Category: Around the Web
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Mastodon Bones Found in Michigan Backyard
When we say we enjoy finding fossils in our own backyard, we are usually speaking metaphorically. Eric Witcke means it literally. He and neighbor Daniel LaPoint were excavating a backyard pond at his home in Bellevue Township, Michigan, when they unearthed a paleontological treasure. They called in the some experts from the University of Michigan’s…
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It’s Not Nessie, But Jurassic Predator Found In Scotland
A new Ichthyosaur has been described in the Scottish Journal of Geology. Described as looking like a “sinister dolphin”, it was 14 foot long and lived about 170 million years ago. It’s name is Dearcmbara shawcrossi, which is pronounced ‘jark vara’. The name means “marine lizard” in Scottish Gaelic. The species name is for the…
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The FM’s Emily Grasle Meets a Pregnant Bat and the World’s Largest Spider
If you haven’t seen “The Brain Scoop” on youtube, head on over here and and check it out. In the latest show, she’s searching for bats and finds a huge spider in the Amazon. Emily is the Chief Curiosity Correspondent of the Field Museum in Chicago. Always an interesting show. They post new show pretty regularly…
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A Paleo Reader: 22 Books for Fossil Lovers
Good story over on the NMNH blog. Many good books listed. Here’s just a few highlights: If you’ve got some time over the holidays (or the upcoming cold months), grab some good reading!
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The FOSSIL Project eNewsletter Volume 1, Issue 4
The next issue of the FOSSIL Project eNewsletter is here. Get it (or subscribe) here. Their website is at http://www.myfossil.org/, find them on Facebook at TheFossilProject, or on Twitter at @projectFOSSIL.
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Jack Horner’s Chickenosaurus
Back in 2009 Jack Horner said in a 60 Minutes interview that he wanted to make a “chickenosaurus” within 5 years (a chickenosaurus being a chicken which has been genetically manipulated to express dormant genes related to its ancestry as a dinosaur). Below is a link (also in the FOSSIL Project newsletter) to an article…
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Luprisca incuba
From Scientific American, Tiny, Ancient Crustacean Preserved in Fool’s Gold, Legs, Eggs and All, By Jennifer Frazer, March 27, 2014 … Incredibly, the paper describing these new fossils notes that the arrangement of some of the structures on the first antenna is the same as that of the group of living ostracods they are hypothesized…
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New Book on Hell Creek Formation from GSA
From the Geological Society of America: Full Title: Through the End of the Cretaceous in the Type Locality of the Hell Creek Formation in Montana and Adjacent Areas Editors: Gregory P. Wilson, William A. Clemens, John R. Horner, and Joseph H. Hartman Description: For over a century, the Hell Creek and Fort Union formations and their constituent…
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Theft at Johannesburg Geological Museum
We have to inform you that the Johannesburg Geological museum has suffered yet another recent theft of specimens and this has been a major theft. Most of the gemstones were stolen as well as some mineral specimens. Two of the mineral specimens are rhodochrosites from the Kalahari manganese field. There are two pictures attached of…
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Dom Pedro Aquamarine On Display at Smithsonian Museum
“The Dom Pedro Aquamarine exists today because of one thing—passion—passion from a great gem dealer, passion from a creative gem artist, and passion from a serious gem collector. This type of passion combined with knowledge, vision, talent, and the desire to preserve and share the wonders of nature is why the Dom Pedro is on…
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News on ESCONI Member, Rob Sula’s Exhibit
Via Daily Herald: Mr. Nixon, the plaster cast skull of a triceratops, greets visitors to the "Dinosaurs: The Art and Science of Paleontology" exhibit running through May 3 at the Aurora Public Art Commission's third floor gallery at the David L. Pierce Art and History Center in Aurora. The prehistoric dinosaur isn't named after the…
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Trip Report from Spirifer Minerals
Gorgeous and interesting photographs are included in this trip report about Morocco. Apatites with feldspars from a new find in Anomzy. T. Praszkier photo. Incredible faults with waterfall on the way to Tasraft. T. Praszkier photo.
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A Few Earth Science Vendors
A few vendor web sites came to our attention in the past month: – Need abrasives for lapidary or rock polishing? You may wish to check out Panadyne Abrasives – Looking for information about buying gems? You may wish to check out gemstoneguru.com – Going to Tucson? You may wish to check out SpiriferMinerals.com –…
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Saber-tooth Cat Extinction
Vanderbilt University: (hat tip, Dave Carlson, ESCONI Discussion Group) In the period just before they went extinct, the American lions and saber-toothed cats that roamed North America in the late Pleistocene were living well off the fat of the land. That is the conclusion of the latest study of the microscopic wear patterns on the…
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Spider Kills Wasp a 100 Million Years Ago
From Sci-News: (hat tip via Dave at ESCONI Yahoo Group) This piece of amber preserved the event in remarkable detail, an action that took place some 100 million years ago in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar. The fossil also contains the body of a male spider in the same web. This provides the oldest evidence of…
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Fate of Pumice Rafts
Via Wired: The NASA Earth Observatory has been doing an excellent job tracking the spread of the pumice from the Havre eruption in the Kermadec Islands. Currently the pumice is spread over an area of 270,000 km2 / 100,000 sq. miles of the Pacific Ocean and is continuing to spread (see above). This pumice will likely…
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Field Museum’s Podcast: What the Fish?
The Field Museum has a new podcast called What the Fish? “… 2.5 million specimens don’t collect themselves! The Field Museum’s Division of Fishes houses approximately 2.5 million specimens of fish, including whole specimens in alcohol, skeletal specimens, tissue samples, and cleared and stained material. That is a lot of fishes! But the fishes did not…
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Oldest-ever bugs found preserved in amber
From Discover Magazine: (hat tip Floyd) Three tiny creatures from the Triassic period are the oldest ever to be discovered preserved in amber – about 100 million years older than any other amber arthropod ever collected…. … But even though arthropods are more than 400 million years old, until now the oldest record of the…
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Travel and Trilobites
Nice article from Scientific American on Travel and Trilobites: …. Still today the Silurian (some 443,7-416 milion years ago) is one of the most enigmatic epochs in the history of earth; marked by glaciations at the beginning, it was at the end of this period that the landmasses, until then barren deserts, became colonized by…
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Turtle the Size of a Small Car
Via NC State University: (hat tip Floyd) – “… A prehistoric turtle big enough to eat crocodiles has been discovered in Columbia. The turtle lived about 60-million-years ago, and was about the size of a small car. The fossils were discovered in a coal mine in northern Colombia, in 2005. And has thusly been named…
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Bryan Syke’s New Book – DNA USA: Genetic Portrait of America
Interesting interview of Bryan Syke’s, including discussion of Clovis controversy, by Leonard Lopate of WNYC about Syke’s new book: DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America. Geneticist Bryan Sykes discusses examining America, one of the most genetically diverse countries in the world, through its DNA, and what it says about how we perceive race. His book…
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New Paper on Trilobites of Utah
Over at the Yahoo ESCONI discussion group, Don Baumgartner posted: “… Please find this at the below web site for a free download. This was posted a while back off the Trilobite Jam Facebook page. http://kuscholarwor ks.ku.edu/ dspace/handle/ 1808/8543…”
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3-D Printing of Dinosaur Bones
Via ABC News (Feb 22) … For all the digging of dinosaur fossils, all the magnificent reconstructions in museums and all the research that has been devoted to them, the great beasts remain mostly a mystery to us, and paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara of Drexel University in Philadelphia says our ways of studying them have not…
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Fossil Forum’s Field Trip Discussion
The Fossil Forum has many discussion rooms. One of them is the Field Trip discussion.
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A Very Good Collecting Day “We Hit The Jackpot”
Via ABC News, (hat tip Carrie Nelson) … The Barrieaults went to Hill’s mine on the group trip with the Mountain Area Gem and Mineral Association. They had only been in the mine for five minutes before Kevin flipped over a rock to find a 50.5-carat emerald… More
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Please Return Rocks and Only Take As Many As You Need
Via The Onion: A coalition of geologists are challenging the way we look at global stone reserves, claiming that, unless smarter methods of preservation are developed, mankind will eventually run out of rocks. “If we do not stop using them up at our current rate, rocks as we know them will be a thing of…
