评论
打印
Amazingly less than 100 meters away, there are more clues to the past. Luis' colleague has found the remains of a sauropod.
令人惊讶的是，挖掘不到100米就发现了更多的指向过去的线索。刘易斯的同事发现了蜥脚类动物的遗体。
There's a piece of rib here that's going into the ground about this angle. And then there's a piece of the pubis, the hip bone right here. And it's almost complete, save for just the very back end which has already started to weather off.
这儿有一块肋骨，它以这个角度埋在地下。那里还有一根趾骨，髋骨在这边。除了最末端早已开始风化的部位，这块化石几乎是完整的。
Luis has to decide what to do with these finds. Starting a new dig is huge undertaking requiring time and money, and he has limited resources.
刘易斯必须决定如何处理这些发现。再重新挖掘又是一项巨大的工程，需要花费人力物力，而且资源也有限。
We already have 2 very good sites with long-neck dinosaurs. And we're a little reluctant to, you know, open another excavation.
我们已经找到了两处长颈恐龙的化石遗址。我们都不太情愿再去挖掘另一处遗址。
Just half a mile away is one of their sites. Luis' team began working it a year ago. Most of the bones are still embedded in the rock, and must be painstakingly excavated. Luis knows from the layer of rock they're digging that these dinosaurs died 150 million years ago. But he doesn't know what species it is, and it's potentially a dinosaur which has just never been seen before.
其中一处遗址就在半英里以外。刘易斯的团队一年前就开始展开研究了。大多数骨头仍嵌入在岩石里，把它们挖出来真是煞费苦心。刘易斯知道从这些岩石层挖掘出来的恐龙早于一亿五千万年前就死了。但他们不知道那是什么物种，有潜在的可能是之前从未见过的物种。
A fossil dig is like a murder scene—every piece of evidence about what happened 150 million years ago has to be salvaged. The layout of the entire site will be mapped and the precise location of every bone fragment recorded to help piece together the remains. The more complete the skeleton, the easier it will be to identify, and the greater the likelihood that this dinosaur will be turned into an exhibit.
挖掘化石就像犯罪现场一样——必须补救一亿五千年前留下的每一处证据。整个遗址的布局被绘制成地图，每一个骨头碎片的精确位置被记录下来，这样有助于拼凑遗体。骨骼化石越完整，就越容易辨别物种，因此这只恐龙将更有可能展示给众人。
We have hind limbs, we have forelimbs, we have a lot of the tail, we have ribs, we have many parts of the skeleton and now we're starting to uncover the neck. I would anticipate that we're gonna have to keep opening the quarry to uncover many other neck vertebrae and hopefully the skull.
我们已经找到了前后肢，许多尾巴，肋骨，也找到了大部分骨架，现在我们正开始寻找颈部化石。我估计还得继续开挖遗址，以找出其他颈椎骨，还有希望找到头盖骨。
原文译文属可可原创，未经允许请勿转载！
