I found a thought-provoking juxtaposition of fossils and that ubiquitous element of children's art - glitter - in a recent edition of the daily newsletter from Nature (Nature Briefing, October 14, 2025). This issue highlighted the magnificent dinosaur trackways recently discovered in the United Kingdom. Toward the end of the newsletter, the "Quote of the day" (a frequent feature) had the following statement:
A glitter container is never really empty.
A pretty sure way to grab this reader's attention. The source of that quotation was an article about Edwin Jones, a forensic scientist well versed in the crime-solving attributes of glitter. As we all know, glitter, once let loose, contaminates nearly everything and everybody. Turns out, that can be quite helpful in linking individuals and objects to a crime scene.
Putting those two stories together reminded me of a passing comment I'd made long ago relating criminal forensic science to paleontology, specifically the subfield called ichnology, the study of trace fossils. (See the post titled Ichnofossils and Old Home Movies, November 8, 2009.)
It's useful to consider what we mean by forensic as an adjective and forensics as a noun. The Latin root of forensic means of, or related to, the Roman Forum or with the courts of law. (Oxford English Dictionary. Sorry, it hides behind a paywall.) The adjective was first used in English in 1647 and, in keeping with the Latin root, was applied to something associated with court proceedings or appropriate for use in court. In the 1800s, the noun forensics was applied to the kind of rhetoric intended to argue or assert a point in a law court or in debate (particularly collegiate debate). In the late 1800s, forensic science began to take on the meaning that, as a rabid consumer of TV shows featuring crime scene investigations, would expect of it (first use in print in 1893):
The provision of scientific evidence and testimony in legal proceedings; (in later use) spec. the application of scientific techniques and knowledge to the investigation of crime. (OED.)
The article cited by Nature for the "Quote of the day" was written Jacqueline Detwiler-George. It's a fascinating introduction to Jones and the role of glitter in forensic science. (Inside the Glitter Lab, Popular Mechanics, September 26, 2025. This article also resides behind a paywall.) The article's hook is a fairly graphic account of the rapes committed by the Simi Valley rapist and the role Jones and glitter played in securing the death penalty for the perpetrator. The investigator determined that glitter in the hair of a murdered victim was rather unique and he was able to trace it to the perpetrator's truck.
Detwiler-George identifies an important distinction in forensics between trace analysis and DNA analysis (forensic biology). Of trace analysis, she writes:
In reality, it can include analyzing an absurd variety of materials. It could be flame accelerant, explosives, cosmetics, carpet fibers, tree bark, hairs, shoe prints, clothing dirt glass fragments, tape, glue and, yes, glitter.
The latter, forensic biology, has come to dominate the field, relegating the former to the sidelines, partly because trace analysis requires expensive tools while DNA analysis has, I would surmise, such probative value.
It is trace analysis that really gave forensic science its original impetus. Detwiler-George quotes the late Robert Blackledge, a forensic chemist with the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS): "Trace evidence analysis is the oldest kind of scientific crime-solving technique in existence." One of the foundational beliefs for criminal forensics is the principle first enunciated by Frenchman Edmond Locard (1877-1966): "Every contact leaves a trace." I may be easily impressed, but I find that the Locard Principle profound and applicable well beyond crime scenes.
Having read about the glitter expert Jones before reading stories about the newly found dinosaur trackway, I found myself focusing on the steps being undertaken by the paleontologists to reconstruct the scene as it was in deep time. Not a crime scene, I will admit, but, still, the impulse to reconstruct the events of so long ago, is, I think, akin to that undergirding criminal forensics.
I don't believe I am taking it too far to suggest that a variant of Locard's principle is at play in ichnology which works with fossilized evidence of ancient activity. The fossil trackways described in the Nature newsletter are really spectacular examples of ichnofossils, which, in this case, date from some 166 million years ago. (The link in the Nature article was to Rebecca Morelle, et al., How a Huge Dinosaur Trackway Was Uncovered in the UK, BBC News, October 14, 2025. See, also, Will Triggs, New Dinosaur Highway Dig Reveals Record-Breaking Footprints, EarthSky, October 15, 2025, and Oxford Researchers Return to the Jurassic Highway, University of Oxford, News, October 14, 2025.)
Clearly, the present day scene of the trackways (a quarry in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom) has been changed beyond recognition over the millennia, but the Locard principle - that contact leaves traces - still applies. Not only were the tracks squished into the mud of the lagoon traversed by dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous and then fossilized and preserved, but other traces of life and elements in the environment from deep time have also been retained at the scene. Instructed by the glitter forensics article, I was particularly attentive to how the paleontologists uncovering, preserving, and analyzing the trackways took a broad view of the scene. In this instance, they were not solving a crime, rather, they were reconstructing the events at a scene, and doing so without any eyewitnesses. As a result, they have, as would good forensic scientists, to determine what messages the objects and traces found at the site could tell them about the events that had occurred here.
The trackways were found at the Dewars Farm Quarry and they are quite amazing, the longest stretching for 220 meters or 721 feet - the length of nearly 2 1/2 football fields. They are the tracks of multiple individual Cetiosaurus dinosaurs, a massive herbivore, joined by a single trackway of a Megalosaurus, a large bipedal carnivore. Certainly, paleontologists have experience with dinosaur tracks and can identify the likely animals that made them. Still, unless the fossilized remains of the animal are found in conjunction with the fossilized traces, there's always some room for misidentification.
The paleontologists are attempting to reconstruct what the scene 166 million years ago was really like and, broadly, what happened here. Duncan Murdock, one of the leaders of the project working on the trackways, has noted:
Unlike fossil bones, finds like these tell us about the behavior of extinct animals. The size, shape and position of the footprints can tell us how these dinosaurs moved, their size and spreed. And where trackways cross, we get a glimpse of the potential interactions between different species . . . . (Triggs, EarthSky, emphasis added.)
The scientists determined the direction in which the animals were heading by careful study of the footprints. At the front of each print is a protrusion which was left as the animal shifted its weight to the front of its foot when taking a step, squishing out some of the mud in which it was traveling.
Based on the number of footprints, Murdock observed that were "tens of individuals" crossing the muddy lagoon and, if, as is possible, they were present at the same time, what was captured by the trackways was herding behavior. (Triggs, EarthSky.)
The single Megalosaurus track intersects the track of one of the Cetiosaurus dinosaurs leading to some speculation about the context and meaning of this interspecies encounter.
Reconstructing the scene has required looking for, and analyzing, evidence beyond the prints, and that evidence is emerging. The paleontologists have found fossils from marine invertebrates, plants, and part of a crocodile jaw, and work is ongoing to analyze the content of the sediments under and in the prints. (University of Oxford News.) Murdock captures well the objective:
Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment that dinosaurs walked through. (Triggs, EarthSky.)
In the end, I wonder if ichnology, in general, might be termed a form of forensic paleontology? At a minimum, it seems to be a field in which some of the methods of forensic science are applied to fossils in an effort to describe and, perhaps, explain the behavior behind fossilized traces of activity. In other words, to reconstruct a scene and the events that took place there.
For a fascinating look at how some paleontologists have applied the analysis methods used in forensic entomology, I would recommend the article by paleontologist Kenneth S. Bader and colleagues describing their analysis of a cache of dinosaur bones from the Jurassic found in Montana. (Bader, et al., Application of Forensic Science Techniques to Trace Fossils on Dinosaur Bones from a Quarry in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Northeastern Wyoming, Palaios, Volume 24, 2009, p. 140.) We're all familiar with the forensic scientist on TV extracting a beetle larva from a corpse and announcing how long the body had been exposed to the elements. That's forensic entomology at work, bringing to bear on a crime scene the understanding of when and how insects and other arthropods will work on the flesh and bones of dead animals, what evidence they leave of their presence, and what that evidence says about the environment in which the body lay.
Based on the evidence gathered by using these forensic techniques, the authors describe in wonderful detail a scene from millions of years ago:
These events were initiated during the dry season, and were likely part of a prolonged drought, based on our interpretation of the levels of articulation for each of the sauropod skeletons, bone modification features found on those skeletons, and previous interpretations of the Late Jurassic paleoclimate recorded by the Morrison Formation [citations omitted]. The evidence suggests that sauropods were drawn to this area for its water availability over an extended period of time. Fossils of turtles, fish, crocodiles, snails, and bivalves support the notion of a relatively permanent body of water. A prolonged drought is thought to have occurred based on the different conditions of the sauropod skeletons, which suggest that the area was not resubmerged with differential burial of the skeletons. Only after all the sauropod skeletons accumulated, the soft tissue decomposed, and the bones were bored, did the drought end and the accumulation of skeletons was buried. A short duration of pedogenesis [the formation of soil] took place before additional sediments covered the area of the skeletons likely through a period of regular succession of wet-dry seasonal climates. (p. 156)
All that's missing is an explanation of the glitter found at the scene.
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