Buried for millions of years in the Gobi Desert, a
cantaloupe-sized fossilized dinosaur egg revealed a
shred of its eons of scientific history during a CAT
scan at Saint Agnes Medical Center this weekend.
   Craig Poole, a Fresno City College geology
professor and Howard Hurtt, a science teacher at Kings
Canyon Middle School, gazed excitedly at dozens of
images of the egg's interior Sunday afternoon in the
hospital's radiology department.
   "We've raised more questions than we answered by
doing this, but that's the great thing about science,"
said Poole, who bought the egg more than a year ago.
"But we could see quite a few details, and we didn't
have to destroy the egg to do that."
   The five-pound fossilized hadrosaurus egg --
somewhere between 65 million and 135 million years old
-- spent two minutes cradled in the Saint Agnes
radiology department Saturday while Dr. Bruce Ginier
performed the scan.
   "I thought it would show absolutely nothing,"
Ginier said. "When I first saw the egg, it looked like
nothing more than solid rock."
   Instead, the scan revealed several fractures in the
egg and clusters of white lines and dots. The scan did
not show any absolute signs of a hadrosaurus embryo,
which was the greatest hope, Poole said.
   These creatures were duck-billed herbivores who
lived during the Cretaceous period -- the dinosaur
heyday, Poole said. Anywhere from 23 to 32 feet long,
they could walk on two or four legs and had bulky
bodies and stiff tails. They had powerful jaws lined
with hundreds of teeth.
   The first evidence of the creature was uncovered in
New Jersey nearly 150 years ago. Other fossil evidence
has been discovered in Europe and Asia.
   The CAT scan pictures showed a large, air-filled
break through the middle of Poole's egg. There were
also a few smaller fractures in the egg, but sediment
had filled them, evidence that they were older breaks.
White dots and dashes were scattered throughout the
egg, signs that Poole and Hurtt said might indicate
bone or shell fragments.
   "It's a real tease; nothing jumps out at you,"
Hurtt said. "Obviously none of the original stuff is
there anymore; it's all been replaced by minerals. But
the fact that we were able to see anything is
remarkable. Whatever catastrophic event preserved this
did it very well."
   Poole has gingerly toted the egg around in a canvas
lunchbag between his home and science classes since he
bought it in February 1999.
   He declined to say how much he paid for the egg,
but said such eggs are somewhat difficult to come by.
   When the egg was delivered, the only information
Poole knew was its approximate age, the type and that
is had been excavated from the Gobi Desert, which runs
along the border of China and Mongolia.
   (Contact Lesli A. Maxwell of the Fresno Bee in
California at http://www.fresnobee.com.)

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