December 17, 2007

BCC Students & Faculty
Examine Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs

-Eggs Likely From Velociraptors & Herbivore Dinosaur

(TOWN OF DICKINSON, NY) Broome Community College President Dr. Laurence Spraggs today announced that the Engineering Science and Radiologic Departments will be holding an event in Decker 315 on Wednesday, December 19th at 11:30am.  Students and faculty will be examining two fossilized dinosaur eggs that were discovered in China.

Bruce Oldfield, professor of Geology, was able to obtain two fossilized dinosaur eggs from China.  One of the eggs is from a raptor-like dinosaur similar to the terrifying Velociraptors depicted in the Jurassic Park movies.  The other egg is a hadrosaur egg from a large herbivorous dinosaur.  These genuine dinosaur eggs are nearly complete and caused Professor Oldfield to wonder if there might be embryos in either egg. 

Nancy Button, chair of Radiologic Technology, arranged to have the eggs x-rayed by the BCC Radiologic Technology Dept but found that the equipment was not sufficient to fully penetrate the rock.  She then contacted UHS Wilson Hospital to perform a CT scan of both eggs.  The CT scans showed that no embryos are present indicating the eggs were unfertilized or did not develop into embryos.

“Dinosaur eggs are relative rare, dinosaur eggs with embryos are extremely rare,” said Professor Oldfield. “So we viewed this as a wonderful opportunity to engage students for two different departments and a local area hospital in this scientific research.  Although the eggs turned out to be empty, the investigation shows that serious scientific research is conducted at Broome Community College and that its unique interdepartmental cooperation makes it stand out above many other community colleges.”