Via Washington Post – Tireless tracker rewrote the book on dinosaurs in Maryland (hat tip Don B.) …Wiry, voluble, energetic 73-year-old Ray Stanford could almost pass for a paleontologist. But his hair is a little too short, his beard too trim, his button-down shirt too tucked. And he talks too fast. This Texan is an amateur, although he disdains that term. He’s self-taught, a gentleman naturalist. And now he’s leading me to the Stanford Museum: his living room…No dinosaur footprints in Maryland? There were stampedes of them…

Via PhysOrg: The genetic profiles of three Neolithic hunter-gatherers and one farmer who lived in the same region of modern-day Sweden about 5,000 years ago were quite different – a fact that could help resolve a decades-old battle among archaeologists over the origins of European agriculture, said study leader Mattias Jakobsson, a population geneticist at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Via The Record-Courier – Geologist: Sierra growing at rapid rate, by Mike Wolterbeek, University of Nevada, Reno … scientific evidence from the University of Nevada, Reno, shows the entire Sierra Nevada range is rising at the relatively fast rate of 1 to 2 millimeters every year. “The exciting thing is we can watch the range growing in real time,” University of Nevada, Reno’s Bill Hammond, lead researcher on the multi-year project to track the rising range, said. “Using data back to before 2000 we can see it with accuracy better than 1 millimeter per year. Perhaps even more amazing is that these miniscule…

Via BBC – (hat tip – Rich K.) The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history. Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old… more    

Miner Safety Training  May 24, 2012  7:00  pm to 10:00 pm   We are offering  Miner Safety Certification Training.  John McArdle of ZRS (Zoological Research  Services) is approved to offer Miner Safety Certification Training and issue certificates.  He will  teach the course.  This involves a formal presentation based on a 250 page book, followed by a formal test that must be passed to receive a certificate.  The training take  three (3) hours with a break.  Reservations recommended due to ordering certificates in advance.  Contact John Good at 1-630-483-2363 for reservations or e-mail at esconi@hotmail.com   Miner Safety Training must be…

Via GeoTripper: I teach geology at a community college, and I can’t imagine a greater career. My list isn’t on a specific geologic topic, it’s about the joy of teaching about the Earth…