I hope everybody has had a good Christmas.

Anybody interested in the paper below?


Fractal-like Features of Dinosaur Eggshells
M.V.Rusu1), S. Gheorghiu2),

S.Gheorghiu@...
Summary. We carried out measurements on seriated sections through
dinosaur eggshells found in the
Hateg basin of Romania. The pore structure of these eggshells exhibits
peculiar hierarchical selfsimilarity,
from millimeter scale to nanoscale. At optical scale, the eggshell is
built up by packing bundles
of calcite carrots, well aligned with their axis perpendicular to the
eggshell surface, with "gaps" (macro
pores) in between. Each calcite carrot is about 0.5 mm in diameter and
has the length equal to the eggshell
thickness. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals that these
carrots are in turn micro porous spongy
calcite structure, with 1μm average pore diameter. The structure on an
even smaller scale is studied by
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on thin sections prepared by
ion milling, using methods from
material science, revealing yet another layer of complexity.
The observed features lead us to the conclusion that calcite
crystallization leading to the carrot
morphology is controlled from the nano- to micro-scale by the
structure of the collagen net developed in
the eggshell cells.