Re: Errors in Jurassic Park (Movie)

[Ben Waggoner <bmw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   The point seems well taken that constant nitpicking at the scientific 
content of an otherwise entertaining, inspiring and educational movie is a 
counterproductive exercise. But I'm going to do it anyway: The amber from 
which the dino DNA was extracted in the movie came from the Dominican 
Republic. But Dominican Republic amber is all Late Eocene at the very 
earliest; no dinos* are going to be cloned from that source. Even pettier
nitpicking: In a real Dominican Republic amber mine, you can't stand
upright; the shafts are so narrow the miners have to crawl.
   In fact, there's very little Jurassic amber at all -- an unconfirmed 
report of Jurassic amber from Bornholm, Denmark is the only find I'm 
aware of. Several Cretaceous localities have amber with insects (Lebanon, 
northwest France, Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia, Manitoba, New Jersey, 
etc.), so that explains the T. rex and Triceratops, but I wonder where the 
DNA to clone the Brachiosaurus came from.

Ben Waggoner
Dept. of Integrative Biology
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
bmw@uclink2.berkeley.edu

*except for the birds, of course -- that's the cladist in me talking