Via Scientific American: The evolution of metamorphosis remains somewhat mysterious, but biologists have gathered enough evidence to plausibly explain its origins…  

Hawthorne Hill Nature Center needs rocks! They are creating a family-friendly rock collection area. They are looking for all different kinds of rocks and would appreciate if you would contact them if you have rocks to donate – whatever you would like to donate – interesting shaped or naturally-colored rocks, stream stones, fossil-laden rocks, minerals, etc.  How cool! This October, Hawthorne Hill Nature Center will be celebrating their very first “Rock Out” Month at HHNC and throughout Elgin with special programs at thenature center, Elgin Public Museum, and Elgin History Museum. To donate rocks & fossils, please contact:April AndersonNaturalistHawthorne Hill Nature Center28 Brookside Drive …

From BigThink via Geology.com

From Portugese News: The president of the Portuguese Association of Archeological Research (APIA), Nuno Ribeiro, revealed Monday having found rock art on the island of Terceira, supporting his believe that human occupation of the Azores predates the arrival of the Portuguese by many thousands of years, Lusa reported. “We have found a rock art site with representations we believe can be dated back to the Bronze Age,”  Ribeiro told Lusa in Ponta Delgada, at a presentation in University of the Azores on the topic of early human occupation of the Azores.  

From the ESCONI Yahoo Group: (hat tip Dave Carlson) Coming up Oct 4 – 6 in Rosiclare, in extreme southeastern Illinois. Includes an open house at the American Fluorite Museum. For more info, see http://www.hardinco untyil.org/ festivals_ hardincountyfluo rsparfestival. htm

Scotland to host International Appalachian Trail talks  For the first time Scotland will host the annual conference of the International Appalachian Trail. Inverness has been suggested as the venue for the event next year. The IAT is an attempt to connect treks in the Appalachian Mountains of North America with others in Europe and Africa. The areas share geology going back a billion years through a process of ancient supercontinents forming, breaking up and forming again…. The Appalachian Mountains of North America lie between Flagg Mountain, in Alabama, in the US, and the north end of Belle Isle in Canada’s…

Via CBC: Paleontologists at the University of Alberta have found evidence inside the stomachs of two fossilized dinosaurs of the species Sinocalliopteryx gigas that suggests the raptor-like predator did not shy away from feeding on its own kind, hunting small flying dinosaurs for food.

From Christian Science Monitor: … As to what caused this week’s swarm, researchers say it has to do with the region’s distinctive geology. “Compared to the rest of California, it’s thinner crust, and hotter, and [has] more fluids,” says Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey in Pasadena, Calif. She describes the imperial Valley as “one big bowl of sediment.” “Those would likely be reasons that contribute to this,” Ms. Jones says. “But we don’t yet have the details of the physics.” The earth’s thin crust in the region, and the proximity of hot magma beneath it, relates to…

From Geology.com: USGS offers .pdf copies of “This Dynamic Planet” for free viewing on the web. You can zoom in and get a really close look at plate boundaries, earthquake locations, volcano locations, and much more. They also have paper copies for sale in the USGS store for just $14.00. 

Via San Bernardino: Bob Reynolds rocks. Sort of. Technically, it’s more of a mineral thing. The one-time earth sciences curator for the San Bernardino County Museum and lifelong explorer of the geology and paleontology of the Mojave Desert, recently had a newly discovered mineral named after him. Anthony Kampf, a mineralogist with the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, has identified and named nearly 80 new minerals since 1974 – 60 of those since 2000. Earlier this year, he published a paper on a mineral dug out of the Blue Bell Mine near Baker. Reynoldsite is the name he…

From SciNews: University of Toronto graduate student Martin Smith has for the first time reconstructed mouthparts of two mollusk-like animals Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia that lived in Cambrian seas 500 million years ago. Illustration: Wiwaxia corrugata (Matthew, 1899) Lophotrochozoa Halwaxiida Wiwaxiidae Cambrian Burgess Shale British Columbia, Canada  under a Creative Commons 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Just a heads up… one of our members owns a wonderful mineral shop – check it out! Khyber Mineral Company.  He travels the world over to buy minerals from the local miners and sellers, including countries such as Peru, Japn, Madagascar, and US localities too, e.g, Illinois, Iowa…  

From via Geology.com: Archaeologists may have found the “Lost Army of Cambyses II” that perished in the Egyptian desert at about 500 BC.

The Earth Science Week Newsletter for August, 2012 is here.  Ideas for Earth Science Week (October 14-20, 2012) and other interesting information.