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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, December 17, 2018 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Photo of Tom Holtz with dinosaur claw

Thomas Holtz, Jr.

"T. rex in silico: The Limits of Modeling in Reconstructing the Biology of Dinosaurs"

ABSTRACT -- Paleontology is more than simply finding, restoring, and classifying fossils: it is the science of interpreting the biology of extinct organisms from their preserved remains. A wide variety of analytical techniques have been brought to bear on this issue to understanding the functional anatomy of ancient creatures. Tyrannosaurus rex, as one of the best-known fossil species and one known from numerous individual specimens, has been subject to numerous such studies. We will examine what kind of analyses have been used to study this most famous dinosaur, especially its feeding and locomotory adaptations, but also see how modeling is limited in recognizing the real biology of the actual species.

SPEAKER -- Dr. Thomas Holtz, Jr. s Principal Lecturer in Vertebrate Paleontology at the Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park. His primary research is on the evolution, adaptations, and paleobiology of carnivorous dinosaurs, with a particular focus on Tyrannosauroidea (tyrant dinosaurs: T. rex and its kin). He is also the Faculty Director of the Science & Global Change program, a two-year living-learning community on campus. Dr. Holtz received his Bachelors in Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins in 1987, and his Ph.D. in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at Yale University in 1992. He is a Research Associate in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and is on the Scientific Council of the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore. He has been consultants on numerous TV documentaries and museum exhibits. He is co-editor of the third edition of The Complete Dinosaur (Indiana University Press), currently being assembled.

Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov