An X-Ray diffraction (XRD) study to characterize the mineralogy of dinosaur bones from Arcillas de Morella Formation

• Autores: G. Piga, Andrés Santos Cubedo, Massimo Piccinini, Stefano Enzo
• Localización: Geogaceta, ISSN 0213-683X, Nº. 51, 2012, págs. 23-26
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • An investigation by powder X-ray Diffraction (XRD), supplemented with the Rietveld analysis, was conducted on twenty-two Spanish dinosaur bone specimens from Lower Cretaceous age to investigate mineralogy, taphonomy and diagenetic processes. The diffraction approach assessed in all specimens the presence of fluorapatite at various levels of percentage as the mineral phase constituting the fossil bone. In addition to fluorapatite, calcite and quartz were also found as main secondary phases in many specimens. The average crystallite size of the �apatitic� constituent phase was found to vary from a minimum of ca. 183 Å to an upper level of 2107 Å. No systematic relation between apatite crystallite size and age of the dinosaur bones was found that suggests a high variability of diagenetic processes affecting the growth of bone crystallites even in the same site.