Khủng long Mandschurosaurus - những hóa thạch khủng long đầu tiên tại Đông Dương

Fossil discoverer

Josué-Heilman Hoffet is a French geologist and paleontologist who worked and taught at Indochina University in Hanoi. In 1936, during a field trip to Savanakhet province, Laos, his geological team discovered Dinosaur fossil bones in Lower Cretaceous sediments (K1) in Tang Vay village. The largest bones were then identified as belonging to the genus Titanosaurus.

In 1999, a group of French paleontologists led by Ronan Allain described the specimen discovered by Hoffet and identified it as belonging to a new genus Tangvayosaurus. They named the new species Tangvayosaurus hoffeti to commemorate the scientist who discovered the first Dinosaur fossils in Indochina.

The above specimen is always mentioned because of the fossil’s huge size, with a thigh bone mold about 2 meters long currently on display in the Hanoi Geological Museum. But there is another Dinosaur specimen that almost goes unnoticed, perhaps because the specimen is not displayed in a museum.

The paleontologist’s luck

One year in the last decade of the 20th century, geologist Ta Hoa Phuong accidentally went to a “geological” waste site, meaning a place where people liquidated geological samples of no origin and had no value. science. He suddenly saw two petrified bones “sparkling” and picked them up, placed them on a piece of wood, quickly took two photos and brought the samples home…

He paid special attention to these two fossil bones, because they were unlike any other bone specimen. In his mind, he thought, maybe it’s a Dinosaur bone?

The photos of the specimens were sent to his friend, academician of the French Academy of Sciences Philippe Janvier. Very quickly he received a response: “Exactly the Dinosaur Vertebrae Model”. The academician also said more clearly: This sample is in the collection of geologist Josué-Heilman Hoffet, published in 1944. But he also did not understand why people would throw away such valuable fossil samples, no? Not only do they have scientific value, but they also have historical value, because they are very old (60 years old).

I brought photos of the above samples to ask Vietnam’s leading geologists: Professor Nguyen Van Chien, Professor Tong Duy Thanh, Professor Dang Vu Khuc. You all have no information about these dinosaur samples, even though Professor Tong Duy Thanh was the first president of the Vietnam Paleontology and Stratigraphy Association, Professor Vu Khuc was the Director of the Vietnam Geological Museum, and Professor Vu Khuc was the Director of the Vietnam Geological Museum. Nguyen Van Chien used to be a student of Professor Josué-Heilman Hoffet, who collected the above fossil samples.

When geologist Ta Hoa Phuong had the opportunity to go to Paris, France, he paid attention to learning about the origin of the Dinosaur specimen that happened to fall into his hands. Academician Janvier found Hoffet’s scientific articles for him to read. It is true that there was a similar species of Dinosaur once found by Professor Hoffet in Laos, in the same location as Tangvayosaurus hoffeti and described in detail, with many illustrations (for some reason the author did not take photos of the specimen). But neither the academician nor he could find any illustrations that matched the two specimens he owned. The meaning of those patterns is beyond the patterns described by Hoffet. But based on size and morphology, they certainly belong to the same dinosaur skeleton – Mandschurosaurus laosensis, Early Cretaceous age (K1), collected in Lang Vay village, Savanakhet province, Laos.