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Answering your questions about life, Earth and the universe

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CrowdScience: How many fossils are there?

Discussion & Talk

How many fossils are there?

02/08/2019 GMT

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, How many fossils are there?

Have we already found the last T. rex? Or are there many more to be discovered?

Marnie Chesterton gets out her pocket calculator and tries to work out how many fossils are left on Earth.

The odds of becoming a fossil are vanishingly small. And yet there seem to be an awful lot of them out there. In some parts of the world you can barely look at a rock without finding a fossil, and museum archives worldwide are stuffed with everything from ammonites to Archaeopteryx. But how many does that leave to be discovered by future fossil hunters? What’s the total number of fossils left to find? 

That’s what listener Anders Hegvik from Norway wants to know and what CrowdScience is off to investigate. Despite not having the technology or time to scan the entire planet, presenter Marnie Chesterton prepares to find a decent answer. During her quest, she meets the scientists who dig up fossils all over the world; does some very large sums; and asks, have we already found all the T-rexes out there?

Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Anna Lacey

(Photo: Fossilized dinosaur bones and skull in the send. Credit: Getty Images)

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