cavity of a duck-billed dinosaur so mechanical engineering students can make models of the empty spaces.

"There aren't but a couple of places in the United States that have this kind of facility. That's why people like Emily could come here." said Jack Horner, noting that everything in the museum's paleontology budget -- except his salary -- is donated by corporations or individuals.

Emily Rayfield is a scientist from the University of Cambridge in England. She contacted the Horners a couple of years ago because of her interest in the skull of a meat-eating dinosaur from the late Jurassic Period. The Museum of the Rockies houses the skull of an Allosaurus fragilis excavated in 1991 in northern Wyoming. Uncrushed and almost one meter long, it was ideal for her research.

"The way Jack and Celeste helped with this work was by providing access to the skull of Big Al," Rayfield said. "More importantly, they arranged for the skull to be CT scanned at the local hospital and oversaw the whole proceedings....Their input was absolutely crucial to the success of the project."

Rayfield's findings were described in a paper published in the Feb. 22 issue of Nature, an international weekly journal of science. The article was titled, "Cranial Design and Function in a Large Theropod Dinosaur." The Horners were listed as coauthors.

Her research revealed the surprising strength of the Allosaurus skull and gave new and "hitherto unappreciated" insights into its design, Rayfield said. Her work also showed the value of using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in dinosaur studies. FEA is a technique normally used to find out how a man-made structure or human tissue responds to various stresses.

The technology for studying fossils has improved markedly since he became a paleontologist, Horner said.

"It's a lot different, but we're making it different," he added. "When you are part of the group that's making it different, it's pretty cool."

Horner first had a fossil CT scanned 19 years ago, but the resolution was poor. These days, he said, "It's been getting better, so now it's been getting more useful."

Horner generally takes fossils to one of three places for CT scans. He uses Bozeman Deaconess Hospital for fossils that fit the equipment and don't need extremely high resolution. He sends fossils to the San Diego Children's Hospital for more technical processes. When fossils are larger and he needs the highest resolution, he sends the bones in a U-Haul truck to the General Electric jet engine lab in Cincinnati.

"Once we have that CT scan data, then it's brought back here," Horner said. "We have software we can use to manipulate the images."

Celeste Horner takes the CT scan data, then makes or tweaks the software so it fits the needs of a particular researcher. With Rayfield, for example, she had to convert the CT data into a form that would be compatible with Finite Element Analysis and could be sent over the Internet.

Working with her in the 3-D imaging laboratory is Nels Peterson of Corvallis, Mont., an undergraduate student in electrical engineering and computer engineering. He is a technical expert on the electron microscope.

Researchers across MSU and around the world are welcome to use the museum's 3-D imaging and histology labs, Celeste said. Anyone with questions can contact her at [email protected] "There is a lot of science to be done, and we are not going to do it all in Bozeman," Jack Horner continued. "We encourage people from all over to use our bones and our equipment."

By Evelyn Boswell