From USGS The USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP) sponsored various forms of volunteer map data collection projects over the past two decades. Citizen cartographers revised many maps during this period, but the program was suspended in 2008. New technologies and Internet services have made it easy to georeference many different types of information and share this information with others on map-based Internet platforms and social networking sites in recent years. This activity has been referred to as crowdsourcing, and the information produced has been called volunteered geographic information (VGI). In light of this rapidly changing technical landscape, the increasing use…

From Science Daily:   (hat tip Yahoo ESCONI Yahoo Group) Apr. 10, 2013 — The great age of the embryos is unusual because almost all known dinosaur embryos are from the Cretaceous Period. The Cretaceous ended some 125 million years after the bones at the Lufeng site were buried and fossilized.

ESCONI Member, Floyd Rogers let us know that former ESCONI Junior, Dr. Rebecca Rogers Ackermann, is an author on one of the six journal Science articles in the current issue. From Science: Abstract: Since the announcement of the species Australopithecus sediba, questions have been raised over whether the Malapa fossils represent a valid taxon or whether inadequate allowance was made for intraspecific variation, in particular with reference to the temporally and geographically proximate species Au. africanus. The morphology of mandibular remains of Au. sediba, including newly recovered material discussed here, shows that it is not merely a late-surviving morph of…

Free online course from Coursera – Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets – starts June 2013

Via geology.com Here is a large selection of hammers, picks, chisels, lenses…  you may wish to purchase before going on your next collecting trip!

via geology.com: A green meteorite found in Morocco is believed to have originated either from the planet Mercury or from an unknown body in the solar system.

From University of Iowa via geology.com: Recent airborne geophysical surveys near Decorah, Iowa are providing an unprecedented look at a 470- million-year-old meteorite crater concealed beneath bedrock and sediments. The aerial surveys, a collaboration of the U.S. Geological Survey with the Iowa and Minnesota Geological Surveys, were conducted in the last 60 days to map geologic structures and assess the mineral and water resources of the region. “Capturing images of an ancient meteorite impact was a huge bonus,” said Dr. Paul Bedrosian, a USGS geophysicist in Denver who is leading the effort to model the recently acquired geophysical data. “These…

Via the ESCONI Discussion Group: A new genus and species of Pliocene saber-toothed cat from Florida is described. Summary at: http://www.scienced aily.com/ releases/ 2013/03/13031414 0909.htm Article at: http://www.plosone. org/article/ info%3Adoi% 2F10.1371% 2Fjournal. pone.0056173