Category: Around the Web
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110 Carat Diamond at London Natural History Museum
From the Guardian: At 110 carats, the price of the Cora Sun-Drop is as closely guarded as the diamond itself. The stone, which took six months to cut and is the only pear-shaped yellow diamond in the world, goes on display on Friday at London’s Natural History Museum
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Possible New Dinosaur Museum
Via Miami Herald: A German company has big plans to turn a struggling geological state park in the Keys into a prehistoric open-air museum with life-size dinosaurs and a Megalodon shark…. Image: “Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons, Maryland”
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Fish Poop Mud
Via The Scientist: Seafloor sediment composed of ground up shells and coral also contains a significant amount of fish poop, according to new research published on February 21 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences….
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Sharing Photos of Lapidary Works
Flickr is an on-line collection of photographs. You search for certain types of photographs. For example, you can type “Lapidary” into the Search box and find photographs and groups of people who share their photographs of their lapidary work. Image: Australian Moss Agate photograph by zygzee Image: forgotten-dumortierite tourmaline and peridot 017 by…
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Highest Dinosaur Specimen
From University of Alberta: “… An expedition to Antarctica has finally unearthed a unique dinosaur species, that though first discovered more than 20 years ago, remained buried until now. University of Alberta paleontologist Phil Currie has just returned from the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, straddling the Antarctic Circle, where he says the creature, a unique meat-eating dinosaur…
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3D Fly Over with Minerva
From Arizona Geology: “There are a great set of demos of the Minerva software application, including a 3D fly-through of the Grand Canyon, that’s nicely done…”
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Titanoceratops
Via Smithsonian.com: Many unknown dinosaurs await discovery in rock formations all over the world, but some new species are hiding in plain sight. One such animal, described in an in-press Cretaceous Research paper, had one of the largest heads of any dinosaur….the Sam Noble specimen may not be a Pentaceratops at all. Longrich lists 22…
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Million Dollar Rhodochrosites at Tucson
Reports of the Tuscson Gem & Mineral Show from Arizona Geology via geology.com: “… The public may be most dazzled by the 51 lb gold nugget from Australia, but the mineral community is agog over the “Emperor” and “Empress” rhodochrosites from China on display in the Collector’s Edge booth at the Tucson Gem and Mineral…
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How to Cut a Turquoise Cabochon
DurangoSilver’s YouTube Channel has a number of interesting videos on turquoise lapidary. One of them is the How to Cut a Turquoise Cabochon.
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Feb 2011 Geosphere Available
From PhysOrg: The February 2011 Geosphere includes two articles designated for the latest Geosphere theme, “New developments in Grenville geology: In honor of James McLelland.” Other topics include 3-D characterization of rocks, ash, minerals, lava, and so forth through various technical means: X-ray computed tomography, Stereo Scanning Electron Microscopy, X-ray micro-fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, and terrestrial…
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Archaeology and Conservation
C-SPAN visited the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory for a behind the scenes look at their various conservation efforts.
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Printable USGS Topographic Maps
Via Geology.com – “Here is a website where you can view and print as many USGS topographic maps as you want for free. You can also switch back and forth between Google Maps and Google satellite images.”
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ESCONI Yahoo Group – Way to Discuss
Dave Carlson just posted an interesting article about Yellowstone and there is a discussion of fossils found in countertop too. So stop on by the ESCONI Yahoo group and add your comments!
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Neanderthal Sinuses
Via New Scientist: …. Neanderthals, bless ’em, were never going to win any beauty contests. Now scans of their skulls show their robust faces, with wide noses and prominent cheekbones, weren’t even adaptations to the cold… “Their sinuses are smaller than average, probably because air warming happens only in the nasal cavity which has grown…
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Bill Bryson on CSpan Video
Via CSpan video: Lecture by Bill Bryson: A Short History Of Nearly Everything. At the National Press Club, travel writer Bill Bryson discussed his book A Short History of Nearly Everything, published by Broadway Books. The book describes the search to answer to some of the great scientific questions in a simple and enjoyable fashion.…
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Coccodrillo di Portomaggiore
One of the blogs listed in yesterday’s post is, Stories in Stone. Here is an excerpt from the latest post to the blog: Italian paleontologists have been on a roll of late, and they haven’t even had to go out in the field. Late last year came reports of the dinosaur in the duomo. Now,…
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Drilling But Not Contaminating Lake Vostok?
Via Wired: Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometres below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it’s been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent…
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Moon’s Core Detected
Apollo astronauts may be garnering another prize from their exploits of more than 3 decades ago. They left seismometers across the face of the moon to probe its interior, but no one had been able to paint a clear picture from the data the sensors collected. Now, two independent groups have reanalyzed the Apollo data…
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The Bible, Rocks and Time: Reviews
The editor of CoalGeology posted on the book, The Bible, Rocks and Time. According to the Amazon reviews, it looks like a good book for anyone who talks about earth sciences with evangelical Christians who believe in a young-earth.
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3,000 Yr. Chinese Fruit Cellar
Via XinHua: Chinese archeologists have found an ancient fruit cellar containing well-preserved apricot and melon seeds from more than 3,000 years ago in today’s Shaanxi Province. The cellar was a rectangular pit about 105 cm long, 80 cm wide and 205 cm deep, said Dr. Sun Zhouyong, a researcher with the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of…
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Amber Yields Clues to the History of Oxygen in Earth’s Atmosphere
Via geology.com: Gas bubbles trapped in amber show an oxygen-rich Cretaceous atmosphere Republished from an information release posted by USGS in June, 2009. In addition: amber in India’s Cambay area has new information too.
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Tyler Keillor’s Paleoart Exhibit
Tyler Keillor’s Paleoart exhibit will open on Saturday 11/20 at the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The exhibit demonstrates how he blends art and science to bring prehistoric creatures to life. Tyler writes to ESCONI, “One of the items on display is a plaque I sculpted at my art…
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Oldest Fossil Shrimp
Via PhysOrg: … Rodney Feldmann and Carrie Schweitzer (both Kent State University) report on the oldest fossil shrimp known to date. The creature in stone is as much as 360 million years old and was found in Oklahoma. Even the muscles of the fossil are preserved. The study will be published soon in Journal of…
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New Book on S. IL. Coal Mining
Via Coal Geology: “Southern Illinois Coal: A Portfolio” contains coal mining photographs by C. William Horrell, taken across the southern Illinois Coal Belt over a twenty-year period from 1966 to 1986. … “In cool documentary style, Horrell’s photos detail the miners, the methods, and the artifacts of Illinois coal. From giant surface shovels to self propelled…
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Geothermal Map of US
Via geology.com: Google says that there is a “Googol of heat beneath our feet” and has prepared a geothermal heat map of the United States that displays in the Google Earth program. The map is interactive – you can click on any state to get a statistical summary of that state’s geothermal resource. If you…
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Cannibal Tyrannosaurus Rex?
From The Guardian: …The discovery of giant tooth marks in Tyrannosaurus rex bones has led fossil hunters to declare that the king of the dinosaurs was a cannibal. The lumbering beast was at the top of the food chain in North America 65 million years ago, but until now there has been little evidence to…
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Fossil Explains Origin of Sunflowers
From BBC via geology.com … Finding this very well-preserved flower confirms that the family came from the ancient southern landmass, Gondwana, about 50 million years ago. The researchers, headed by Dr Viviana Barreda from the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, published their results in Science magazine… photo: By monteregina
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Rare Earth Minerals On Moon?
NASA Via Geology.com: … Here on Earth, China recently blocked the export of rare earth elements to Japan for use in an array of products; from wind turbines and glass for solar panels to use in hybrid cars, and even guided missiles and other defense-oriented creations. China is increasingly putting the pinch on quotas of…
