Hunting for dinosaurs showed me our place in the universe | Kenneth Lacovara

翻译人员: Lewis Liu 校对人员: Tingting Zhong

How do you find a dinosaur?

你能找到恐龙吗？

Sounds impossible, doesn't it?

听起来不可思议，不是吗？

It's not.

其实并不难。

And the answer relies on a formula that all paleontologists use.

古生物学家都会用到的一个公式可以帮助我们找到。

And I'm going to tell you the secret.

而且我将会告诉你这个秘密。

First, find rocks of the right age.

首先，找到相应年代的岩石。

Second, those rocks must be sedimentary rocks.

第二点需要注意的是，这些岩石必须是沉积岩。

And third, layers of those rocks must be naturally exposed.

然后，岩石表面需要自然暴露在外。

That's it.

就这些。

Find those three things and get yourself on the ground,

满足这三点，你就可以开始了。

chances are good that you will find fossils.

找到化石的可能性还是很大的。

Now let me break down this formula.

接下来，咱们来具体分解一下这个公式。

Organisms exist only during certain geological intervals.

生物只在特定的地质间隔时期存活。

So you have to find rocks of the right age,

因此你必须找到特定时期的岩石。

depending on what your interests are.

这取决于你的兴趣。

If you want to find trilobites,

如果你想要找三叶虫，

you have to find the really, really old rocks of the Paleozoic --

那你必须找非常古老的古生代地层岩石-

rocks between a half a billion and a quarter-billion years old.

年龄在5到2.5亿年间。

Now, if you want to find dinosaurs,

那么问题来了，如果你想找到恐龙。

don't look in the Paleozoic, you won't find them.

别去看古生代的岩石，那里找不到。

They hadn't evolved yet.

恐龙还没有演化呢。

You have to find the younger rocks of the Mesozoic,

你需要去找中生代的岩石，

and in the case of dinosaurs,

并且是有恐龙存活的年代。

between 235 and 66 million years ago.

大概是2.35亿至6600万年前。

Now, it's fairly easy to find rocks of the right age at this point,

目前找这些岩石还是挺容易的，

because the Earth is, to a coarse degree,

因为我们已有了地球的大致地理

geologically mapped.

地质面貌。

This is hard-won information.

这可不是个简单的工程。

The annals of Earth history are written in rocks,

地球的编年史可以说是由岩石写成的，

one chapter upon the next,

一章接着一章，

such that the oldest pages are on bottom

也就是说最久远的在最底层，

and the youngest on top.

年代最近的位于表面。

Now, were it quite that easy, geologists would rejoice.

然而，如果又真的这么简单，地理学家会欣喜若狂了。

It's not.

其实并不简单。

The library of Earth is an old one.

地球像是一个古老的图书馆。

It has no librarian to impose order.

并没有管理员来为每一本书排序，

Operating over vast swaths of time,

来管理如此大范围的时代，

myriad geological processes offer every possible insult

无数的地质进程又可能对岩石年龄的判断带来不利影响。

to the rocks of ages.

Most pages are destroyed soon after being written.

地理编年史中的书页，大多数也许刚被写成就遭到毁灭。

Some pages are overwritten,

有些书页又有重复，

creating difficult-to-decipher palimpsests of long-gone landscapes.

对早前的年代做了难解的重叠赘述。

Pages that do find sanctuary under the advancing sands of time

在时间的流逝中找到庇护的历史，

are never truly safe.

永远不是那么安全。

Unlike the Moon -- our dead, rocky companion --

和月亮这样没有生命的顽石不同，

the Earth is alive, pulsing with creative and destructive forces

地球是活的，同时具备创造和毁灭的力量给了他生命，

that power its geological metabolism.

也促进其地质的新陈代谢。

Lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts

月球上的岩石由阿波罗宇航员带回

all date back to about the age of the Solar System.

一直追溯到太阳系的年岁

Moon rocks are forever.

月亮上的岩石是永恒的，

Earth rocks, on the other hand, face the perils of a living lithosphere.

地球上的岩石在经历了撞击，压缩，折叠，撕裂 和高温的作用后都会遭到破坏。

All will suffer ruination,

through some combination of mutilation, compression,

folding, tearing, scorching and baking.

因此，纵观地球历史是不完整而且是散乱的。

Thus, the volumes of Earth history are incomplete and disheveled.

地球这个图书馆年代久远而且藏书丰富。

The library is vast and magnificent --

but decrepit.

而且，岩石记录的复杂又使之丧失了原本的意义。

And it was this tattered complexity in the rock record

that obscured its meaning until relatively recently.

大自然并没有为地理学家留下任何记录

Nature provided no card catalog for geologists --

this would have to be invented.

而是让他们去总结。

Five thousand years after the Sumerians learned to record their thoughts

在苏美尔人学着在岩土上记录想法的五千年后，

on clay tablets,

the Earth's volumes remained inscrutable to humans.

地质史对于人类来说还是高深莫测。

We were geologically illiterate,

我们可以说对地理其实是一无所知，

对地球的古老也是一知半解，

unaware of the antiquity of our own planet

and ignorant of our connection

并对我们与"久远时间"的联系很无知。

to deep time.

直到19世纪的到来，

It wasn't until the turn of the 19th century

我们的无知才渐渐消失

that our blinders were removed,

first, with the publication of James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth,"

首先，James Hotton所著的《地球理论》向我们揭示了

in which he told us that the Earth reveals no vestige of a beginning

地球的初始毫无痕迹，

终结也会毫无预兆。

and no prospect of an end;

and then, with the printing of William Smith's map of Britain,

随着William Smith绘制了第一张国家疆域范围的英国地图，

the first country-scale geological map,

giving us for the first time

我们得以预见

predictive insight into where certain types of rocks might occur.

哪里会有特定年代的岩石。

After that, you could say things like,

由此，你可以这样说：

"If we go over there, we should be in the Jurassic,"

“我们去那儿能找到侏罗纪”

or, "If we go up over that hill, we should find the Cretaceous."

“爬过这座山我们能找到白垩纪”。

好吧，如果你现在想找三叶虫，

So now, if you want to find trilobites,

先要有一张好的地图，

get yourself a good geological map

寻找古生代的岩石。

and go to the rocks of the Paleozoic.

If you want to find dinosaurs like I do,

如果你想像我一样去寻找恐龙的痕迹，

find the rocks of Mesozoic and go there.

那就先去找中生代的岩石。

Now of course, you can only make a fossil in a sedimentary rock,

当然，你只能在沉积岩中找到化石。

a rock made by sand and mud.

这种岩石又沙和泥土形成。

You can't have a fossil

岩浆形成的火成岩，比如花岗岩中，

in an igneous rock formed by magma, like a granite,

就没有化石。

or in a metamorphic rock that's been heated and squeezed.

那种经受高温和挤压的变质岩里也没有化石。

And you have to get yourself in a desert.

你一定要去沙漠，

It's not that dinosaurs particularly lived in deserts;

不是说恐龙只生活在沙漠，

they lived on every land mass

他们生活在每一片大陆，

and in every imaginable environment.

和所有可以想的到的环境中。

It's that you need to go to a place that's a desert today,

你需要去沙漠的原因是，

a place that doesn't have too many plants covering up the rocks,

沙漠中的岩石没有太多植被覆盖

and a place where erosion is always exposing new bones at the surface.

并且其风蚀能够使岩石暴露于地表。

所以，去寻找这三样东西吧：

So find those three things:

rocks of the right age,

特定年代的岩石，

that are sedimentary rocks, in a desert,

沙漠的沉积岩，

然后让自己行走在地面上，

and get yourself on the ground,

and you literally walk

直到你看到岩石表面有显露出来的骨化石。

until you see a bone sticking out of the rock.

Here's a picture that I took in Southern Patagonia.

这是一张南巴塔哥尼亚的图片。

你现在看到的地上的每一片圆石，

Every pebble that you see on the ground there

都是恐龙的骨头。

is a piece of dinosaur bone.

So when you're in that right situation,

所以当你身处这种环境下，

it's not a question of whether you'll find fossils or not;

能否找到化石已不再是问题，

你一定会找到。

you're going to find fossils.

The question is: Will you find something that is scientifically significant?

问题是，你发现的东西是否具有科研价值？

And to help with that, I'm going to add a fourth part to our formula,

为了帮助理解，我将为这个公式加上第四条。

which is this:

那就是:

get as far away from other paleontologists as possible.

离那些古生物学家越远越好。

(Laughter)

（笑声...）

It's not that I don't like other paleontologists.

并非我讨厌他们，

而是如果你去一个相对未被探索的地方，

When you go to a place that's relatively unexplored,

you have a much better chance of not only finding fossils

你不仅更容易找到化石，

but of finding something that's new to science.

而且更有可能为科学带来新发现。

So that's my formula for finding dinosaurs,

这就是我的恐龙寻找攻略。

and I've applied it all around the world.

我在全世界都使用过。

In the austral summer of 2004,

在2004夏季，

我去到位于南半球南美的最南端，

I went to the bottom of South America,

阿根廷的巴塔哥尼亚最南部，

to the bottom of Patagonia, Argentina,

去探究恐龙：

to prospect for dinosaurs:

a place that had terrestrial sedimentary rocks of the right age,

那儿有特定年代的陆相沉积岩。

in a desert,

在那片还未被古生物学家发掘过的沙漠，

a place that had been barely visited by paleontologists.

我们找到了这个。

And we found this.

这是一个巨型食草恐龙的股骨。

This is a femur, a thigh bone,

of a giant, plant-eating dinosaur.

That bone is 2.2 meters across.

这块股骨有2.2米宽，

也就是7尺多长。

That's over seven feet long.

Now, unfortunately, that bone was isolated.

遗憾的是，这是现存的唯一一块。

We dug and dug and dug, and there wasn't another bone around.

我们不停地挖，然而再也没有别的发现。

But it made us hungry to go back the next year for more.

这使得我们来年又再一次踏上这片土地寻找。

And on the first day of that next field season,

在新探索的第一天，

I found this: another two-meter femur,

我发现了这个：第二块两米的股骨

only this time not isolated,

这不是唯一的发现，

this time associated with 145 other bones

我们又发现了145块食草恐龙的化石。

of a giant plant eater.

And after three more hard, really brutal field seasons,

在三次艰苦的现场挖掘后，

the quarry came to look like this.

挖掘现场场变成了这样。

And there you see the tail of that great beast wrapping around me.

你可以看到，这只大型野兽的尾骨在我身边蜷曲。

The giant that lay in this grave, the new species of dinosaur,

躺在挖掘现场的这个大型生物，是恐龙的新物种。

we would eventually call "Dreadnoughtus schrani."

最后它被命名为”Dreadnoughtus schrani“

Dreadnoughtus was 85 feet from snout to tail.

Dreadnoughtus 从头到尾有85英尺长。

It stood two-and-a-half stories at the shoulder,

站起来肩部有两层半楼这么高。

and all fleshed out in life, it weighed 65 tons.

活着的时候身体有65吨重。

People ask me sometimes, "Was Dreadnoughtus bigger than a T. rex?"

人们有时候问我，它比暴龙大吗？

That's the mass of eight or nine T. rex.

实际上，它有暴龙的8至9倍大。

话说，成为古生物学家很棒的是，

Now, one of the really cool things about being a paleontologist

is when you find a new species, you get to name it.

你可以为发现的新物种命名。

And I've always thought it a shame that these giant, plant-eating dinosaurs

我常常觉得羞愧的是，这些大型的食草恐龙

are too often portrayed as passive, lumbering platters of meat

往往被描绘成笨拙的一大团肉

on the landscape.

（笑声）

(Laughter)

They're not.

然而并非如此。

Big herbivores can be surly, and they can be territorial --

大型食草动物是很有领地意识的

you do not want to mess with a hippo or a rhino or a water buffalo.

你不会想和河马、犀牛或是水牛这样的动物胡来。

The bison in Yellowstone injure far more people than do the grizzly bears.

黄石公园的野牛比灰熊伤的人要多得多。

So can you imagine a big bull, 65-ton Dreadnoughtus

所以你能想象一个65吨的公牛，

in the breeding season,

在繁殖季节，

defending a territory?

会怎样保护自己的领土？

它们会难以置信的危险。

That animal would have been incredibly dangerous,

a menace to all around, and itself would have had nothing to fear.

对于周围都是一种威胁，而它自己则无所畏惧。

所以他才被称为“Dreadnoughtus”

And thus the name, "Dreadnoughtus,"

or, "fears nothing."

意为“无所畏惧”

为了能长到像Dreadnoughtus这样体型的动物

Now, to grow so large,

an animal like Dreadnoughtus would've had to have been

他们生来就就很有效率。

a model of efficiency.

That long neck and long tail help it radiate heat into the environment,

其长颈和长尾能够散热，

间接地调节了自身的体温。

passively controlling its temperature.

长颈提供了一个极度有效的进食机制。

And that long neck also serves as a super-efficient feeding mechanism.

Dreadnoughtus could stand in one place and with that neck

Dreadnoughtus 能够站在原地，

clear out a huge envelope of vegetation,

用它长长的脖子把一大片植被一扫而光。

taking in tens of thousands of calories while expending very few.

摄入数以万计的卡路里而同时消耗很少。

这些动物进化为牛头犬似的宽步动物。

And these animals evolved a bulldog-like wide-gait stance,

giving them immense stability,

这样能够有更好的稳定性。

because when you're 65 tons, when you're literally as big as a house,

因为如果你有65吨重，并且像房子那么大，

the penalty for falling over

摔倒的后果

is death.

是死亡。

没错，这些动物又大又坚硬

Yeah, these animals are big and tough,

but they won't take a blow like that.

但是他们承受不了这样的打击。

Dreadnoughtus falls over, ribs break and pierce lungs.

Dreadnoughtus摔倒后肋骨会断裂并且刺伤肺部，

Organs burst.

导致器官爆裂。

If you're a big 65-ton Dreadnoughtus,

如果你是一只65吨的Dreadnoughtus

you don't get to fall down in life -- even once.

你绝不想摔倒，一次都不。

现在，在这只恐龙的躯体被埋葬

Now, after this particular Dreadnoughtus carcass was buried

肉体被各种细菌和虫类侵蚀，

and de-fleshed by a multitude of bacteria, worms and insects,

its bones underwent a brief metamorphosis,

它的骨头会变质，

exchanging molecules with the groundwater

和地下水进行分子交换

and becoming more and more like the entombing rock.

变得越来越接近埋葬它的石头

当一层一层的沉积岩慢慢积累

As layer upon layer of sediment accumulated,

pressure from all sides weighed in like a stony glove

各方面的压力会像石膏套一样向内增压

whose firm and enduring grip held each bone in a stabilizing embrace.

其坚硬而持久的握力把每块石头牢牢的包裹在内。

And then came the long ...

而后就是旷日持久的

虚无....

nothing.

Epoch after epoch of sameness,

经历了一个又一个纪元，什么都没有发生

nonevents without number.

恐龙的骨骼长久的处于一种恒定不变的

All the while, the skeleton lay everlasting and unchanging

in perfect equilibrium

完美平衡的状态

within its rocky grave.

在它的石头坟墓里。

Meanwhile, Earth history unfolded above.

同时，地球历史也随着展开。

The dinosaurs would reign for another 12 million years

恐龙会统治另一个1200万年

before their hegemony was snuffed out in a fiery apocalypse.

直到他们在地球大灾难中灭绝

The continents drifted. The mammals rose.

然后大陆漂移，哺乳动物随之而生。

The Ice Age came.

冰河时代来临

然后，在东非

And then, in East Africa,

an unpromising species of ape evolved the odd trick of sentient thought.

一种没有前途的猿，

进化出了一种奇怪的用来感知事物的把戏。

These brainy primates were not particularly fast or strong.

他们不是特别快或是强壮

但他们很擅长占领土地

But they excelled at covering ground,

and in a remarkable diaspora

他们用一种出色的散居方式

surpassing even the dinosaurs' record of territorial conquest,

他们的土地甚至超越了恐龙所征服的领地的记录

they dispersed across the planet,

他们分布在地球的各个地方

ravishing every ecosystem they encountered,

他们掠夺每一个遇到的生态系统

along the way, inventing culture and metalworking and painting

在这个过程中，他们创造了文化，金属加工术，绘画

and dance and music

舞蹈，音乐

and science

科学，

and rocket ships that would eventually take 12 particularly excellent apes

还有能搭载12名特别优秀猿猴

并将他们送去月球表面的火箭船。

to the surface of the Moon.

With seven billion peripatetic Homo sapiens on the planet,

伴随着70亿在地球上走来走去的人

it was perhaps inevitable

不可避免的

that one of them would eventually trod on the grave of the magnificent titan

有人最终会踏在这些巨大生物的坟墓上

buried beneath the badlands of Southern Patagonia.

在巴塔哥尼亚南部的荒地下

I was that ape.

我就是那个人

And standing there, alone in the desert,

孤独的站在沙漠里

it was not lost on me

that the chance of any one individual entering the fossil record

我没有忘记

每个人遇到化石的机会

is vanishingly small.

都十分的渺小

但是地球非常非常的古老

But the Earth is very, very old.

And over vast tracts of time, the improbable becomes the probable.

在漫长的时间轨迹里，不可能变为可能

That's the magic of the geological record.

这就是地理的魔力

Thus, multitudinous creatures living and dying on an old planet

大量生物在这颗星球上生活、死去

leave behind immense numbers of fossils,

留下大量的化石

each one a small miracle,

每个化石都是一个奇迹

but collectively, inevitable.

但都难以逃脱它们的命运

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid hits the Earth

六千六百万年前，一颗小行星撞击地球

and wipes out the dinosaurs.

使恐龙灭绝

This easily might not have been.

或许没这么简单

But we only get one history, and it's the one that we have.

但我们只有一个历史，那就是我们所处的这个

But this particular reality was not inevitable.

但这个特定的现实并非无法改变

The tiniest perturbation of that asteroid far from Earth

即使最微小的对于那颗遥远的小行星的扰动

would have caused it to miss our planet by a wide margin.

也有可能让它远离我们的星球

The pivotal, calamitous day during which the dinosaurs were wiped out,

那个关键的，灾难的性的恐龙灭绝的日子

setting the stage for the modern world as we know it

为现代搭建了一个舞台

即使我们知道这并不必要

didn't have to be.

It could've just been another day --

它完全可以是另一天

a Thursday, perhaps --

或许是一个周四

among the 63 billion days already enjoyed by the dinosaurs.

在恐龙生存的630亿天中

But over geological time,

但是在地理的时间轴中

improbable, nearly impossible events

不大可能，甚至完全不可能的事情

do occur.

确实会发生

Along the path from our wormy, Cambrian ancestors

从虫子，寒武纪的祖先

to primates dressed in suits,

到穿着正式的人

innumerable forks in the road led us to this very particular reality.

不可计数的岔路带领我们到了这个独特的处境

The bones of Dreadnoughtus lay underground for 77 million years.

Dreadnoughtus 的骨头在地下沉寂了7700万年。

Who could have imagined

又有谁能想到

that a single species of shrew-like mammal

那种精明的

living in the cracks of the dinosaur world

在恐龙世界的缝隙中生存的哺乳动物

would evolve into sentient beings

却进化成一种能感知的

capable of characterizing and understanding

有能力去描绘与理解

the very dinosaurs they must have dreaded?

他们曾经害怕的恐龙的生物

I once stood at the head of the Missouri River

我曾经站在密苏里河的源头

然后跨过它

and bestraddled it.

There, it's nothing more than a gurgle of water

那只不过是汩汩的

that issues forth from beneath a rock in a boulder in a pasture,

从一块比特鲁特山脉上草地上的石头下

流出的水罢了

high in the Bitterroot Mountains.

The stream next to it runs a few hundred yards

它旁边的小溪只流了几百码

and ends in a small pond.

并停在了一个小池塘里

Those two streams -- they look identical.

这两条小溪，看上去一模一样

But one is an anonymous trickle of water,

但一条是无名的涓流

and the other is the Missouri River.

但另一条是密苏里河

Now go down to the mouth of the Missouri, near St. Louis,

现在来到密苏里河在圣路易斯的河口

and it's pretty obvious that that river is a big deal.

很明显它是很大一条河

But go up into the Bitterroots and look at the Missouri,

但是回到比特鲁特山脉，看看密苏里河

and human prospection does not allow us to see it as anything special.

人类的眼光不足以让我们看出它有多么特别

再回到寒武纪时期

Now go back to the Cretaceous Period

and look at our tiny, fuzzball ancestors.

看看我们小小的，带绒毛的祖先

You would never guess

that they would amount to anything special,

你永远不会猜到

他们会发展成任何种族

and they probably wouldn't have,

他们也许确实不会

were it not for that pesky asteroid.

如果没有那烦人的小行星

Now, make a thousand more worlds and a thousand more solar systems

现在，再创造1000个世界，1000个太阳系

and let them run.

让它们运行

You will never get the same result.

你永远不会有同样的结果

No doubt, those worlds would be both amazing and amazingly improbable,

毫无疑问，它们会很惊人，令人感到不可能的惊人，

but they would not be our world and they would not have our history.

但它们不会是我们的世界，也不会有我们的历史

There are an infinite number of histories that we could've had.

那里有无穷的历史是我们不曾有拥有的

We only get one, and wow, did we ever get a good one.

但我们只有一个，哇，我们得到的是一个好的吗？

Dinosaurs like Dreadnoughtus were real.

像 Dreadnoughtus 一样的恐龙是真实存在的

像沧龙一样的水怪也是真的

Sea monsters like the mosasaur were real.

翼展像鹰一样的一样的蜻蜓，汽车大小的飞虫

Dragonflies with the wingspan of an eagle and pill bugs the length of a car

really existed.

都真实存在

为什么我们研究遥远的过去

Why study the ancient past?

因为它给与我们对于未来的看法

Because it gives us perspective

以及谦虚。

and humility.

The dinosaurs died in the world's fifth mass extinction,

恐龙在地球的第五次大灭绝中死亡

snuffed out in a cosmic accident through no fault of their own.

它们没有做错什么，那只是一场宇宙的事故

They didn't see it coming, and they didn't have a choice.

它们没有预见到它的到来，也没有选择

但我们，却有着选择

We, on the other hand, do have a choice.

And the nature of the fossil record tells us that our place on this planet

化石揭示了我们在地球上的地位

is both precarious and potentially fleeting.

很不稳固，有可能转瞬即逝。

Right now, our species is propagating an environmental disaster

现在，我们的种族正在引起关于地理平衡的灾难

of geological proportions that is so broad and so severe,

这种灾难既广泛又致命

it can rightly be called the sixth extinction.

它现在可以被称为第六次大灭绝

Only unlike the dinosaurs,

唯一与恐龙不同的是

we can see it coming.

我们可以看见它的到来

And unlike the dinosaurs,

与恐龙不同的是

we can do something about it.

我们可以做些什么

That choice is ours.

选择权在我们手里

Thank you.

谢谢

(Applause)

（鼓掌）