Category: Uncategorized
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(broken link) David Attenborough on When Did Our Backbones First Appear?
Smithsonian has a video about when the first backbones appeared. It features David Attenborough visiting a Cambrian locality in China. The video includes interesting details on one of the first animals with a nodal cord.
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Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?
Smithsonian.com has a story about the effort to block the commercialization of the Grand Canyon. The proposed $500 million development would reside on the rim of one of Earth’s greatest natural treasures. When Teddy Roosevelt declared the Grand Canyon a national monument, in 1908, he famously said: “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve…
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Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Deepest Hole Ever Dug?
Smithsonian.com has an interesting article about the deepest hole ever dug. The target is the Earth’s mantle. The mantle makes up 40 percent or more of the whole planet. The Earth has a radius of 4000 miles. The mantle accounts for about 1800 miles of that, which compares to 3 to 25 miles thick for…
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Nature has an interesting story on the future of museum collections. It’s ironic that at a time when we need the collections to track Earth’s shrinking biodiversity. The collections themselves are becoming more and more endangered. For various reasons, most having to do with drops or shifts in funding. There has been a reduction in curatorial…
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Meteor Strike
Today is the second anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteor. PBS has their NOVA episode Meteor Strike online. It gives the complete story of the event. The meteor was travelling over 40,000 mph, weighed around 13,000-14,000 tons, and measured about 20 meters in diameter. The explosion, at a height of 18 miles, had the strength of…
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The Fossil Forum
Have you tried the Fossil Forum? Lots of great information on fossils of all types. There are forums on Fossil Hunting Trips, Fossil ID, Questions & Answers, and Fossil Preparation. The monthly Fossil of the Month is always amazing. Fossil Sites is a useful resource to find new places to hunt, either locally or when you…
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(broken link) A Bundle of Brachiopods – Zygospira
Spring can’t be too far off, as it sounds like our southern Indiana (and Ohio) neighbours are already out fossil hunting (did they ever stop?). This story over at Ordovician Weekly is about some Zygospira brachiopods. Many of you are familiar with these little guys from the “butter shale” off Route 1 near St. Leon,…
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Rare mineral found in a Wisconsin crater
Phys.Org has a story about the discovery of one of the Earth’s rarest minerals. The mineral reidite was found in samples from an impact site in Rock Elm, Wisconsin. Rock Elm is just the fourth site on Earth where the mineral has been found. The Rock Elm structure dates to the Middle Ordovician, about 450…
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Resources on Google Books
Looking for reading material this winter? Researching fossils and artefacts in your collection? Check out Google Books or Google Scholar. There is a huge amount of material online just waiting to be consumed. Below you will find just a few of the books to be found; many of them are free. You can even download…
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Bad Luck Rocks?
Legend has it, you will have bad luck if you take rocks from Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. The NYT has a story about people that steal and then return their booty to the park. There’s a nice slide show of some of the returned pieces. They are interesting specimens, so it’s not too surprising…
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Humans and Neanderthals Were Neighbors
Nature has a story of the recent discovery of a cranium which shows that modern humans Homo sapiens were living in the Middle East 55,000 years ago. The skull bone was found when a cave, which had been sealed for the last 15,000 years, was opened by a bulldozer clearing land for development near the Sea…
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Etymology of Species Names
Many of us know that the greek and latin languages are the basis of many species names. To decode them into their meaning, use these pages: List of Greek and Latin roots and Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names Some examples: Triceratops, Tri (three), cera (horn), ops (eye, face), three horned face…
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The 25 Biggest Turning Points in Earth’s History
BBCearth has a cool page called The 25 Biggest Turning Points in Earth’s History. The list includes events like the formation of the Earth, the great oxidation event, the “Cambrian Explosion”, and various mass extinction events like the “Great Dying” and extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. It’s well done and includes estimates on when the…
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Avian Genomics Project
Birds are the only surviving dinosaurs on our planet. By 2010, only three bird species (chicken, turkey, and zebra finch) had had their genome sequenced. The Avian Genomics Project selected 45 additional species for sequencing. These new species represent all 32 neognath and two of the five palaeognath orders. This allowed for a large-scale phylogenomics analysis…
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Open Access Dinosaurs
Andy Farke has a nice article about open access science at opensouce.com. His article lists the 36 (nearly 1 a week!) new dinosaurs described in 2014. Of these 36, 17 were published in open access or free-to-read journals. That’s not much change from 2013’s 38 new and 16 free to read. It is, however, a…
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(broken link) Utah’s Dinosaur ‘Death Trap’ Reveals Trove of Giant Predators
National Geographic has a story about the discovery of a Jurassic aged predator trap that is finally heading into the lab for study. The remains, probably a bed of quicksand, were discovered about 10 years ago in Utah. After years of work, a group of paleontologists have finally gotten the huge block of stone and…
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Enormous Underwater Fossil Lemur Graveyard Found
Here’s a story about an enormous underwater fossil lemur graveyard. There’s a video that shows the remains of 1000 year old skeletons. Anthropologists and paleontologists uncovered what could be the largest single collection of lemur remains ever found. The remains were hidden in a series of underwater caves in a remote desert region of Madagascar. Described…
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Fracking in Ohio confirmed as cause of rare earthquake strong enough to be felt
A new study links the March 2014 earthquakes in Poland Township, OH to hydraulic fracturing. The fracking activated a previously unknown fault. The quake had a magnitude of 3.0. The study was published online by the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA). In March 2014, a series of five recorded earthquakes, ranging from magnitude…
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Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology
Class is in session over at Coursera, they have a dinosaur class starting this week. It’s Dino 101. A good introduction to dinosaurs, how they lived, and the world they lived in. Your friendly blogger took the class a few years ago. It’s a good class with interesting content. Professor Phil Currie is one of…
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Oldest horned dinosaur species in North America found in Montana: Hooked beak, sharply pointed cheeks distinguishes neoceratopsian species
Interesting story over at ScienceDaily. The oldest known horned dinosaur has been found in Montana. The limited fossil record for neoceratopsian–or horned dinosaurs–from the Early Cretaceous in North America restricts scientists’ ability to reconstruct the early evolution of this group. The authors of this study have discovered a dinosaur skull in Montana that represents the…
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The American Museum of Natural History Plans an Addition
The American Museum of Natural History is expanding. The American Museum of Natural History, a sprawling hodgepodge of a complex occupying nearly four city blocks, is planning another major transformation, this time along Columbus Avenue: a $325 million, six-story addition designed to foster the institution’s expanding role as a center for scientific research and education.…
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Carboniferous Fish With Color Vision
An acanthodian fish from the Hamilton formation (Upper Carboniferous, ~300 MY old) of Kansas is described with cellular details of the eye and possibly eumelanin (a pigment molecule) preserved. This is another instance of morphological preservation of soft tissue, and maybe molecular preservation. Article in Science Times at: http://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/2179/20141225/cones-rods-fossilized-in-ancient-fish-eyes-what-they-tell-us-about-the-view-from-the-past.htm Abstract in Nature Communications at: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141223/ncomms6920/full/ncomms6920.html
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Tyrannosaurid Dinos of Canada Were Pack Hunters according to Trackways
World’s first trackways attributed to tyrannosaurid dinosaurs of Canada strongly suggest that some were pack hunters. Here’s a good summary. In 2011, a local hunting outfitter and guide, Aaron Fredlund, unearthed two tyrannosaur track marks in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia and then told McCrea’s team about the discovery. The team…
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Early Cambrian Fossil from China
A rare 520-million-year-old fossil shaped like a ‘squashed bird’s nest’ that will help to shed new light on life within Earth’s ancient seas has been discovered in China by an international research team. The fossil is of a probable ‘chancelloriid’, a group of bizarre, balloon-shaped animals with an outer skeleton of defensive spines. Summary in…
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Russians get look at 40,000-year-old mammoth
A very well preserved 40,000 year old mammoth went on display in Moscow. The young wooly mammoth’s carcass was in excellent condition when it was pulled out of the permafrost. It was discovered in Yakutia in 2010. And, has been named Yuka. Albert Protopopov, a researcher from Yakutia, said Yuka’s carcass showed signs that…
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Deinocheirus on CBC’s “Quirks and Quarks”
CBC Radio’s “Quirks and Quarks” recently did a story on Deinocheirus. Seems there are now multiple specimens and we know what it looked like and what it ate. A very interesting story! For fifty years, the dinosaur Deinocheirus has only been known from a pair of massive clawed arms, discovered in Mongolia in 1965. Without the rest of…
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Notes From the Archaeology Group Meeting
On October 25, 2014 the archaeology study group was led by the study group chair Eric Schmidt. Eric discussed events leading up to, during and after the death of King Richard the third. Eric focused on the archaeology site, the dig, the finds, and the cause of death of King Richard the third. King Richard…
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Palaeontology in a Drug Company Commercial
It’s nice to see that Palaeontology is getting a little attention. But, this is really just wrong. What is that a Knightia fossil from Fossil Lake next to a pterosaur head? Also, convenient that the pterosaur bones were already prepped out. Dr. Grant from “Jusassic Park” comes to mind… http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7MlV/eliquis-keep-digging Seems we have some educating…
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More On Bird Evolution
Brian Switek has a great article on bird evolution on the blog Phenomena at National Geographic. The spark for this evolutionary explosion isn’t yet known. Flight could be a major factor, allowing birds to be adapted in starkly different ways from their earthbound ancestors. (Although, of course, nonavian dinosaurs like Microraptor found their own way into the air.)…
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Paleocast Podcast
If you enjoy podcasts and palaeontology, you may find Palaeocast worth listening to!
