HAVE you ever wondered how dinosaurs lived, what they ate, and how their surrounding environment contributed to their death?

Mural painted by Julius Csotonyi

The ACR-2000i digital capture system is used to produce radiographic images of Leonardo’s fossil, even under challenging conditions in the field.

Imaging scientists have constructed a gantry system and platform to enable precise 3-D imaging for better access to specimen areas that are not accessible in the field.

For palaeontologists of the Judith River Dinosaur Institute (JRDI) in Malta, Montana, United States, these questions are being answered through non-destructive testing (NDT) digital X-ray technology, which has allowed them to analyse, in non-invasive ways, a 77 million-year-old mummified dinosaur named Leonardo.

The three-year-old male Brachylophosaurus Canadensis was discovered in the summer of 2000 in Malta. Almost all dinosaur fossils discovered before Leonardo contained no tissue parts. Amazingly, Leonardo’s skeleton is almost 90 per cent covered in fossilised tissues. The dinosaur is so uniquely mummified that even its stomach and last meal were well-preserved.

Aided by a team of digital imaging experts from Carestream Health’s NDT division, palaeontologists from JRDI used a computed radiography system from Carestream Health, the Kodak Industrex ACR-2000i Digital System, to produce detailed X-ray images of Leonardo.

A comprehensive remote digital radiography lab was set up in the field to assist the palaeontology team in radiographing Leonardo. The team used the ACR-2000i digital capture system to produce over 40 detailed radiographic images of the dinosaur fossil, even under challenging conditions in the field.

The ACR 2000i, which relies on storage phosphor plate imaging, is also flexible enough to allow the team to shoot and rotate large imaging sections of the specimen. Now, the scientists are taking their examination to the next level and concentrating on X-raying Leonardo’s harder-to-reach, more fragile internal organ areas.

To capture and create a three-dimensional (3-D) image of the fossil, the 1.5-tonne Leonardo moved farther than he has ever moved in

77 million years. His journey took him about 1,800 miles to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ellington Field Facility in Houston to undergo NDT testing with the ACR 2000i.

At the NASA facility, the team of imaging scientists constructed a gantry system and platform to enable precise 3-D imaging that allowed better access to specimen areas that were not accessible in the field.

Leonardo’s remains underwent a customised dinosaur proportion scan process to imitate a CT scan, using the flexible imaging capabilities of the ACR 2000i. The resulting 3-D model will be the first of its kind that includes not just the skeleton, but also the actual organs and mummified skin.

The technique used at NASA was based on a shoot-and-rotate operation. Radiographers produced several 10 to 12-minute images by positioning the X-ray tube at sequential five-degree angles that would later be combined and stitched together to create the 3-D model.

A stereo radiography technique was used to gather about 55 X-ray images. With the stereo technique, two radiographic images were taken at two specific angles, allowing scientists to reconstruct a full stereo image of Leonardo. The Kodak Industrex digital system also allowed over-exposed images to be revitalised and indexed so scientists could clearly identify each specimen part.

These images and more have been on display along with the actual fossilised dinosaur at the Houston Museum of Natural Science since

Sept 19.

According to Carestream Health, the project offered the company a unique opportunity to demonstrate the versatility of its digital imaging system while uncovering some of the greatest mysteries of plant-eating dinosaurs.

A Discovery Channel documentary on the life and death of Leonardo premiered in conjunction with the exhibit on Sept 14. The one-hour programme, Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy, included highlights of the discovery and examination of the fossilised remains.